Whitman-Hanson Regional High School Photovoice Project
Summer 2015
“Nobody wants to talk about the bug in the room and nobody wants to talk about like any kind of drug addiction. They wanna keep it hidden, but we need to talk about it.”
“You may not know where you’re going, but you gotta jump sometimes anyway. Sometimes you land flat on your face, but you just gotta get back up.”
“Sometimes parents aren’t aware of what their kids are doing. Parents do stuff and it reflects on their kids, and the kids think it’s like okay to do it ‘cause my parent does it.”
“When you’re talking about drug use, it’s not just black and white, there is a lot of grey in between”
“The darkness that’s surrounding her looks like it just keeps closing in, and that’s what drugs do to you, they close in on you.”
“You might not be at the same spot as everyone else, but you can still get where you’re going and finish.”
“Just because it’s prescribed by a doctor doesn’t mean you can take it. You don’t know how your body will react to it.”
“If you see someone struggling, you really shouldn’t keep it to yourself, you should speak up.”
“You don’t even see the person. You just see the pills and the aftermath.”
“Their backs are turned and it’s like they don’t see the light of hope but it’s right there.”
“There’s brighter skies ahead… if you ask for help you’re gonna get it.”
“The hurdle is when people try to come off drugs and they have withdrawals. The hurdle is like the withdrawal stage and they try to overcome it and then its blue skies. Getting on the right track.”
“I feel like it symbolizes that you write your own story…like no matter what happens or where you come from, you can write your own story.”
“You’re like in the middle and you have to choose which path you wanna go. You can take the easy path down the dark road or you can walk on the grass, which is harder to get through and maybe end up with positive.”
“Who looks at the glass half full and who looks at it half empty?”
“Life is or can be a journey, and sometimes you will need someone to help guide you…you can’t do it on your own, sometimes you need help, you’ll never be alone.”
“Rise above the rest, stand tall and bloom no matter what’s going on around you.”
“You can improve with your mistakes because you learn from your mistakes, and like when you make a mistake, you can try and fix it and it’ll come out a different way. Like depending on the person sometimes doing drugs helps you become the person that you are today, you know? No matter how dark your history, no matter how long your list of mistakes, it makes you the person you are today.”
“It looks like each step gets smaller and you just have to make that first step… first big leap… leap of faith… leap of hope. You have to overcome every step, but when you get there there are more steps to come…there will always be challenges in life, but each step brings you closer to a brighter future.”
“One day at a time.”
“It’s weird because like so many kids are doing drugs at a younger age, and they don’t even realize like life gets really hard. So they’re like doing drugs before they even realize how hard life can be. It may not be for everyone, but sometimes when they find out that life is hard, they’ll probably wanna test drugs and ease the pain, so they can like leave reality and go somewhere else. They should teach kids from an early age coping skills, without drugs.”
“They’re just so accessible. They’re easy to get and there’s so many. And like that’s just one household.”
“The paint on top looks like it eventually will cover the entire painting, and that could symbolize drug addiction. It will eventually take over. It looks like she’s being controlled by it.”