In Honor of National Children's Mental Health Awareness Day

This evening I learned that today is National Children's Health Awareness Day. I didn't even know that such a thing existed - but I'm glad it does. Because there shouldn't have to be any more kids like me.
I'm fairly confident that I've had social anxiety since at least the time I was in 2nd grade. That year I learned that I grew a pit in my stomach every time my teacher reprimanded anyone in the class. That was also the first time I struggled to find friends at school; I mean, I had friends, but none of them were in my class, and for whatever reason I was unable to make new, lasting friendships with my classmates - this issue persisted throughout my time in elementary school. By the end of the year, I would make "friends" - but none of them stuck around if we weren't in the same class the following year. But that particular year, I had a good teacher who I think was probably instrumental in the fact that I wound up spending some time with the school counselor in a "friendship club" with some other girls in my class who happened to be new to the school that year - I never realized that such a thing may have had something to do with my mental health until my new counselor asked me if I had ever been in a group like that.
But beyond that first year, things took a general turn for the worse. My fear of authority figures was solidified in my third grade teacher who had little tolerance for my personality; between her and my rocky neighborhood friendships, I spent many a Monday intentionally giving myself a stomachache by swallowing as much air as possible until I complained of feeling sick enough that my mom would let me stay home. This ended when my parents brought me to the doctor for my persistent stomach aches; I figured I was in trouble, so I stopped using that technique to get out of going to school.
In future years, I had better teachers who at least allowed me to feel safe in school, but school was still an anxiety-causing environment. I loved learning but wanted little to do with my classmates. Each time that I struggled to fit in and find friends, I became more anxious in social situations. And even in elementary school, I remember dropping an extracurricular project because I feared the portion that required me to talk to strangers (people working at stores).
Life got better when I hit junior high - unlike most people, I count junior high as the best three years of my childhood. What made the difference? I was in honors classes surrounded by other smart kids who, because they were like me, didn't ridicule me for my academic excellence or for every time I was anything less than perfect. Additionally, I found my niche in the weekly before-school Bible study that consisted primarily of people who I already counted as friends; we shared our faith with each other, and, unlike my peers at my own church, these people thought it was cool to have strong faiths and be super-involved in church activities.
But when I hit high school, my mental health took a severe turn for the worse. I spent my sophomore year beginning 4 of 5 school days each week in a hostile classroom environment led by a teacher who put down everything that I believed in. I spent at least 2-3 days each week in tears. Junior year had a chance at being better until my choir director committed suicide and, though I wasn't one of the inner circle choir kids, a part of my world fell apart. Except I felt like I didn't have the right to feel so broken about it because I wasn't one of the inner-circle choir kids. At about the same time I discovered the great corruption that lay in the inner workings of my church, and the one stable part of my life fell apart as well. It was around this time that my mom figured out that I had mental health issues, but I was in denial and rejected any help that she tried to bring me. I figured I was just over-sensitive and prone to crying a lot. But the kicker to me is the fact that no one else seemed to notice.
I feel like someone else should have known by this point that my mental health was not okay. I cried through the same classes so many times, shouldn't at least one of my teachers noticed and done something? Not that they would have known how to help, but at the very least couldn't one of them have contacted my counselor about meeting with me. (Given, my counselor canceled every appointment my parents tried to set up for me, so maybe that's where the blame lies...) But no one ever reached out enough to help me. Only twice did teachers ever pull me aside to chat about what was going on (and I'm pretty sure one of those was only because he thought his reprimand was the sole reason I was crying...) I do have confidence that one other teacher may have reached out to me, but by pure chance the only day I ever cried through her class was a day that she happened to be gone.
Yet at the same time, I think that the social anxiety came long before the depression - may have even led to the depression (as my depression symptoms have often been triggered by embarrassment and/or criticism). And, beyond my many intentional sick days in 3rd grade, I internalized the anxiety I was feeling. By the time I hit high school and symptoms of depression began to show, my brain was already greatly set in its ways.

I wish someone had noticed earlier.

We don't think of children as people who would live with mental illness. Mental illness doesn't seem to hit the radar until people hit adolescence or adulthood. But I was 7 years old the first time that I experienced consistent anxiety in social situations. But I don't think anyone thought to look for it - even knew that it could be an issue for me at such a young age.
And as I got older, I was so highly functional that I don't think anyone realized how bad my mental health issues were. I was a quiet, non-disruptive child who didn't need a lot of attention. Academically, I was a top student - excelling through elementary school, earning a single non-A (A-) in junior high, pulling a 3.9 unweighted GPA through high school and a 3.94 through 5 years of college and a double education major that included two semesters of credit overloads. But what I don't think people realized was that schoolwork was my coping mechanism. As long as I had homework to do, I could ignore the rest of my problems - the conflicts with people and fear that anyone might see me as something less than perfect that caused me such great anxiety could be stuffed away as long as I had homework to keep my mind busy. I was rarely absent, and only fell from functional when homework and anxiety-causing situations were too intertwined for me to compartmentalize them. Even my on-campus counselor praised how functional I was. But that didn't make my issues any better. It just pushed them away for me to deal with when I lost my schoolwork coping mechanism.
Hello first year of teaching. Though I still have schoolwork to do every night, I now feel that all eyes are on my every move. My work affects more than just me now, and the possible judgement that could come at any moment from my administrators, colleagues, parents, and even students scares the crap out of me. And my newest coping mechanism is to get lost in the stories of TV shows and movies, which takes away from my work time, causing me to stay up later, get less sleep, and therefore be even more prone to awful bouts of anxiety and depression. A few weeks ago, I made it to school only to leave again because I realized I couldn't be a functional teacher that day. There are some days I don't know how I make it from my van to the school building in the morning. Other days I dash into my office between classes to have a panic attack, a couple of times even needing to have a colleague cover my class until I could settle enough to be a functional teacher.
I'm finally to a point where I'm working through my anxiety and depression with a counselor and am working to retrain my brain to act like a normal person's. But I've spent over 15 years of my life falling into my current habits, and habits of over 15 years are tough to break.

I wish someone had noticed earlier.

I don't want there to be more kids like me. I want to live in a world where we detect and treat mental illness early. Because having to start dealing with mental health issues as an adult after the issues have persisted for the majority of one's life is a steep task - and it's preventable.
I do the best I can on my own. As a teacher, the students that I know struggle with mental health issues are especially close to my heart, and I keep special watch over them. And while I know that I can't expect myself to catch everything, I know that if a kid showed up in my classroom in tears 2-3 days a week, I'd at least contact their counselor. But, unfortunately, I've found that more often than not the people who are working to be aware that other people in their lives might be dealing with mental illness are the ones who are dealing with mental illness themselves. My mom was the one who saw my depression - and she struggles with depression herself. My greatest mentor was the one who worried that my perfectionism, the pressure I put on myself, and my tendency to take on more than I could handle would lead me to have anxiety issues - only after she was diagnosed with anxiety herself. And the people who have most often offered support for me as I work through my anxiety and depression are people who struggle with mental illness themselves. The people who haven't dealt with mental illness haven't always been as supportive. When I finally realized I should be evaluated for depression, one of my friends tried to convince me that I didn't have depression. When I was struggling with anxiety, some of my Christian friends were certain that the anxiety would disappear if I read my Bible and prayed more. And it took even until recent months for me to get my dad to understand how much anxiety I have over seemingly easy everyday tasks like calling to make a doctor's appointment or asking a store employee where I can find something. Even when talking about mental health in my education classes, many of my classmates stated that they wouldn't take much action with a sullen withdrawn student who's not a classroom management issue, even though the student in the scenario seemed to have symptoms of depression. From what I've seen - if you haven't dealt with mental health issues, they're either off your radar or you have to work extremely hard to understand them.
I want the world to be more aware of mental health issues (and to stop judging and stereotyping people with mental health issues, but I'll save that topic for another day). But even more so, I want to world to be aware of children who have mental health issues. Because it's easier to retrain a 7-year-old brain than an almost-24-year-old brain. And I don't want any child to have to go through what I have.