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"I've learned that its okay to have a bad day. It is okay. Some days you just feel sad and that is normal. Don't beat yourself up over being or feeling not okay. Accept it, do what you need to make yourself feel better and let yourself feel that. If its affecting your life in bigger ways reach out and get help. But its okay to just have an off day and its okay to acknowledge that."
"To me, mental health is the relationship I have with myself. Am I at war with myself? I constantly feel I am lacking motivation, I can't complete school work. I'm not involved in extracurriculars either, I essentially waste all of my time. I have the desire to do well in school and no matter how much the schools tells us and my parents and teachers tell me how I need grit, self regulation, et cetera, I can't find the drive to do anything beneficial for myself in the long run. Comparing myself to others is one of the worst things to do because I know that I don't measure up. I wonder when it got this bad, I'm academically withdrawn".
"I love so many people here at BSS, so I feel guilty to say this, but at times the adults in my life can seem like the 'other'. A force moving against me, that will not ever understand when I don't work at all for nights in a row, or close off to the world and get lost in myself, trying to work out the terrible feelings or emptiness inside me. The only thing I pick up from the lectures is that I'm being irresponsible, which seems fair enough, even to me. But I want to be responsible. I don't want to be the kid who misses opportunities because of being obstinate or don't-carish. I want to succeed. And, to me, that means at least being happy, and I just can't equate it with what I've been feeling for the past few years. How do my buddies make it through? Are they happy?"
"Locked in a doorless room of constant trance I search for reason. A room that should be so physically impossible to enter or leave is where I lay staring at the sky. My clouded mind looses track of time. Only time does not exist in this trance, not in this realm. There is only one constant state. A state that cannot be described, but is merely reflected between the seemingly endless walls of self-loathing, conflict, self inflicted apathy, and growing narcism. Beneath me is the floor of depleting empathy which exponentially falls below my body. It seems I have build these walls and dug the floor myself. However, I lack the physical evidence of this. My body is not worn out, I have no bruises or no visible scars. It must be my mind back at it again. No one else can see my room, no one can enter it and no one can understand it. It doesn't exist. I try to tell myself this everyday. There is no point in trying to explain this to anyone they simply would not understand. I close my eyes. Hoping to escape. Only, when I close my eyes, I truly loose myself, I lose track of what is real and what is not. Now in the darkness of my mind I see my thoughts, colder and bleaker than imagined. There is no escaping my mind. My stupid, fake, and impenetrable mind. Where am I? What am I even doing? Even writing this I feel dumb, selfish, and weak. I have no reason to write this, no excuses for this pain. I have created the darkness in which I live, alone, forever. I have got so much to see, so much to prove, god don't let me loose my mind".
"The unrealistic expectations instilled either by school or by parents are reflected in the words of some of my friends: "I got half a mark off my test for this one stupid mistake!" "I know, I'm never going to get into [insert prestigious university name]!" I hear such conversation too often, and as my goals gradually change over the years from high marks to happiness, I realize more and more how destroyed my friends' mental health is becoming. Sometimes they do not even recognize it; they trod along and deny that they are stressed to the point of losing touch with their values. I worry. Not only about them, of course, but about myself, and whether the world really will expect of me those high marks, instead of a desire to make something wonderful happen, or to pursue happiness in its every form".
"I think BSS is trying to change the way they approach mental health to make an environment that is more beneficial to all members of the community. But I still think that as a community we are not willing to sacrifice our own feeling of comfort and make difficult to decisions that are necessary for a real change to happen. We expect students to cope with stress (and obviously sometimes it can be positive as it can act as motivation and is natural) and fulfill these unrealistic goals of being a perfect student. As a school we need to make the difficult changes that aren't necessarily convenient but are essential if we want to change the lives of students by changing a whole communities mentality about mental health".
"Being a student is overwhelming. Sometimes I don't know if I'm working so hard to make myself happy, or to keep up this "image" of me I want other people to see. Constantly being put under stress makes me feel no longer like a kid. I can't tell if I'm mentally or physically tired anymore. Probably both. I don't have time to do the things I love. Sometimes I feel the need to scream. Can high school be over already?"
"I think BSS is trying to change the way they approach mental health to make an environment that is more beneficial to all members of the community. But I still think that as a community we are not willing to sacrifice our own feeling of comfort and make difficult to decisions that are necessary for a real change to happen. We expect students to cope with stress (and obviously sometimes it can be positive as it can act as motivation and is natural) and fulfill these unrealistic goals of being a perfect student. As a school we need to make the difficult changes that aren't necessarily convenient but are essential if we want to change the lives of students by changing a whole communities mentality about mental health".
I try to maintain my mental health by getting eight hours of sleep, but with all the homework and extracurriculars, it just makes me constantly fall behind. I guess it's my fault for doing so many extracurriculars, but still, the pressure to do well (get over 90% or whatever) makes me feel like a total failure too often. Failure is an event, not a person, and the middle school makes a big point of promoting a growth mindset, but I still feel like I am sometimes being judged or given a dirty look when I don't do well. Or turn something in late. Responsibility, yada yada, but I can't keep up and get enough sleep. It's either sleep and be energized and fall behind, or work and wake up tired and be tired at school and fall behind. I've heard that sleep is more important than homework, but I don't think that's being backed up.  |