Former Student: Tim Walz Doesn’t Know He Saved My Life

Patti Miller was struggling in more ways than one when she first met Tim Walz as a student at Mankato West High School. The Minnesota governor was known to her as Mr. Walz, a widely beloved geography teacher and football coach at the school who had also taught her sister.

Now 37, Miller’s teenage years were marred with anxiety and depression. Her father had been struggling with addiction for years, and was sent to prison on drug trafficking charges around the time she began Walz’s class. Her mental health issues had led her to self-harm, and she had trouble staying engaged at school.

“I felt like an outsider. At one point my mom was even like: ‘I might have to put you in a hospital. I don’t really know what to do anymore,’” Miller told the Daily Beast in a phone interview Wednesday. “It was tough. I guess I just didn’t really know how to express my feelings very well. I didn’t know how to deal with them.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.