Good Company

I got some really good feedback on my last post (thanks everyone!) and it made me realize that I left out one super important fact.  For all of you who were, are, or ever will be dealing with mental health issues (so roughly billions of people), you are not alone.  Everyone goes through stuff.  Everyone. Everyone has their own story.  I don't mean to diminish your struggles.  I just want you to know that, should you ever find yourself in a dark place, you CAN talk to people about it.  I guarantee that whomever you chose to talk to has felt the same way at some point.  They will not diminish you or look down on you because they are you.

When I was younger I went to school with 4 girls who were all BFF's. I called them the Perfect 4. Perfect hair, perfect smiles, perfect GPA's, perfect families, perfect futures to look forward to at the perfect colleges.  Just completely and disgustingly perfect.  I'll admit I avoided them like the plague because I could never live up to their perfect brand of perfection.  I didn't want to be the bad guy for hating them, so I convinced myself that it was them that hated me. I was homely with an average GPA and a very lower middle class family.  I didn't have tons of friends.  I wasn't extraordinary in any way.  They must have thought I was beneath them, right?

I was wrong (duh).  Each member of the Perfect 4 had their own shit that they were dealing with.  I won't go into details because those aren't my stories to tell.  Just know that they were each lugging around their own baggage.  I don't know if they talked about it amongst themselves, but I have a feeling they didn't.  I know I didn't discuss my depression and anxiety with any of my friends (except for maybe Amy but that's because, as my BFF, she was technically just an extension of me and not a separate human being).

High school is rough, folks.  At my last reunion I asked people the age old question, If you could go back and do high school again, would you?  The answer is a resounding NO.  No from the band nerds, no from the drama geeks, no from the athletes, no from the cheerleaders.  Just no.  No one wants to go through high school again.  You live with your parents, you probably don't have a car, you have no money, and you have little to no say in what happens in your life.  Worst of all, wear the wrong jeans or shirt just once or get caught talking to someone not within your feudal circle and life as you know it is over.

As teenagers we like to think that our parents are clueless and have absolutely no idea what high school is like today.  It's so cute that teenagers think that way.  It's even more adorable that every generation of teenagers has felt this way since the dawn of high school, and that each generation thinks that things are different for them.  I'll admit that my parents didn't have Facebook or Instagram, but that just meant they had less opportunity to embarrass themselves publicly, thus rendering themselves social pariahs.

While I do believe that individuals can change, I do not think that the human condition will.  In high school everyone is pretending to be okay and just trying not to stand out.  Except the nerds.  This is one area where the nerds have it up on everyone else.  They already know that they are permanent outcasts so they are free to live their teen years however they choose.  They don't have a stake in the game.  Except the clueless nerds like me that thought they might have a chance of being upgraded from a life on the D list.  Silly, silly me...

Here's a little secret that might help.  You can pretty much bank on the fact that every person in your school feels just like you.  All of you are tiptoeing the line between 'healthy, happy emotional state' and 'Oh God!  Kelsie just frowned at me.  What does that mean???  Am I wearing the wrong color today?  It is pink day, right?  Am I out?  I'm going to have to change schools!  Aaarrrggghhh!  What does that look mean???'  Calm now.  Kelsie didn't even notice you.  She's just eating lunch.  Her mom packed her a tuna salad sandwich and she hates tuna salad.  Or maybe she just has resting bitch face.  Regardless, IT ISN'T ALWAYS ABOUT YOU.

Whew.  Felt good to get that off my chest.  I don't know how my parents survived having 2 teenage daughters in high school at the same time without killing us.

But back to my original point. You are not alone.  You all feel anxious and insecure and just generally 'less than'.  All of you.  Even Kelsie.  But you teens, and the teens from my day (Go Rams!  C/O '97!), and all the ghosts of High School Past have felt the same insecurities.  No one talks about it because everyone believes that talking about it will cause people to look down on you or belittle you.  It's really a shame, because that's not true at all.  Maybe if I had talked to the Perfect 4 all those years ago I would have figured that out.

Sadly, us grown-ups carry those same insecurities around with us long after graduation.  The great irony of mental illness is that people hold it inside  and refuse to talk about it without ever realizing that all those people they are afraid of are holding in the same secret.  It's not like a heroin addiction or a felony conviction (not looking down on either of them; just needed an example).  This is a universal condition.  It doesn't take anything away from you.  It doesn't limit what you can accomplish.  The only way mental health issues will limit you is if you don't get help. It's exhausting.  Please.  I'm begging you.  Ask for help.  From a friend, from family, from a professional.  You aren't alone so don't feel like you have to go through it alone.  You owe it to the world to put the luggage down and go out there and show us what you've got.

The Lost Generation

I stumbled upon this meme today. My first reaction was, 'Yes! They should do that!'  Then I started reading the comments accompanying the post.  Man are people ever heated about this topic.  What I hope to be just a very vocal minority blames people for shirking the responsibility of parenting and leaving it up to educators.  I'll give an example of the mindless prattle being ignorantly spewed forth.  I think it sums up the emotions of the peanut gallery rather nicely: 

Why is it the school's responsibility to raise our children and teach them the things parents should be? Come on people! Wake up and teach your children these things! No one else should be responsible for it but the parents. If the parents can't handle it, then maybe they shouldn't have been one to begin with. --Jenn Fulton

Dear Jenn: No, some people shouldn’t be parents to begin with.  But that doesn’t stop stupid people from breeding.  Do you really want to deny a scared teenager help just because his/her parents are tools?  Maybe you’re the one who needs to ‘wake up’.

Children don’t decide what circumstances they are born into.  They don’t get to pick their parents.  They don’t choose to be born into poverty or abuse.  They can't control if their parents are present or absent, whether physically or emotionally.  I completely agree that parents SHOULD be responsible for raising and protecting their children.  But what should be, more often than not, is not what is.

So, let's all just agree that children deserve help from someone and that that someone might not necessarily be a parent.

That being said, let's address the kids themselves.  We as a society have already decided that we need to talk to our teens about sex (or abstinence), drugs, peer pressure, and bullying.  Why are we so afraid to talk about mental health?  Topics like depression and anxiety have been clouded in shame and this does a severe disservice to our children.

I didn't have the best childhood, but I knew that my parents loved me.  They told me I was smart and beautiful and capable of great things.  But I didn't believe them.  I spent my every waking moment comparing myself to the kids that I felt were smarter than me (I'm looking at you, Shannon). and the kids that were prettier than me (like Kelly's natural beauty) and the ones I felt were more capable of great things than I would ever be (if only I had Damon's talent).  My parents spent so much time telling me how great I am, but they never stopped to ask how I felt about the matter.  My mother was of the Tom Cruise school of thought when it came to psychiatry.  If you're sad, just think about something else.  Therapy and drugs are for quitters.  She never once discussed mental health in a positive manner with me.

So each day my parents would tell me I was smart and beautiful and capable of great things, just like good parents should.  Then they would pat me on the head and push me out the door and off to school to fend for myself.  And each day I would get a little more depressed and anxious, which I had been taught was a weakness, so I felt a little more worthless.  Each day I left another little piece of myself on that front stoop while I silently cried out to be allowed back inside.  

Please don't misunderstand; I'm not blaming my parents.  They did the best they knew how.  I just truly wish that they had been able to talk to me.  Or that I felt I was allowed to talk to them.  Luckily the world has changed a little since I left home almost 20 years ago. Now I speak openly about my struggles with anxiety and depression.  I take medication and I see a therapist.  I am not a bad person, or a weak person, or less of a person because of it.  And neither is anyone else.

I know it's a difficult topic, but I beg of all of you, please talk to the kids in your life about mental health.  I don't care if it's your kids, your nieces and nephews, your best friend's kids, kids at church, whatever.  If you see a teen is struggling, please throw them a rope. Don't just hope someone else will notice and intervene.   Also, don't be surprised if they push your hand away.  They may not be ready to talk about it, but at least you can plant a seed of hope.  Let them know that you will be there to help when they are ready.  

Maybe you feel it's not your place to butt in.  Maybe you feel it should be their parents' responsibility.  Maybe you're right.  But what I hope I've been able to communicate here is that it doesn't matter who SHOULD reach out.  All that matters is that someone does. 

--shared compliments of Crissy Gwinn