Welcome back to This Person I Met! My name is Kayla, and I’m your podcast host.

I’ve known Salem for around two years now. Our shared trauma of endless marching band rehearsals and similarities with flute led to a quick, close friendship. You’ll hear in this interview that it’s clear Salem is one of the funniest people I know and their presence is immediate comfort to all their friends, including me. Not only do I consider Salem one of my closest friends and flute buddies, I look up to them for advice like they’re the village elder.

A few months after we first met and became close, I came to learn of their more personal struggles, as all friends do with time. Personally, I think that the most beautiful part of a friendship is when your comfortability evolves into openness and a mutual understanding that you want to listen and learn, and your closeness makes room to do so. As you’ll hear in this interview, Salem is very open about their diagnosis with depression and constant battle with their mental health, which would eventually lead to their hospitalization at the CS Mott’s psych ward. Their story is a consistent reminder to me that no matter what, you never truly know what somebody is going through, and to always check up on the people that you love. As a quick content warning, this episode will deal with topics regarding mental health.