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It’s changed the way I read and everything I watch.
As a high school freshman at Winchester Thurston School, I have personally experienced the boom in conversations surrounding mental illness this year. We discuss it in class, and my friends and I talk about it. Growing up, I never realized how much what I see as a typical daily task or situation could affect another person who is struggling with mental illness. I never considered how one of my peers might negatively react to the things I am saying. I never thought that I would be in a situation where what I say might lead to another person taking their own life. The thought of it horrifies me.
I believe teenagers today are feeling a pressure that they have never experienced before.
Our generation uses social media more than any other generation before us. It’s easy to showcase our accomplishments and broadcast our highest moments. We are mostly exposed to our fellow students’ moments of happiness, making it hard for some not to dwell on what they wish was different about their lives. I’ve seen the effects of people who look at pictures of a toned girl in a bathing suit and then begin to hate their bodies. I have seen what happens after classmates look at pictures of classmates celebrating admission to Harvard. They ask themselves why they’re not good enough to get into a school like that.
The effects are brutal. Some students may feel like they’re worthless, like no matter how many times they go to the gym, they’ll never look like that fit girl, and no matter how many hours they spend studying, they’ll never get into that Ivy League school.
READ MORE AT:
https://www.publicsource.org/mental-illness-and-teens-its-hard-to-tell-who-is-joking-and-who-is-crying-for-help-whats-my-responsibility/
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