Mental health awareness and advocacy month with Mya Cherneski

DELAWWARE, De. – May is mental health awareness month, a time to recognize the struggles that people with mental illness face. Mya Cherneski is an 18-year-old senior at Milton High who has been dealing with mental illness for most of her life. She was diagnosed with ODD, anxiety, and depression following the passing of her stepfather.

“I feel that it is very important to end the stigma around mental health because everyone has mental health,” Cherneski said. “It’s not a taboo thing anymore. I feel like it’s getting a lot more talked about but not nearly enough.”

Mya said mental illness can really affect your day to day life and it doesn’t have to be anything specific. She says that sometimes you feel very anxious for no reason at all and you cannot even identify those triggers. So you feel very alone in your diagnosis sometimes and that is why I want to help to get rid of other people.

Mental illness is getting a little bit more recognition from older generations, but people tend to link severe disorders like schizophrenia or multiple personality disorder with anyone diagnosed with a mental illness, according to Mya.

“My mental illness does not define me,” Cherneski said.

“I get to choose how I deal with it everyday and I just want people to eventually be okay with people who have mental illness because it does not affect us as much as people say it does.”

Mya’s mother, Barbara Messick, is the Executive Director of Champions for Children’s Mental Health. She tells us she struggled raising both her son and Mya when they were often sent to the disciplinarians office, despite being a straight A student.

“We had some issues with the coaches there not understanding her diagnosis and she does not play for the school anymore,” Messick said.

“I heard all of the professionals say that I am a bad mom, that I was doing it wrong,” Messick said. “Saying that I wanted something to be wrong with him, rather than me wanting to help him.”

Even with all of the stigma associated with mental illness, Mya has prevailed and will be attending a University in the fall for a degree in psychology to be an FBI profiler after she graduates.

“She has big dreams and she always wants to work on ending the stigma and sharing her story with other people,” Messick said.