The New York Times reported that while Kennedy Hill was in high school, she described her struggles with mental illness in an op-ed for the school newspaper. "My depression took root in the beginning of my middle school years and will be with me for the rest of my life. Although I was mostly a happy child, I suffered bouts of deep sadness that felt like a heavy boulder on my chest. These bouts would come and go, but they did not outwardly affect me until I was a new sophomore at Deerfield," she wrote. In the article, Kennedy Hill urged her peers to open up about their own struggles with mental health, and explained her decision to leave school temporarily to seek treatment.