Most of the people around me don't understand mental health. I mean, people understand the concept of getting help for someone they think is suicidal, but that's about it. All too often, when I'm having a bad depression day, most people either put on the kid gloves or ignore me completely. For the record, both of those reactions tend to be more harmful than helpful, at least for me. Putting on the kid gloves makes me feel suffocated; just because I'm having a bad day, doesn't mean that my world is going to collapse. Not to say that I couldn't use a little support, or at least something less than avoidance, which is what I get more often than anything else. Junior year was the worst for me depression-wise. My depressive mood was at its height and it took nearly a year to find the right medications. I cried at the drop of a hat, which often led to crying through classes because, quite frankly, if I hadn't gone to class every time I cried, I probably would have missed half my classes that year. And everyone around me avoided me in every way possible. And the preexisting feelings of not fitting in were only reinforced. Over a year later, I had a day where, completely exhausted and stressed, I knew I had reached that point where I was going to burst into tears. I escaped to the nearest bathroom as quickly as possible, had my breakdown, and couldn't stop. That's when the anxiety started to get really bad. More recently, when I hit those breaking points, it comes down to two options: I relax and succumb to endless tears or I tense up and have a panic attack. Neither is fun; both are exhausting. But I generally choose the panic attack, the lesser of two evils because the exhausting effects don't last as long and because, when I'm around people, I don't feel so alienated. I'm still working through things, especially with my social anxiety. I'm hoping to see a counselor again at come point once I'm done with school. And even though I'm continuing to discover things about myself and my own struggles, life just doesn't allow me the time to work through stuff right now.
I've been thinking a lot lately about what the lowest points have been like. Experiencing all these things through college hasn't been easy. Most of my peers haven't been helpful in that process. I'm not sure the reason why. For a long time I blamed it on the music major, but that can't be the whole problem seeing as one of the people I struggled most interacting with is a psychology major. And even the music majors who were difficult to deal with are music education majors; someday they're going to have students with a mental health issue step into their classrooms, and I can only hope that the student is better dealt with than I've been. And then I realize that it's not necessarily entirely the fault of the people who I've had bad experiences with. Because something else I've learned over the past couple of years is the few people I can really go to when I'm struggling with my own mental health are the people who are already well-informed about mental health in general, most of whom have dealt with their own mental health struggles.
Our society is seriously uninformed about mental health issues. As I mentioned previously, most people recognize the concept that suicidal=bad, but most people don't understand how mental health really works an what it's like to live with mental health issues.
Living with mental health issues isn't an easy road. It can take years for symptoms to get bad enough for anyone to realize that there's a problem. And once something is diagnosed, it can take months to find the right medication. Not to mention the long counseling process, both in discovering the core issues and figuring out how to work through and past those. It's not an easy fix, no matter the problem. It's long and difficult and sometimes painful work that's not easy to do and that takes time.
Furthermore, most people in the world don't want to be around people who can't pretend that life is perfect all the time. Which, in my case at least, meant that when I needed support the most was when most of my "friends" on campus started avoiding me, only making problems worse.
And the problem is, no one really understand mental health. We're taught about the big issues: eating disordered, cutting, suicidal depression, but not about the things that seem milder. What about anxiety? Social anxiety? Milder forms of depression? A whole other list of mental health issues? We don't learn much or anything about those. I mean, I thought I was going to at some point in my education classes at least. But I'm finding that even as I look at the syllabi of my final education classes, there's nothing. I'm sitting classes about special education and diversity and how things that we do as teachers may affect students in ways we aren't aware of, and areas such as mental health are being left out entirely. It became most aware to me in my diversity class tonight when we did an activity about different social statuses in which some groups were supposed to try to be very interactive while one group stayed to themselves most of the time. I was in a more interactive group, and, what honestly made me most uncomfortable about the activity, was being forced to be outgoing. I would have killed to be part of the shunned group in order to be allowed to just keep to myself. Does that mean that I should be allowed to hide behind my anxiety and never have to take the outgoing role? Certainly not. But should teachers be aware of the thoughts going through minds of students like me? Most certainly. The difference between mental health and the topics I'm learning about is that mental health issues can be overcome. But they can't be overcome if they're never identified. And how can they be identified when the general population is unaware of them? My quality of life would probably be better today if I had had a teacher who recognized that the reason I never answer questions or participate in discussions in class unless absolutely necessary is more than being shy or being apathetic but because I feel an intense fear and physical sickness in those situations, and even greater embarrassment if I'm ever wrong. And I can't help feeling that I'm not the only one.
Not that just teachers or school-workers should be aware of mental health issues. The general lack of information in society has caused a stigma against people with mental health issues. I never used that word to describe it until recently, but it's true. Because there's a reason that I to this day am very careful who I trust telling about my depression and social anxiety. There's a reason that I'm always afraid someone will see me when I step into the counseling center on campus. There's a reason that conversations grow awkward when I discuss mental health with most people.
But that doesn't mean it always has to be that way. It's time to make a change.
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