At Volunteers of America, it is not uncommon for service-seekers to become dedicated service providers where they advocate for resources and shape programs with their own voices. The same can be said for JaShunna Boykins at VOA EpiCenter in North Louisiana who had VOA counselors help her transform how she copes with mental health struggles. She is now following in their footsteps giving back as a peer support specialist and using her lived experiences to support people experiencing mental health issues.
“It’s really just me being able to empathize with them, and let them know that, hey, I’ve been where you are,” JaShunna said. “I get the chance to show them how to navigate through that.”
When JaShunna first found VOA, she was having anxiety attacks every day, often
multiple times a day. The counseling she had tried was not working for her until one day her high school connected her to VOA counselors Ms. Kristal and Ms. Jenesis. With them, she stopped feeling like she was being talked down to and instead felt like she was being truly listened to by people who unconditionally supported her.
With the help of Ms. Kristal and Ms. Jenesis, JaShunna went from having anxiety attacks daily to one or two times a year. The attacks that remained, however, were very extreme. “They were considered pseudo-seizures because they look exactly like seizures,” she said. “The only difference was I was alert. So I could hear what was going on.”
When JaShunna went to college, she started struggling with depression in a way she had never experienced before. She had the courage to reach out and spoke with her past counselor, Ms. Kristal, who put her in contact with a new VOA counselor named Ms. Kasey. Around this time, JaShunna was invited to give a speech at a VOA event where she met the director of VOA EpiCenter. Director Tina Hall introduced JaShunna to a way she could give back and become the peer support specialist she is today.
In her role as a peer support specialist, JaShunna likes to do an activity with her clients, such as painting or listening to music, to take their minds off the stressful parts of life. She learned this from her writing hobby that she used to express the things she couldn’t say out loud and to cope with her own mental health struggles.
Starting when she was in high school and lasting for two years, she wrote down the difficult things she was going through and other aspects of her life until she had written 50 poems. They culminated in her book, Growing Pains, published last year, describing her navigation of her mental health, her experiences as a Black woman, and her path toward healing.
“It was a really freeing experience,” she remarked about the book, “of just being able to share everything that I’ve ever dealt with or felt that I hadn’t talked about with my closest friends.”
When JaShunna was younger, she felt obstacles to reaching out for help because of the stigma she felt in her small town and within the Black community. What she came to realize was that she had to reach out for help in order to live the life she wanted. “I got to choose me over what y’all have to say,” she recalled.
In both her published writing and work as a peer support specialist, she has a larger goal: to advocate for mental health awareness. She hopes to end the stigma around opening up and getting help and strongly believes that no one should feel any guilt or shame in doing so. Anyone should be able to seek mental health resources, including those who are spiritual or religious, she said. In JaShunna’s view, God placed mental health professionals in her life so they could help her manage her mental health struggles and grow into the person she is today.
JaShunna’s next goal is getting a graduate degree to continue working as a mental health professional. She has known the importance of counselors since high school when she met Ms. Kristal and Ms. Jenesis, and now she wants to give back to ensure those resources are always there for those who need them.
“There is a community there for you, all you have to do is ask,” said JaShunna. “There’s room for everybody in the organization because we have so much to offer, and we have so many resources to get help.”
“I’m venturing out on a new journey. But not just any journey, this
one is focused on healing. The state of being that I’m currently
in no longer serves me. . .
. . . I may
be going through a storm but I’m excited to see myself on the
Other side of it, because flowers can’t grow without a little rain.”
-JaShunna Boykins, “Growing Pains,” Growing Pains (2023)
You can hear her journey and her experiences with mental health by reading her book, Growing Pains.
