My Opinion on Mental Health by M.

Mental health is the reason why I just spent the last ten minutes screaming and destroying my vocal chords. Mental health is how I almost died and no one noticed. Mental health is what makes me, someone who prizes academics, have to miss class in order to calm down.

There are often moments when I forget about mental health’s influence on my life, but it’s a stubborn shadow, always lurking in the background. I tried to hide from that shadow many times in my life, but like any decent shadow, it never left my side.

Now, I want you to do something for me. Raise your hand, or even a finger if that’s all you feel comfortable with, if you’ve felt alone in a crowded room. Raise your hand if you’ve wondered what life would be like if you were perfect, or never even existed in the first place. Raise your hand if you had no one to turn to when these feelings hit you.

Chances are, you raised your hand. If you didn’t, please tell me what your secret is.

It’s not a secret that the rate of mental health issues has been rapidly increasing. Just do a quick Google search on your phone, and no doubt you’ll find statistic after statistic explaining the increase of depression, anxiety, eating disorders, substance abuse, and more. However, I’m not here to talk about the numbers or the math. I want to talk to you.

Throughout my journey with mental health, one particular thing, besides my therapist, always helped. Talking to people who shared my struggles. I am lucky enough to have the most wonderful friends who have been there for my darkest and brightest moments. I am lucky enough that they too have mental health issues, and are willing to support me and vice versa.

When I developed my first mental health issue, an eating disorder, the one thing I wished for most was to have someone else to talk to. Not my parents, not my therapist, but someone else who understood what I was going through.

In this day and age, teenagers are developing mental health issues more and more often. In fact, I’d go so far as to call it the next pandemic. We need to do something about this pandemic. COVID-19 may have hit us fast, but science has shown that this pandemic has been spreading for years. We need to help future generations deal with the ever evolving world and ever evolving societal standards.

We must give them the mental health help they need.