There are hundred of kids in the halls of Fossil Ridge High School silently struggling with mental illness, who are tired of feeling as though they are fighting alone. Lack of support and an inability to cope has lead many students to contemplate suicide, but those who don’t often use it as an offhand way to express frustration.
Fossil’s psychologist, Mrs. Brittany Hutson feels as though mental illness, specifically anxiety and depression, have become a huge problem at Fossil. “I’ve been here eight years and in the past two years, especially this year, I’ve just seen a huge increase in the students who have anxiety and anxiety and depression combined…I’ve been really surprised at how many students struggle with it and I kind of wonder if there’s more we can do as a school to support that problem because it’s everywhere.”
A major factor of this increase could be the lack of filter practiced by teenagers today. Students will complain about failing a test or going to math and say something along the lines of, “Ugh, I’m going to kill myself!” Sufferers of mental illnesses hear these words daily and feel the true impact of what they mean. Anonymously, Fossil students who suffer from severe depression commented on what it’s like to hear their friends and classmates joke about ending their lives.
“Honestly it kind of pisses me off cause when people just say that they don’t actually mean it. And they don’t understand what it is truly like to actually have those feelings.”
“I don’t think people understand the full implications of what they’re saying, and it definitely affects me. Even if they don’t mean to, they’re joking about something that should never be joked about. Even I occasionally find myself making comments like this, but I always make sure to correct myself. It’s an internalized thing, and society has made it okay to say things like this. If you correct someone, they can say ‘I’m just kidding’, and suddenly it seems like you’re the bad guy. That isn’t okay.”
“Comments like these send a chill through my body because i remember the long nights I’ve been up contemplating suicide. It’s not something someone should joke about or mention unless they’re serious because it resurfaces all the problems and times I’ve felt really depressed making me feel like I’m in a hole and can’t ever escape this feeling.”
Clearly, these words hold more of an impact than some students and teachers would like to believe. “As mental health professionals, we know how damaging those kinds of statements can be for students who really are thinking about it, or have felt suicidal. A lot of times students are struggling with that and nobody knows and they hear their peers say something like that very flippant like, ‘I’m gonna kill myself,’ or, ‘That guy should go kill himself,” and it’s really impactful on somebody who’s already sensitive to that,” said Hutson.
“I wish people knew how hard it is to function normally and hide problems of this magnitude, and not joke about it. it’s hard enough to get through the day without people telling you from all directions that it’s easy,” said a student with depression.
So why don’t they just get help? Students with any form of mental illness know it’s not that simple. A Fossil student with paranoia explained why they haven’t told their family, “I haven’t told them because it would cause another thing that they have to worry about. It would change their opinions of me in certain ways such as how the interact with me, how they want to ‘care for me.’” A student with depression reasoned, “I haven’t told my family, mostly because there’s already a lot of other things going on and I feel like I can handle this on my own without involving them or making things worse.”
Other students are more scared of how their friends might react, realizing the ways their illness could change their image. ‘I’m not very open about it at all. Most people have no idea I have severe depression. Honestly I don’t think people would accept it because most people don’t truly understand what severe depression is like. Also I feel like most people hear someone has depression and gets scared. They feel like people with depression are mean and will drag them down with them.”
Many stereotypes are made about teenagers with mental illnesses, how they bring down the mood or always talk about themselves, when in reality, most of the time these students blend right in with everybody else. “[Mental illness] isn’t something anyone chooses. We all have different types of disorders and no person is exactly the same in dealing with it and handling it. People assume that anyone with a disorder or illness is using it for attention when it’s the exact opposite of that, no one wants attention for having something ‘wrong’ with them. We can’t help it if we have something like depression or anxiety in our lives.”
“It’s not something that I can just snap out of. It’s truly an illness and is a chemical imbalance in your brain. And it’s not a choice. I don’t choose to be sad. I don’t choose to have nights where I’m so sad that I can’t even breathe. It’s not a choice.”
Fossil advertises its sense of community, but in order to achieve this, students must learn to be more accepting of each other and understand that other people are going through hardships, too. The student body must learn what mental illness is, and how it affects those who suffer from it.
