It’s Time to Face the Beast

By Amelia Leone '24

Students scampered through the hallways and sorted into their homerooms. A buzz of chatter rippled through the air. With a deep breath and a quiver of her voice, our teacher informed us of a peer of ours’ passing. It was suicide. The buzz stopped. Everything stopped. I explicitly remember my stomach drop as the teacher stated her name. With a grade of nearly four hundred students, not everyone in the class had a personal connection to her. Frankly, many students probably hadn’t even ever spoken to her. Yet, as I looked around, all eyes were wet with tears, and it was clear, every heart in our school community was broken.

It’s time to talk about mental health. Scared to wake the internal beast that is vulnerability, society has tip-toed around it. In a New York Times article, psychologist Lisa Damour writes, “Psychological health, however, is not about being free from emotional discomfort, but about having the right feelings at the right time, and being able to bear the unpleasant ones.” Society has forced people to mask their mental state and feel ashamed of their emotions; but we must confront them in order to relieve the pain.

According to the CDC, approximately 1 in 5 young people will experience a mental illness. Moreover, the New York City Department of Education states that an additional 1 in 5 kids that could benefit from additional support do not receive it. Mandating mental health education classes in high schools would decrease these numbers and educate teens about the severity of mental health.

Parents might argue that a mental health class is using valuable time out of the school day for non-academic learning. However, in the long run, mental health education will turn out to be much more valuable than any academic class. Those with mental illnesses will get the assistance they need, while classmates learn how to support their peers to create a more wholesome community. Not only that, students will gather techniques to control their emotions, preparing them for relationships, success in school, the workplace, and a fulfilling life. Simply put, mental health education is an investment.

Additionally, many parents are not equipped to help their child. They might not be knowledgeable enough to realize there is an issue, nor have the time or money to resolve it. Some might even refuse to “believe” in mental illnesses. Mandating mental health classes in high schools will teach all teens about the severity of mental health and ways to support others as well as themselves.

At the end of the day, the most important thing for those suffering from a mental illness to understand is that they are not alone. Encouraging transparency and normalizing mental health allows teens suffering from mental challenges and those that aren’t to understand it’s okay to feel whatever it is they are feeling. I encourage you to reach out to your school officials and demand they offer mental health education. Enough tip-toeing, it’s time to face the beast.

Sources:

Damour, Lisa. “Helping Teens Make Room for Uncomfortable Emotions.” The New York Times, 21 Apr. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/04/21/well/family/coronavirus-teenagers-uncomfortable-emotions.html?referringSource=articleShare.

“Data and Statistics on Children's Mental Health.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 15 June 2020, www.cdc.gov/childrensmentalhealth/data.html.

“Mental Health Impacts All of Us.” NYC Department of Education, 2020, www.schools.nyc.gov/school-life/health-and-wellness/mental-health.