Mental Health - Let's Talk About it

1 in 5 people suffer from mental illness or have a mental health concern. That means someone close to you is suffering and you may not even know. The stigma of mental health can actually make the person sicker in the sense of feeling embarrassed or ashamed. People with psychiatric diagnosis are often discriminated and spoken down to. This can often lead to that person keeping quiet, or stop others from seeking help because of the perception that they will be made an outcast or be bullied, especially in the local school system.

20% of youth ages 13-18 live with a mental health condition, 50% of all mental health cases begin by age 14 and 75% by age 24. We're talking about your teens and young adults. These kids go through middle school and high school feeling different, feeling afraid to speak up because society says "she goes to therapy, she must be trouble", "he goes to counseling, something must be wrong with him", "you're crazy, you're psycho". Seeing a counselor or a therapist is so abnormal now, no one wants to say anything because of how they'll be viewed as a person. How they'll be talked about, bullied, or have no support from their family or friends. They feel they will be alienated and no one will understand. Why?

Because no one wants to talk about it. If someone says "I feel depressed", they are usually brushed off with a "ya everyone gets upset, just go to the gym you'll feel better". We have to stop taking things lightly and start listening. We have to start looking for the signs and start talking to our friends, our kids, even our co-workers. They just need to know someone is there to listen; that they're not alone. The more we normalize talking about it and asking for help, the better off people will be knowing it isn't a bad thing and it's okay to ask for help.

How could I possibly know how they feel? You might be wondering.

I was in their place. I went to Jockey Hollow and Masuk High School, feeling out of place and different from everyone else. I felt something was wrong with me for years and the school counselors chalked it up to "going through puberty and being hormonal" or "high school drama". I was bullied my entire school career and the principal literally said to me "You're full of drama get out of my office". The school systems want nothing to do with social problems unless it regards a school sport. They dust it under the rug and pretend it isn't happening. Sure I saw several counselors at Masuk but they aren't schooled to deal with the issues I was facing, so they would just call mom and tell her to find a therapist and move on to the next thing.

Junior year things got so bad the school decided to suspend me for a week until a therapist signed a form saying i could go back. I nearly flunked my junior year of high school because I was so unstable and unable to actually get help. How could a person possibly function and focus when their mind is going in a bunch of directions a million miles a minute? How could it possibly get worse from here? I assure you it can, and it did. I was a social outcast when i came back, and had a group of students gang up on me for months and followed me around town to take pictures and look for reasons to pick on me. Police were involved but nothing ever came of it and it didn't stop until i left for college. I was afraid to leave my own house and paranoid they would find me everywhere I went. I lasted 1 semester in college before completely falling apart and having to transfer home.

I had been seeing a therapist in college that transferred my file to my new therapist at my new school. Finally I found someone who would listen and take me seriously. Someone who helped explain what was happening in my brain and why. She evaluated my mental health once a week every week for a year and referred me to a psychiatrist. I eventually got a second opinion who gave me a full evaluation and finally diagnosed me with borderline personality disorder. After years of knowing something was wrong and seeing so many different people, I finally found an answer.

My journey through all of this has impacted me so greatly and has really opened my eyes to what is actually going on, not just with me but with so many other people. My little brother is now at Masuk and things haven't really gotten better from when I was there. I have younger kids telling me how they're feeling and how their parents wont listen and how alone they feel. I created a blog for this exact purpose. For kids to read my story and to talk about things in a safe environment. I encourage everyone, teens, young adults and parents to read what I put up there and try to understand what's happening in their own backyard. I want people to ask me questions about my mental health because I would rather someone ask to learn and be educated, than to have them walk around assuming things or not knowing.

Mental health is just as important as our physical health. Together, let's end the stigma. Let's start talking about it.

My blog link is posted below, thank you for listening.

http://borderline.home.blog