Breathe In, Breath Out: Talking About Mental Health

For many teenagers, mental health looms overhead as a bit of an inside joke. Anecdotes such as “This test makes me want to kill myself” or “My teacher demands MLA form, she’s like… totally OCD” serve as a common backdrop in conversations. More and more, the robot dance we do with our beloved smartphones (pick up, stare, put down, repeat) takes us into roasts, celebrity “clap-backs”, and funny memes (some about procrastination, others about depression).

As a teenager, there are countless things to worry about– test scores, relationships, parent expectations, jobs, and for some over-achievers, a thousand extracurriculars and sports. Further, our online social accounts and persona, once an oasis from the boredom of day to day life, has become a form of personal PR and self-gratification system. Some describe the experience as being a “swimming duck,” gracefully calm above and paddling furiously below. Many Armijo students, whether IB or CP, male or female, upperclassmen or underclassmen, have shared the same sentiment.

Today, more than ever, the importance of mental health is emerging as a vocal call to action. From television shows such as Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why to popular songs such as 1-800-273-8355 by Logic (the number of the Suicide Prevention Lifeline), mental health is inspiring true conversation. The call to action is well warranted: in a recent publication from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2014, the most recent year for which data is available, the suicide rate for children ages 10 to 14 had caught up to their death rate for traffic accidents, meaning that young adolescents as likely to die from suicide as from traffic accidents.

The factors of suicide and self-harm are complex, with no one singular factor. Some have blamed the increase on social media. After all, vulnerabilities can now be replayed, retweeted, and giggled at behind screens. Popularity is now measured by follower counts, charisma quantified by Snapchat streaks, Instagram comments, and anonymous messages on Sarahah. The popular teen messaging app, Kik, came under media fire as child pornographer after child pornographer were arrested after using the app to groom and solicit photos from underage teens and children. Fear mongering aside, the pocket computer, our smartphones, has changed everything, from social interactions to education and yes, how the world views mental health.

Your mental health is just as important as your physical body, you cannot survive with a broken leg– neither can you with depression, bulimia, or substance abuse. Most recently, anxiety overtook depression as the most common mental illness to be diagnosed among college students. Mental health is a wide spectrum, with different treatments for different conditions.

However, there are options to cool down a stressful situation. Allow yourself to find moments that bring peace or joy, eat regularly, and don’t cope with your feelings with alcohol, “lean,” or drugs you know you’ll regret. Check in with your close friends, stay on the lookout for warning signs, and validate your feelings. Many are told, “Why don’t you just be happy?” – a phrase which both invalidates and silences those with mental illnesses.

Ending the stigma around mental illness begins with you. Simply changing your vernacular could help others around you feel less ashamed. Seeking help is the first step to help overcome mental health challenges.

Think about the number of people you speak with every day. Approximately 1 in 5 youth aged 13–18 experiences a severe mental disorder at some point in their life. Perhaps you can help the one on five in your life by changing the stigma of mental illness and guiding yourself and others to seek help. Hemingway once wrote, “The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.”

Resources to seek help:

Crisis Text Line provides free assistance to anyone who texts “help” to 741-741.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

Recognize warning signs and learn more at mentalhealth.gov.