Read Part 1 of this story here
As students get older, their lives tend to get more complicated and stressful. High school itself is chaotic enough and problems in personal lives can affect academic learning. When they open up about their issues, they want to be heard and understood. Responding with compassion and empathy is the best way to handle conversations as it teaches students that opening up is safe, without judgement convincing them to shut down.
Unfortunately, a lot of students refuse to reach out for help. They try to toughen through their problems without realizing how much it’s ruining them. Here’s why.
Psychology teacher Ms. Cristina Janis explains that through stereotypes and personal pressure, students refuse to seek help due to their natural tendency to push their feelings down. “There’s this belief that if someone has a mental illness, that they’re emotionally weak,” said Ms. Janis. “Me and other psychologists would certainly disagree. Some teenagers feel like it’s a difficult topic or maybe their parents wouldn’t understand so they don’t seek a trusted adult to help. My experience has been that although parents may not understand at first, they can understand. Maybe a counselor can reach out to the parent and explain why mental health is so important and usually, parents want to support their children.”
A lot of times, children believe that their parents wouldn’t understand because they’re under the pressure of doing their best in life, as that’s the mindset most adults set on their children. Therefore, that mindset relabels mental health problems as weakness since that’s what their parents relabel it through their mindset. Another reason children may believe having a mental health condition is a weakness is because others take the “illness” connotation too literally. By ignoring the biological and environmental factors that cause the mental health problems, people tend to view it as a simple obstacle.
However, what people fail to realize is that seeking help for this issue is actually a strength rather than a weakness because it requires a lot of courage to do so. Therefore, instead of avoiding your problems, talking to a counselor would be extremely beneficial. Not only would they listen and try to help, they could also reach out to your parents and help them understand the importance of mental wellbeing. At the end of the day, parents always want to support their children and they want the best for them, so a simple explanation from a school counselor would help them change their perspectives, so the burden of them not understanding wouldn’t weigh so heavy anymore.
Along with that, avoiding and toughening through these problems now usually causes more problems in the long run. Without special treatment, the symptoms will intensify, leading to strained future relationships and social isolation. For children, seeking out help when needed is extremely important because since they’re young, their minds haven’t fully developed yet, therefore this burden would remain if they ignored it and avoided seeking guidance. This is why seeking help from a counselor is the best way to approach these issues.
In our school, depending on the student’s stress level, there are many people you could visit. For stress related to academics, workload, or managing schoolwork, the best person to go to would be your assigned guidance counselor in SPS. If stress is related to mental health issues, Student Assistance Counselors Mrs. Kara McQuarrie, Mr. Aaron Millman and Ms. Maura Nixon would be great resources. Finally, through mental health stress, if a student wants to work with a licensed clinician through Rutgers Behavioral Health, it’s best to go to the BRIDGE center in the annex, right across the orchestra room.
It’s okay to be struggling with mental health issues. That doesn’t make anyone weak. But avoiding and toughening through them will just make it worse in the future. Seeking help is nothing to be ashamed of, because almost everyone has something they’re stressing about. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. It’s better to seek help earlier and heal rather than keep it to yourself and let it slowly affect your future.
