By Olivia P.
It was 2018, I was in the 10th grade, and it was just a perfectly normal school day for me...until it wasn't.
In an instant and with no warning, I felt myself going into an anxiety attack in the middle of class. This was something I was familiar with because I had experienced anxiety attacks before, but that didn’t make it any easier. I felt panicked, my chest was tightening, and it was becoming harder to breathe. I didn't know what to do. I felt stressed, upset, and more than anything: alone.
How did I get to this point?
Anxiety is something that I've been dealing with since I was about 13 years old. Since that time, school has been one of the most anxiety-inducing factors in my life. The large volume of people, the social aspect, the pressure of grades, the heavy workload...all of it felt very overwhelming and stressful to me.
I felt panicked, my chest was tightening, and it was becoming harder to breathe. I didn't know what to do. I felt stressed, upset, and more than anything: alone.
So, this instance wasn't my first time experiencing something like this. However, I had never had a strong anxiety attack like this during school hours. I didn't feel like I could tell my teacher because I didn't know how she (or my class) would react, and I was afraid of feeling embarrassment or shame. I thought about making up an excuse to go to the nurse, but I didn't know how the nurse would handle it either. I wanted to be able to tell her the truth so she could help me. However, I had friends in similar situations that had been met with a less than helpful response.
Instead, I felt like my only option was to silently wait for it to pass.
Anxiety is often treated as taboo. It's something a lot of people go through, but don't necessarily feel comfortable talking about. When I had this moment of anxiety in school, I found myself wishing that this wasn't the case. If the topic of anxiety wasn't surrounded by such an air of shame, maybe I wouldn't have felt like I couldn't tell anyone what was going on.
Two years later, during my senior year, I had another experience like this. However, on this occasion, I was watching it happen to someone else.
I was sitting in my 7th period dance class when my best friend walked in, visibly upset. When I asked her what was wrong, she told me that she was in the middle of a really bad anxiety attack. I hated seeing someone I loved so much go through that and feeling like there wasn't much I could do.
Two years later, during my senior year, I had another experience like this. However, on this occasion, I was watching it happen to someone else.
Luckily, a couple of our other friends were in that class, and our teacher was someone that we all trusted. This teacher was someone that we often went to with our problems, and she always made it clear that her room was a safe space. This allowed my friend to feel secure and comfortable talking about what she was experiencing. She hadn't felt like she could really talk about it until she got to our class. But things would've gone very differently for her if that hadn't been her next class, or if there weren't people that she felt she could turn to.
When I look back on these experiences, it makes me feel as if there needs to be a change regarding mental health awareness in schools. According to National Public Radio, out of the over 50 million children in public school, "as many as 1 in 5 show signs of a mental health disorder." However, nearly 80% of these students won’t receive the mental health assistance that they need. This is due to the lack of mental health resources in schools.
Currently, schools across the country have guidance counselors that students can meet with. However, recent findings show that the number of counselors is well below what it should be. According to the National Association of Secondary School Principals, by the 2014-2015 school year, there was one counselor for every 482 students, but the recommended ratio from the American School Counseling Association was one counselor for every 250 students. Furthermore, "data from the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights indicates that 1 in 5 high schools lack a school counselor," that source continues.
Personally, my school usually had 6-8 counselors, but they were often responsible for so many students that it never felt like a personal connection. It’s clear that there needs to be an increase in the amount of school counselors so that more students will be able to receive the attention and resources that they need.
It’s clear that there needs to be an increase in the amount of school counselors so that more students will be able to receive the attention and resources that they need.
At my school, they taught about issues like anxiety and depression, but only in optional courses like psychology. They covered these topics in an informational way, but never in a personal way that made people feel comfortable being open about their own experiences. I think this needs to change.
Schools should work to take the shame out of discussing mental health issues like anxiety, depression, and countless others. These topics need to be discussed more openly in order to break the stigma that surrounds them. I think that more schools should bring in mental health professionals that students can come and talk to during school. Maybe these professionals could come in one week out of each month, or maybe they could be given a more full-time position. Any student could go and discuss whatever they would like with this professional. This would allow students to feel less alone in dealing with their mental health, both in and out of school.
An alternative to this would be for schools to have their nurses and guidance counselors undergo training that specifically prepares them to properly deal with students that are struggling with their mental health. Teachers could also receive this training so that they would be able to recognize the symptoms of someone whose mental health is in distress. This would be another way of giving students someone to talk to when they have anxiety attacks, are struggling with depression, or are having some sort of other mental health crisis. I think all schools should implement some of these ideas and make dealing with mental health an openly discussed, shameless process.
There are students out there right now struggling because their mental health issues are causing them to feel ashamed, isolated, and scared. This can affect not only their performance in school, but also the course of the rest of their lives. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, “50% of all lifetime mental illness begins by age 14.” This shows how crucial it is that students receive the mental health resources they need.
If these resources were made available and students were encouraged to seek them out, I think students like me and many others I know would feel a lot less alone in their struggles and finally receive the help that they need.
Works Cited
Anderson, Meg, and Kavitha Cardoza. “A Silent Epidemic: The Mental Health Crisis In Our Schools.” NPR, NPR, 2016, apps.npr.org/mental-health/.
Anderson, Meg, and Kavitha Cardoza. “Mental Health In Schools: A Hidden Crisis Affecting Millions Of Students.” NPR, NPR, 31 Aug. 2016, www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/08/31/464727159/mental-health-in-schools-a-hidden-crisis-affecting-millions-of-students.
Heitler, Susan. “High School and College Student Anxiety: Why the Epidemic?” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 21 June 2018, www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/resolution-not-conflict/201806/high-school-and-college-student-anxiety-why-the-epidemic.
“Mental Health by the Numbers.” NAMI, Sept. 2019, www.nami.org/mhstats.
“Mental Health in Middle Level and High Schools.” NASSP, 16 June 2020, www.nassp.org/mental-health-in-middle-level-and-high-schools/.
Team, Providence Health. “Is Mental Health Neglected in Our Children's Schools?” Expert Tips and Advice for Living Your Healthiest Life, 16 Feb. 2020, blog.providence.org/archive/is-mental-health-neglected-in-our-children-s-schools.
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