Humans of East: Liam O’Sullivan

Creating a safe place during the three o’clock Wednesday Zoom, senior Liam O’Sullivan leads the conversation as Minding Your Mind club president on how to better your mental health during all periods of your life. With the main goal of the club to reach out to East students and collaboratively share experiences with mental health to signify that you are not alone.

“The club started two years ago. [2019 East Alum] Jana Banerjea started it and then last year my big sister Sarah O’Sullivan took over the club, and the torch was passed onto me and Elisa.”

“What I like about this club is it’s a place to build connections with a couple new people and to have an extra person to talk to when you are down or having struggles with mental health in general. Whenever we meet, Elisa and I come up with a theme such as online school, the election and stuff like that. Elisa and I will guide the conversation by offering suggestions while everyone vents. It really is just a big conversation about having a healthy mental health.”

“I’d say the mission would be to build a group of people to educate themselves and each other on the struggles of mental health, how to cope with it and to make some new friends and that’s about it.”

“My favorite part of the club was the second meeting specifically. There [were] so many people I have never talked to besides seeing them in the hallways. It was our first real conversation in the club and it was great to see everyone be so open and vulnerable with their own issues.”

“I have gotten some really great ideas on how to cope with mental health and deal with my own. Alongside that, I have made a good amount of friends from the club and have learned how relatable these issues are. We really are all in the same boat together and I think realizing that made a world of a difference.”

“The biggest issue with the virtual meetings is the lack of motivation. We definitely took a big hit with the amount of people who actually join the meetings. Usually in-person we see about 10-15 members, but recently only about a half of those people join the virtual meetings. We are hoping to get it back in the groove soon especially with hybrid coming up.”

“The best way would definitely be to contact Elisa or me. We have a large group chat with members of the club. Just because you join or are added to the chat doesn’t mean you must attend the meetings, but we love seeing new faces. We are also hoping in the future to get the word out with flyers or even sending an email.”