Local high school students and graduates open up about mental health and suicide

A teen’s life is an unsettling mix of exhilaration and reticence.

We wear our hearts on our sleeves, love easily, yearn impossibly, prize spontaneity without regard to consequences, and race to make memories so that our youth really isn’t wasted on the young.

Yet we’re also prone to doubt and self-doubt. We compare ourselves to others and find ourselves wanting. We’re pushed to succeed without knowing exactly why or even what success is. We’re stressed because our parents are stressed and by events around us. In the end, we rarely reveal much of ourselves to anyone, for fear of disappointing friends and family or losing them to our truths. What we do share—what we feel safe sharing—is often the commonplace and unremarkable.

So whom do we trust when we’ve lost the confidence to trust even ourselves, when our ice is thin and cracking, and when the moment we’re in is too dark even to imagine a future beyond it?

After National Suicide Prevention Month, local youth were invited to complete an informal survey about mental health. Fifty Northwest Indiana high school students and graduates responded. The overwhelming consensus was that mental health is a conversation more people need to have.

The questions asked whether respondents had personal struggles they were willing to share, what advice had helped them, whether suicide had affected them and how the COVID-19 pandemic had affected their mental health. Respondents could identify themselves or remain anonymous.

Before a conversation about mental health can begin, it is important to understand that depression falls on a spectrum. It can involve misplaced priorities, sleepless nights, missed meals, repetitive music and good intentions that miss their mark. It can be present behind fake smiles and grueling schedules as well as drawn blinds and unchecked to-do lists. Depression does not discriminate: it can affect students from broken and intact families, high- and low-performing students, popular students and outliers.

Stigma makes the conversation more difficult. Depression is sometimes treated as weakness and therapy as failure, but respondents described depression as real and common and therapy as a practical form of treatment.

“Therapy is nothing to be ashamed of or embarrassed by, ever. I have gone to therapy for about nine months now, and I have felt more like myself than I have in the past three years.”

Another student said people can feel good and be happy while still struggling, and that this experience needs to be normalized.

Suicide and support at school

One concern emerged quickly from the survey: respondents had little faith in their schools as allies. They saw little evidence that schools welcomed conversations about mental health and believed schools had failed to acknowledge suicide adequately.

One senior anonymously described struggling without support from school, family, therapists or an available program. Another student said schools needed to be more direct about suicide prevention and provide stronger support systems. A respondent also observed that academic stress and overwhelming periods at school could worsen students’ distress.

The pandemic’s effect

The COVID-19 pandemic took a serious toll on respondents’ mental health. One graduate described acute anxiety at work before masks were required. Another graduate said she felt blank and unmotivated and could see similar strain among friends and family.

“If you are going through a mental rough patch and your productivity suffers, that is okay, and you are not any less worthy than before. You are not your illness.”

A number of respondents spoke candidly about suicidal thoughts or attempts and about losing friends or loved ones to suicide. Their accounts emphasized that recovery is not linear, that setbacks do not make someone a failure and that a person may not recognize how much they matter to others while they are in crisis.

“Progress is never a straight line. Sometimes life gets hard and your mental health gets bad again, but that never makes you a failure.”

Others asked people to listen rather than minimize, accuse or push someone to hide their experiences. Respondents repeatedly emphasized continuing through the hardest periods, even when hope or a reason to continue was difficult to see.

Seek help: you’re not alone

When even a few people are willing to describe their experience of depression, others can begin to realize that they are not alone and do not need to go through it alone.

“No matter how many close friends I have, I still feel a type of loneliness that is difficult to explain. But struggling with your own mental health is not something you should do alone. Ever.”

“Don’t look at each moment you feel your mental illness impacting you as taking a step back. Give it time. You are stronger than it. It just takes patience with yourself.”

“I know it’s a cliché, but you’re not alone. Talk to people about how you’re feeling. One day, they’ll save you from something you can’t undo.”

Students suggested holding onto concrete things to anticipate: a sports game next week, a family dinner tomorrow or a game coming out next month. Others emphasized that help is available and that people affect the lives around them in ways they may not recognize.

One graduate who had reached the other side of a crisis said getting better required difficult personal work, but that life eventually led to experiences that once seemed unimaginable.

The purpose of the survey was to begin a conversation in which everyone has a role. A teen contemplating suicide needs to hear that an impossibly bleak moment can change with time. Sometimes support begins with a listening ear, a word of encouragement or a small expression of appreciation. Life is hard, people can be cruel and our own reflections are often the harshest critics. Honest conversation can help make that burden less solitary.