Mental Health? That’s Crazy!

When I was 16, I started to change. Of course they say that bodies change when you become a teenager, but this was different. Everything that wasn’t physical was changing. My mood went up and down, and my attitude was all over the place. I was angry at my family whenever I was in their presence; I said things I didn’t mean to say. When I was at school or work, I felt tired and rundown. I was uncomfortable all the time. I have never felt so lonely in my life. What was happening to me? Why do I feel like something bad is going to happen? Am I okay? 

I questioned myself constantly until I found my answer. I had a mental health problem. That’s all it was; I wasn’t sick or crazy. All that was wrong was that I need how do you simple hormone imbalance. Even after acknowledging what was wrong, I still had a problem. I didn’t know how to get help, so I decided to ignore it. If I didn’t know what to do, I’ll ignore it until it fixes itself. That was the worst thing to do. 

Every day became a struggle. I was losing control over all my emotions. And on top of my own internal struggles, a former friend was turning everyone against me. I fell deeper into my depression, and my anxiety heightened to a point where I became paranoid. I had panic attacks almost every week. It wasn’t until then that my mom noticed that something was really wrong.

My mom had her own mental health problems when she was my age. She sat me down and told me about how she struggled with her own anxiety. In her 30s, she had a fear of driving to the point where my dad would drive her to the bus because she was too scared to drive herself to work. She finally went to mental health professionals who helped her get back on the road. After hearing that story and seeing how well therapy and medication had helped her, I decided it was time for me to get some help of my own.

By the time I was almost 18, I had started therapy and, it was a life changer. Every session made me stronger; I was finally getting to help I needed. I was making choices to help myself instead of hurting myself to help others. Even with the help and support for my mom and friends, I was being bullied by my dad. All he would say was: “You’re crazy!”, “You have no problem; you’re just weak and lazy!”, and “Anxiety? Depression? That’s bullshit!”. I even got yelled at for crying when I was sad. I struggled in therapy about the comments he made. I knew that what he was saying wasn’t true, but that didn’t mean that it still didn’t hurt. When you hear those things every day at some point you start believing that it’s true.

Despite being constantly put down by my own father, I pushed ahead and reached happiness. Others around me also held my journey towards happiness. I saw how my friends had and were suffering with their own mental health issues. I witnessed Amber crying because she had almost killed herself. I saw the marks on Emily‘s wrist from cutting herself. We all joked about our anxiety and depression to make it through the day, but I needed to change. I didn’t want what my friends had gone through to happen to me.

Previous attempts to educate children have been a start, but they are ineffective. It has been important to make mental health issues an important epidemic to address, but it has fallen short. It’s time to be more aggressive in the approach to raise children and adults. The main problem with mental health awareness and prevention, is family. The family is where awareness and prevention starts. Peoples’ parents and grandparents are part of the baby boomer generation. My own parents a part of that generation. They grew up in a time where mental health was either ignored or called hysteria. Bringing that mindset into the 21st-century has made children unwilling to address or express their mental health issues. I propose reaching out to families to inform them about mental health. It’s important to acknowledge that mental health issues are partially hormone based and environment based. Informing the families will hopefully help children feel more comfortable and more willing to share their troubles with the people who care about them.