Shaelyn Bangs-13 yr old advocates for mental health

Shaelyn Bangs is 13 years old and wants her voice to be heard as a proponent of pediatric mental health.

As someone who has lived with anxiety most of her life, she has had to learn to navigate the mental health services available to her. 

It took three years for her to receive the care she needed.

As a dancer, she has won numerous awards.

Her goal is to get an engineering degree so she can make robots to send to NASA.

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Transcript

[00:00] Shaelyn Bangs: In five years, I'm going to be 18 and graduating from high school, and I want to go to OSU and pursue my passion in engineering, to be a robotic engineer at NASA and send stuff in space to discover.

[00:17] Jan : Are you looking for an inspiring listen, something to motivate you? You've come to the right place. I'm Jan Johnson, your host. Welcome to Women of the Northwest, where we have conversations with ordinary women leading extraordinary lives. Women telling their stories and sharing their passions. Motivating, inspiring, compelling.

[00:45] Jan : Hello, everybody, and welcome to Women of the Northwest.

[00:49] Jan: My guest today is Shaelyn Bangs.

[00:51] Jan : Hi, Shaelin.

[00:52] Shaelyn Bangs: Hi.

[00:53] Jan : How's it going today?

[00:54] Shaelyn Bangs: Going good so far.

[00:55] Jan : Little wet.

[00:56] Shaelyn Bangs: It is very wet outside.

[00:58] Jan : It's spring. That's what happens in spring.

[01:00] Shaelyn Bangs: Yeah.

[01:02] Jan : That's when baseball games get canceled or postponed or definitely all those kind of things that happen. Sheelyn, How old are you?

[01:12] Shaelyn Bangs: I am 13.

[01:14] Jan : Oh, my goodness. Where do you go to school?

[01:16] Shaelyn Bangs: I go to school at a private school in Warrenton, Oregon.

[01:20] Jan : Okay. Yeah, and tell me about it. What's your school like?

[01:25] Shaelyn Bangs: It's really fun. It's a performing arts school. So not only do I do above grade classes, I can dance and I can perform, which I really love doing.

[01:35] Jan : Yeah. I think dancing is kind of one of your passions, isn't it?

[01:38] Shaelyn Bangs: It is. It feels like more than a hobby to me. It's a way to express all the feelings that are on the inside, a way to show them all instead of keeping them all in.

[01:52] Jan : So when did you decide or discover that that was something that you became passionate about?

[01:59] Shaelyn Bangs: So I've been dancing since I was two, and I've grown up at the dance studio, and it became a school when I was 11, 12. And it's just a passion. I keep doing it. It's an amazing thing.

[02:18] Jan : What's your favorite kind of dance?

[02:20] Shaelyn Bangs: I love to tap. I love to make the beats.

[02:24] Jan : Yeah. Is it because it's well, but isn't pretty much all dancing? I mean, it's to a rhythm and to whatever, but maybe some are more free flow than that.

[02:34] Shaelyn Bangs: Yeah, I'm not a dancer, so some styles of tap. My favorite style of tap is you make your own beats. You kind of add beats to the music.

[02:45] Jan : Okay. And is there certain music you like better than other?

[02:51] Shaelyn Bangs: It depends on the style. For lyrical, you want more like a lyrical, sad song just to express your emotions. But for jazz, you want more of, like, a pop, funky song.

[03:00] Jan : Okay. Do you enjoy doing it with other people, or would you rather be solo?

[03:05] Shaelyn Bangs: I love doing it with other people. It's like you're playing off your energy, you're playing off the emotion. But I also love doing a solo because it's my performance, my time to shine.

[03:16] Jan : How do you learn your steps, choreography and things that just boggles my mind.

[03:24] Shaelyn Bangs: I have a good memory, I have good memorization, and we record it if someone is going to be leaving, but we will always go over it every week. It's something it's repetitive.

[03:35] Jan : And so I'm assuming you break it down into small parts.

[03:39] Shaelyn Bangs: Yes, we do break it down into small parts. We don't do the entire choreography in one unless it's a guest choreographer who's choreographing for maybe two days. They choreograph half of the dance and then half of the dance the other day. So it's something you try to all pull it together. It and we will usually record it so we can remember the stuff she was teaching. The stuff that he or she was teaching.

[04:04] Jan : Are there things that are frustrating about it?

[04:07] Shaelyn Bangs: Not really. I really like being able to have not only guest choreographers coming in, I love being able to have a chance to challenge myself to that moment.

[04:16] Jan : You've won some awards too. Yes, I have one or two, maybe three, or 40 maybe. You got room in your room for all of those?

[04:29] Shaelyn Bangs: So far, yeah, so far.

[04:32] Jan :  You have to have costumes for everything too.

[04:35] Shaelyn Bangs: Yes, I do.

[04:36] Jan : So you have a huge closet.

[04:39] Shaelyn Bangs: We kind of stuff it all in.

[04:41] Jan : One garment bag to keep track of that.

[04:45] Shaelyn Bangs: Yes.

[04:46] Jan : Where do you see yourself in about five years from now?

[04:49] Shaelyn Bangs: In five years, I'm going to be 18 and graduating from high school, and I want to go to OSU and pursue my passion in engineering.

[04:59] Jan : Oh, my. Okay. And then what area of engineering do.

[05:05] Shaelyn Bangs: You think I want to be a robotic engineer at NASA and send stuff in space to discover.

[05:11] Jan : That'd be fun. My nephew has designed kits for robotics, and so he's been spreading those all over. He lives in Hungary, and so now he's been working with some of the indigenous people there that don't have access to things and being able to help them and learn how to do robotics. And what are you so that's kind of fun.

[05:34] Shaelyn Bangs: Yes. I love robotics. It's a way of control. I love being able to control things. And when I program or code robots or build robots, I know how they work, and if they don't work, I can fix it. I have control over it.

[05:49] Jan : Not always happening in your life, though.

[05:51] Shaelyn Bangs: No.

[05:53] Jan : What was school like for you when you're small?

[05:56] Shaelyn Bangs: I had a little bit of problems in my class. If something was wrong, I would always think it was somehow related to my fault. Maybe I told the person something, or maybe I was somehow involved, and I would essentially beat myself down because of it. I would be so mad at myself for no real reason. I would think that I should be in trouble. I must have done something wrong.

[06:22] Jan : So that must have caused a lot of anxiety.

[06:25] Shaelyn Bangs: It did, yes. It also involved me pinching myself whenever I did something even a tiny bit wrong, like, oh, I told someone I didn't want to tell someone something. And it was like, oh, I should not have done that. I would pinch myself.

[06:44] Jan : So at what point did you try and get some help for that? Did you realize that maybe not everybody was like that?

[06:53] Shaelyn Bangs: When I was in grade 3, I was able to tell something was different. I told my mom about it, and we tried getting me diagnosed for something or getting me a counselor. It took three years. I was not able to get a counselor. I was not able to get help because there wasn't enough doctors. There wasn't enough pediatric doctors.

[07:14] Jan : When did you first feel like maybe you were maybe different than other kids or you noticed that things that bothered you didn't bother other people?

[07:26] Shaelyn Bangs: In third grade, I was able to tell there was something different. I was always upset with myself on really different things. And I expressed myself to my mom. I told her all my troubles, and I told her what I was thinking. And we tried getting into counseling. We tried getting help. I wasn't able to get help until last year when I was in 6th grade. So it was three years.

[07:49] Jan : Three years of every day trying to figure out how to make this happen.

[07:53] Shaelyn Bangs: Yes.

[07:54] Jan : Those turn into long days, don't they?

[07:56] Shaelyn Bangs: Sometimes they do. It was also I would repetitively like, did I close that goat door? Did I make a mistake? I would think I made a mistake that I didn't make. Did I close the goat store? If I didn't, they might get hurt, they might get killed.

[08:12] Jan : So then you're playing the whole scenarios in your mind of what's going to happen, because you were the one that was in charge and you weren't.

[08:19] Shaelyn Bangs: If I possibly made that mistake, that would have happened. And most of the time, I didn't make that mistake, but I would always think that I did make that mistake, that it really did happen. And so I'd have to go check on it over and over and over again. And I would never trust my senses, my mind, my memory.

[08:37] Jan : Yeah. So what happened when you found a counselor? How did that help you?

[08:44] Shaelyn Bangs: I got diagnosed with OCD and anxiety, and we were able to put labels on my thoughts, and we were able to work with it. We started putting tools in my toolbox, learning how to cope with it, learning what it is, and different strategies. Yeah. Why I'm having these thoughts.

[09:03] Jan : And so that had to make you feel a little more confident or like you're not crazy.

[09:11] Shaelyn Bangs: Yes, it did. Sometimes if I forget something, I would be like, Audrey, did I close the goat door? And she would be like, yes, of course you did. I saw it. And I would trust my sister's judgment because sometimes if I couldn't trust mine, I could trust hers.

[09:26] Jan : So that was a good strategy to learn, wasn't it? Yeah. So now you are pursuing being Miss Organ. What's that like?

[09:35] Shaelyn Bangs: So it's a way for me to express that we don't have enough pediatric doctors and that it is a problem and that we need to fix it, especially in the rural communities, that I wasn't able to get counselors until I was in third grade, that there are other kids out there that are like me. There are other kids that have had those problems or are having those problems. And if I run for something big like Miss Oregon's Teen or if I express it in any way, it will become noticed. It will become noticed as the problem. My voice will be stronger. And just having it being strong is something that's very important.

[10:17] Jan : Right. And so what are the requirements for Miss Oregon?

[10:22] Shaelyn Bangs: So you have to have something that you want to fix, and you have to run at the local level. I ran for Miss Classic County. I was first runner up, so I went to the open, and I had something to run for. I was running for Pediatric Mental Health and Improvement of Pediatric Mental Health. I ran for the open level, wasn't able to get the crown. Then I went at large and got Miss Central Valley's teen. And so I'm going to run for Ms. Oregon's Teen at the end of this month.

[10:55] Jan : Oh, coming up so who have you spoken to already?

[10:58] Shaelyn Bangs: I have spoken to Senator Merkley and Congresswoman Bonnamici.

[11:04] Jan : Oh, my. Okay. What about speaking to just the pediatricians, the local pediatricians?

[11:11] Shaelyn Bangs: I have spoken to Commissioner Kujala. Yeah, Commissioner Kujala.

[11:18] Jan : When you've spoken to them, have you asked them to do a certain thing to help promote this?

[11:27] Shaelyn Bangs: I testified in front of local and state councils, and I testified for a bill to improve research and To research the capacity. And I was able to amend it so it would involve pediatrics and rural communities.

[11:50] Jan : So basically that's asking for just more financial support for local or rural communities too?

[11:58] Shaelyn Bangs: Yes.

[11:59] Jan : Okay, so what are the other things? What kind of things are you saying to them when you're doing your I.

[12:05] Shaelyn Bangs: Tell them my story. I tell them about me in elementary school and my problems that I had. I tell them about my three year journey to try to get counseling. I just tell them my story because my community service initiative for Ms. Oregon's Teen, for Ms. Clatsop County's Teen, for any of the competitions that I run for, is pediatric Mental health. It's my story.

[12:28] Jan : Yeah. You were a confident speaker. Have you always been a confident speaker?

[12:33] Shaelyn Bangs: So I used to speak for my sister because she was very shy. So I got used to speaking to adults and to people she was nervous about. And I got into four h, and I started speaking to strangers, and I got into the entrepreneurship program. I was shaking hands trying to get them to buy my goat. I was talking to people to sell jewelry or 3D prints or some hair pieces, just talking and learning.

[13:00] Jan : So you didn't take any special training or anything to become the speaker that you are?

[13:06] Shaelyn Bangs: No, I did not.

[13:07] Jan : Yeah. And I think also when you're that person that is presenting who you are and giving a voice to that, that could empower other kids as well, that's your hope, right?

[13:22] Shaelyn Bangs: That is my hope. It's to show that everyone has an opinion that they can share. Everyone has something that they want to fix.

[13:28] Jan : Yeah. What are some of the other girls doing?

[13:31] Shaelyn Bangs: Some of the other girls? Let's see there are some that does water safety on the coast and trying to promote water safety. Pediatric mental health, invisible illnesses, asthma awareness, anxiety awareness. Some probably do OCD awareness, medical awareness to show that it is something that's in the world. So most of them are medical, some of them actually. But it's all something that involves themselves, all something that involves what they think needs to be fixed or just awareness of something or to show that this is a thing, we need to fix it.

[14:13] Jan : So something that's personally related?

[14:16] Shaelyn Bangs: Yes. Right. It can be personally related or something that you've experienced or seen.

[14:21] Jan : I think you can have a stronger story when you have that connection. Right?

[14:26] Shaelyn Bangs: It is, yeah, you need to have that connection in order to run. You have to have done something to try and fix the thing. I've, as I said, testified in local and state councils and I was able to run because I did that.

[14:42] Jan: How were you received by the senators?

[14:46] Shaelyn Bangs: I got their phone numbers, I got their emails and I'm able to talk with them about my concerns with pediatric mental health and try to fix it with them.

[14:58] Jan : And when they listen to you, did they feel intent? Did you feel like they really found it to be something, a meaningful thing that they wanted to work on?

[15:10] Shaelyn Bangs: I am not that person and I cannot speak for them, but I hope.

[15:14] Jan : That they felt like maybe yes.

[15:16] Shaelyn Bangs: I really hope that they considered my opinion, that they considered my story, and that they realize that it is a problem, that it needs to be fixed.

[15:27] Jan : Yeah. Okay. What are some specific ways you think that this problem could be fixed?

[15:34] Shaelyn Bangs: Awareness to show that there is a shortage in doctors and that maybe there were doctors that out there that will come into rural communities because they realized that they can fix something, that they can do something about it.

[15:50] Jan : I wonder if there's a way that could be encouraged for people that are going to college and thinking about their careers or what careers do you want to take? Well, here's something that really needs to be done.

[16:04] Shaelyn Bangs: Well, there is a bill that I'm going to testify on soon to lower taxes for doctors who want to work in rural communities.

[16:14] Jan : Oh, so you're kind of learning to be a politician. All right. Well, Shaylyn, this has really been interesting. I'm glad that I can have an avenue for you to share your voice one more time.

[16:30] Shaelyn Bangs: Yes.

[16:31] Jan : And I wish you the best in what you're doing.

[16:33] Shaelyn Bangs: Thank you.

[16:37] Jan: Oregon ranked 46 in the nation, and Washington ranked 31 for high prevalence of mental illness and lower rates of access to care for use. Childhood depression is more likely to persist into adulthood if gone untreated. But only half of children with pediatric major depression are diagnosed before adulthood. Oregon ranked highest in the United States at 18% for youth with depression and 20 for children lacking mental health coverage under private insurance. Washington ranked 14 for lacking coverage. After hearing Shaylin's story, you can see why she's passionate about trying to fix the system. I was impressed with what a brave, articulate young lady she is. I'm sure you were too. Say, just an update on my books. I now have three published books, all available on Amazon in ebook and paperback. Audio is available for Mistletoe at Christmas Tree Lodge and my heart's for you. Since my daughter Sidney helped write My Heart, she and I have performed the audio for it together. Audio for my memoir.

[17:45] Jan : I will enter.

[17:45] Jan: His gate should be available by the end of April. This was read by my son Kyle, who was three at the time of his dad's death. He reads Howard's voice and I narrate the rest. Th you can find links in the show notes for all three. Check out my website@janjohnson.com where you can find the last five episodes of this podcast, show notes, links to my books and other fun stuff.

[18:08] Jan : Thanks again for joining me.

[18:10] Jan: I hope to see you next week.