The packed crowd at Benaroya Hall was at rapt attention, eagerly anticipating each line as 17-year-old Janae Lu gave an emotional reading of her poem, “Too Good.”
When she finished, many rose to their feet for an extended ovation.
“It was the best day of my life,” said Lu, Seattle Arts & Lectures’ youth poet laureate.
A night like that might not have been possible without the counseling and support Lu was provided by Youth Eastside Services, one of 13 nonprofit agencies supported by reader donations to The Seattle Times Fund for Those in Need.
Lu struggled with an unstable home life, anxiety and an eating disorder, but after getting help and finding a passion for writing poetry, her outlook has changed dramatically.
Lu, a junior at Tesla STEM High School in Redmond, said she wants to go to college and become an English teacher.
Each year, The Seattle Times Fund for Those in Need raises money for charities that help children, families and older adults. Throughout the season, we tell the stories of people and organizations who make a difference in the lives of thousands, and the impact donors can have.
“Before, I couldn’t even think of what my future looked like and now I see so many possibilities,” Lu said. “I used to be really scared. If you asked me about college, I would be like, ‘I’m not going to college.’ That didn’t even seem real to me, that I would keep on living and being here. But now, oh my God, I see all these possibilities for what I could do with my life, and for people that I could help.”
YES, based in Bellevue, describes itself as providing “prevention, diagnosis, and treatment for mental health and substance use disorders, life stressors and crises, and stress-related physical symptoms” from birth to age 22.
YES has counselors in 38 schools on the Eastside and in a combined five teen centers and community centers. Individuals are helped regardless of their ability to pay.
David Downing, CEO of YES, said it’s important the organization has counselors in places where kids already are, “for what that does in terms of taking down the barriers and the ability for young people to actually get the help and support that they need that they may never otherwise get.”
Downing said YES helps about 5,000 children and youth each year. Lu is one of them. During her freshman year of high school, she went to YES counselor Cora Goss-Grubbs for help.
Lu sought help from Goss-Grubbs after her first week in high school, which she called an “absolute disaster.”
Lu was struggling with anxiety, and she was suffering from an eating disorder.
Through YES, Lu received counseling and spent four months receiving inpatient treatment for her eating disorder.
Things started to change for Lu after she met Goss-Grubbs.
“Cora was the first therapist that I had who genuinely listened and helped me through it because I had a lot of therapists who kind of brushed things off,” Lu said. “But Cora was also not afraid to tell me what I need to hear, even if that hurts. Like, if I’m saying, ‘Oh, I think that this person hates me,’ she’s like, ‘Janae, do we have any evidence for that?’ “
Lu said it was Goss-Grubbs who first told her that inpatient help for disordered eating was a possibility.
“I didn’t think I was bad enough for that,” said Lu, who agreed to get an assessment done over winter break in her sophomore year. “To my shock, I actually was not doing very well, and I got admitted to residential care.”
Lu said Goss-Grubbs reassured her before she entered inpatient care and helped with the transition after she was discharged and returned to school.
“At the hospital, I was used to having access to a therapist 24/7 and having someone to talk to all the time,” Lu said. “I feel like that’s where a lot of people can fall back into relapse, but Cora was there every step of the way to make sure that I was OK.”
Outside of school, Lu has received help from Crysta Prins, a therapist who works for YES.
“When you discharge, you’re supposed to get a therapist immediately that specializes in eating disorders,” Lu said. “With my insurance, I could not find anything. There was a little period at the end of the school year where it was just Cora, but then over the summer, she is obviously unavailable. So that’s where Crysta came in.”
It was during her freshman year that Lu wrote her first poem, which she said was an ode to computer science, a class she was taking.
“It was such a bad poem, but it’s kind of fun to look back on,” she said.
Lu persisted and started expressing herself through her poetry, writing about her troubled family life.
“I didn’t really know how to process it,” Lu said. “That was such a complex thing to process, and poetry is where I found a place to put it to words.”
Lu’s poetry then moved to social justice topics.
She applied as a freshman to be Seattle Arts & Lectures youth poet laureate. She was a finalist that year, then reapplied as a sophomore, and to her surprise, was selected to serve in that role this year.
Lu received a long standing ovation in March at Town Hall Seattle after reading her poem “Inheritance.” That, Lu said, was the best day of her life until her reading at Benaroya Hall in November, before an author appearance by Abraham Verghese.
In June, Lu will have a book of her poems published — part of the honor of being Seattle Arts & Lecture’s youth poet laureate — and is competing to become the national youth poet laureate (she first needs to become the regional poet laureate).
Lu continues to meet with Goss-Grubbs, who will meet with about 50 students this year. She reaches many more students through group advising and classroom presentations.
Goss-Grubbs and Prins said it’s rewarding to see the progress Lu — and others they work with — has made.
“Through her hard work in treatment, and continued support from the school and YES, she has indeed found her path toward a life worth living, as well as her place in this school,” Goss-Grubbs said. “Mental illness is a chronic disease that requires lifelong attention — she continues to have good and bad days — to manage her symptoms, be self-reflective and do the hard work of therapy and personal growth.
“One of the things I love about working with teenagers is their capacity for resilience and change, and she’s a great example of this out of the many students I’ve had the honor of walking alongside through their mental health journey.”
Downing said several hundred kids are helped by money YES gets from the Fund for Those in Need. Lu is thankful she is one of them.
“When I was really struggling with depression, the eating disorder and had really bad anxiety, my school-based therapy (Goss-Grubbs) was the first person I talked to because it’s so hard to make therapy appointments, and to have someone in the school makes it so much more accessible,” Lu said. “She helped me process things and work on things like lessening my stress, and that allowed me to do all of the other things because I didn’t start doing poetry until I was better.”
Discovering that passion led Lu to Benaroya Hall and the standing ovation that was the best moment of her life.
“Poetry for me comes from the need to speak the truth,” Lu said before the reading. “I like writing poems that I feel strongly about. The one that I’m reading at Benaroya Hall is about how society trains women to be good, even if that means putting ourselves in danger — in terms of creepy guys on the street and we’re told to be good and to smile and to be polite, even when that puts us in danger. I had so much bottled up about that and to be able to put it into words and to get to speak those words to 2,000 people is just so empowering.”