A few years ago, a group of high school students collaborated with One in Five to design a training for peer-to-peer supporters. As a part of the process, I interviewed families of some high school students. Despite all the interviews I’ve conducted in my adult life, I felt very nervous before these phone calls.

While sitting in my ninth grade English class, staring down at the pages of the Odyssey, the way I understood myself changed forever. I felt the room around me blur, almost like the rest of the people in the room were pushed away from me, and I became narrowly focused on the words on the page. I was reading them, but I was not making meaning of them. At that moment, I couldn't.