The Dangers of Silence by Victoria

The Dangers of Silence by Victoria - March 2017 Scholarship Essay

Silence is an epidemic in my community. Mental disorders are locked behind closed lips, not to be discussed. In Jackson High School, classrooms are filled with overachieving students while anxiety and distress haunt the halls.
Being a 5.0 student myself I have had my own taste of such anxiety, but my first glimpse into the realm of mental disorders happened sophomore year. A fellow band member approached me about his depression and self-harm. Another told me her father was abusive and she just wanted a way out. And yet another shared her history of suicide attempts, overdoses, and reactive attachment disorder. (I recognized that these peers needed help way beyond the attention and support I could provide so I directed them to professionals.) After becoming involved in helping these students, my school counselor and band director recognized that students tended to confide in me, and they gave me extra tools/leadership advice. After that I began to recognize unhealthy signs in other students as well and was shocked by just how many appeared wandering the hallways unnoticed.
As it turned out, one of these wandering students had a mother who worked on the Stark County Board for Mental Health. I started meeting with her and inquiring more about what I could do to help others like her daughter in my community. She stressed the need for a change in the stigma placed on mental diseases. Psychological illnesses are not viewed the same way a physical ailment is, but why not? The student body mocks psychological afflictions as a weak ploy for attention. By feeling like they can’t talk about their problems many students don’t seek medical attention as they would for a persistent stomachache. Moreover, the school system doesn’t teach its students about mental illnesses, the warning signs, or how to maintain our own mental health. Health class, where it should be taught, barely touches on it. There’s an unspoken taboo to the topic.
Too often, in the face of a progressive American society, students are instilled a sense of ‘success over health.’ They’re left believing that to stay afloat in such a competitive system one must stress themselves out over taking AP classes, that doing homework is more important than sleeping, that looking good is more important than eating well, that buckling under such pressure is weak. So children are pushed to their limits, and not all of them can handle the expectations. In every school system, hidden behind a veil of anonymity, lies the disheartened. With psychological and environmental factors at the heart of the accepted causes of mental illness, there are so many variables left uncontrolled, so many families left without the knowledge of how to protect themselves in a world where 90% of suicides have been connected to mental illness. And that figure doesn’t just impact the individuals listed, in their wake a network of families, schools, employers, and the economy as a whole is impacted. The National Alliance on Mental Illness reports that in America untreated mental illnesses cost a whopping $100 billion a year in lost productivity. With mental health weaving its way into all aspects of society, why aren’t more people speaking up?
The lack of open discussion and education on mental health has become important to me because the troubled peers I mentioned earlier became my friends. It saddens me to picture the other genuinely good kids, just like them, out there feeling isolated because society has taught them that they are weak for not overcoming their afflictions on their own. We need to raise more awareness to their plight because mental afflictions have physical, social, and societal implications as well. Therefore, I would like to speak out about the harmful perceptions surrounding mental health at schools. Through open discussion rumors lose power. I would specifically approach the elementary schools since assumptions begin at a young, formative age. Eliminating misconceptions in younger generations sets the foundation for a more accepting society.