Local mother creates program to help teens, young adults battling mental health disease
Mom recognized gap in medical system when her son struggled with depression.
Sheryl Johnson always knew her son, Alex, was different.
“I remember when he was 4 or 5 sitting in the back of our car and I was driving someplace, and he rattled off how he was going to re-engineer a carburetor. He was giving me all these details and he said, ‘Doesn’t that sound good, mom?’” explained Johnson.
She said Alex was extremely bright, loved the outdoors and was a really curious kid.
As he grew, she noticed he had trouble making friends. By middle school, he had started to withdraw and his grades had started to drop.
“His freshman year of high school we started to push a little bit and I remember sitting at the dinner table and insisting that he tell us whatever it was that was going on,” she said.
Her son admitted he had been bullied and told her, “he was feeling very sad and very depressed and that he had gone on the internet and looked at different things, like ways to hurt himself.”
