Getting Teen Mental Health Support Was Hard; Choosing to Help Other Students Was Easy

I’ve struggled with anxiety for years, nearly all my life, and when I reached high school I began to hit a boiling point. I would struggle with daily anxiety, tear at my fingers until they bled, peel at my lips, and have mental break downs and panic attacks.

Towards the middle of my sophomore year I realized I couldn’t keep going on the way I was. I reached out to my counselor for help but I didn’t receive the response or support I needed. Even when I emphasized I needed mental health support I wasn’t able to receive any help until my mom reached out for me, expressing her concern.

By this point my family had taken things into their own hands and I began to see a therapist outside of school. I had to experiment to find a therapist who worked for me, and I eventually found one that has been able to drastically improve my life.

Starting therapy at this phase of my life was a bit of a struggle on its own. I didn’t have any friends who were open about any persistent mental health struggles and so I didn’t know who to turn to so that I could talk about my experiences. Even though I was getting help I felt alone and separated from everyone else.

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I will be the guest on a show hosted by Neil Parekh and Dawn Helmrich Neuburg, “Shining Light on Shadows: A Candid Conversation About Mental Health.” Ep. 36 will focus on Teen Mental Health and be livestreamed Thursday, September 11 at 7pm ET / 6pm ET. You can watch the recording on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or YouTube.

*Facebook is currently experiencing technical difficulties. If the show is not available on this link, please watch on a different channel. We won't know the exact urls for Twitter or Instagram until we go live on Thursday. For now, these links go to Neil's Twitter and Instagram. You can watch the recording right here or click on the links above to watch on social media and comment on the show.

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Therapy was able to help me for a little while, but when the pressures of academics, extracurriculars, and just everyday life picked up I couldn’t handle it anymore. A demanding urge for perfection made it impossible for me to take a step back, to give myself a break.

I would have periods of time where existing felt exhausting. I felt as though being alive was a tremendous struggle, and I was having a hard time coming up with reasons why it was worth it. It took a lot to pull me out of this whirlpool that was suffocating me. What truly helped was getting a diagnosis of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and beginning to take medication that changed my life.

When I began to combine medication and therapy, I felt as happy as I used to be in elementary school. My friends, family, and even my teachers could sense a difference in me. The perfectionism that plagued me started to ease, the panic attacks all but disappeared, I felt that I could make time to exist and be a teenager again.

When I stumbled into this sense of calm and control over my OCD I decided it was time for me to help those around me. Because I had managed to find help on my own, I saw the holes in the system that students are forced to rely on for mental health support. When I started to do some research I was able to find resources and organizations that specifically try to help students.

In my Junior year, the work of some of those organizations (specifically Work 2 Be Well, and Morgan’s Message) inspired me to start my own Mental Health Campaign in my school. I work to host events, promote conversations, and provide resources to my community. In our first year we had 5 events, we put up hundreds of flyers, and I even worked with NAMI to raise over $1000 for their organization (the largest student fundraiser Northern Virginia NAMI has had).

Our events focus on providing a safe community for students while also setting them up with tools if they ever find themselves in a mental health crisis. Events we’ve hosted discuss the importance of emotions, the connection between physical and mental health, and positive coping strategies. These events have brought our community together, raised funds, and encouraged students to speak up.

Now, as a Senior, we’re starting the second year of the Mental Health Campaign. We are hoping to host even more events. We've started a school wide newsletter that has over 160 people receiving mental health resources directly to their inbox. The hope is that students know they have a place to be themselves and reach out to the help they may need.

In my darkest moments, I found a way to harness a passion and drive to help others. I strive every day to help someone; whether it is by having non-emergency hotline numbers on my instagram, hosting an event, attending a mental health training, or being a shoulder for my peers, I try to make an impact daily.

I hope that if you see yourself in what I’ve said, you know you’re not alone. I hope that one day, you’ll be able to look back on the struggles you’ve gone through and say them out loud. There was a time that I would burst into tears merely writing these words down, now, I’ve spoken them to hundreds of people and I’m proud. I’m not ashamed of my mind; I’m proud of what I’ve overcome.

You are not alone. You matter. You are loved, and tomorrow needs you.