By Jolina Sutherland

Mental health. A topic that has become a lot less stigmatized in the past few years. As something that we all struggle with and something we could all work on, adults, teens, and kids can all relate on this topic. The CDC describes mental health as, “our emotional, psychological, and social well-being.” Emotional, psychological, and social well-being are three things that cannot be untangled from one another which makes the issue of mental health that much harder. Some of us are affected by our home life, school, work, and our daily activities. According to an article posted by the CDC in 2019, “1 in 3 high school students had experienced persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness,” and “...approximately 1 in 6 youth reported making a suicide plan in the last year,” these numbers aren’t surprising and didn’t improve during the Covid-19 Pandemic. The CDC also reported that from 2019-2021, the amount of adults (ages 18 - 44) who have received mental health help has increased by 4.7%. If mental health is something we can all relate to then why is it so hard to talk about? 

I think the answer is simple. We’re lying to ourselves. As a society we are told that we have an obligation to each other in order to succeed. We have to go to school or we won’t go to college. If we don’t go to college we won’t get a job, and if we don’t get a job, we fail. Failure is the ultimate fear. So in order to avoid failure we neglect our own mental health and we even disregard others. I attend Franklin High School. Our school is the number one school in the state for academics. Our curriculums are rigorous, and anything but easy. As Franklin students, we have a different type of pressure sitting on our shoulders. We have a reputation to uphold and we're reminded of it everyday. 

The perception of Franklin students outside of our school community is that we’re all drug abusing, smart, depressed teenagers. At least we’re smart, right? This is how Franklin treats the issue. They tell us, “You are all Franklin students, you can do it” and “You go to the best school in the state, you should be proud.” We have many things to be proud of, but at what cost? Mental health, although talked about and recognized, is still neglected in our own school community here at Franklin. 

When asked about the culture surrounding mental health at our school, the opinion was clear. Mental health is an issue but it isn't treated with the same initiative and urgency as other issues at our school. Each student here deals with different combinations of issues and responsibilities which means we all need different types of support. It's not that the support we receive at school isn't good, but it's insufficient. Each student I talked to shared a different concern and a different perspective in which to approach the problem. Jason is a straight A honor student who is also a member of the varsity basketball team. When asked about the culture around mental health at our school, he said, “They [administration] definitely try to emphasize mental health. Like they’ll tell you, “ you can go talk to your counselors, get a friend group, someone you can talk to.” But I don’t feel like with the work that they give us, the assignments that they do, with the deadlines that they try to meet, they don’t care about it as much as they say they do. ” The never ending cycle of work piles on to teachers and they dump it onto us, at least that’s how it feels. 

Playing a sport and maintaining an A average isn’t easy. A new season can bring on extra stress, anxiety, responsibility, and it just takes more energy. Jason also spoke to how he juggles both his sport and academics and he says, “They tried to work your schedule around the fact that you’re a student athlete, a little bit, but as far as teachers and assignments go like, we have practice at 5:30 in the morning and my first period teachers don’t really care about that…especially on B days, I have english right after practice so I’m tired, I wanna close my eyes a little bit, although I know I have to do the work, its–its not like they're taking that into consideration that much.” As student athletes we know the extra time, work, and energy that our seasons bring and we’re willing to sacrifice a normal sleep schedule, less anxiety, and our bodies because we love our sport. On the flipside I think it is the responsibility of our school community, counselors, teachers, coaches, and peers, to support each other. 

It's important to acknowledge the “they” that we refer to so much. Frances, a fellow classmate of mine and student athlete, summed up “they” the best. She said “We don’t know who administration is. How can we feel comfortable with them if we don’t even know them.” We hear a lot of “administration this, administration that” but it almost feels like administration exists as an entity and not as a group of people who can sympathize and see us for more than statistics that raise their school’s achievement bar. The truth of the matter is we don’t feel cared about at Franklin High School. A place where a letter grade is valued more than eight hours a sleep. The culture around Franklin was already built and we assimilated into it. It’s time to have a real conversation around mental health and stop sweeping it under the rug. We know that it’s unrealistic for administration alone to account for and cater to every student's single need, but we can try. 

It’s true that as people we can point out millions of problems, but finding solutions isn’t as easily done. Mr. Tran is a counselor at our school and he is also an alum. When asked what type of resources he’d like to see available to students at Franklin and he said, “Probably have a more open honest conversation with students, but also staff as well…If we’re going to promote this place as a safe space, we also need to have that uncomfortable, yet honest, truthful conversation about mental health.” He then goes on to suggest we have more mental health professionals available to us, so that as students we have someone to talk to. As Franklin students we are able to write three page essays, unpacking the lifelong trauma of a book character, but we constantly disregard the humanity within each other. We can’t always read each other’s life stories, but we can try to build a community that wants to understand each other. We have to talk and we have to want to understand each other. Students have to want to work with teachers and teachers have to want to work with us. Like I said, we can point out a million problems, but when are we going to create a million solutions?