Written by Annie Lin, Anika Misra, Tanishqa Kolekar, and Rishab Jain
Edited by: Rishab Jain and Tanishqa Kolekar
We make yearly trips to the doctor to take a checkup on our physical health. But what about our mental health? Both types are equally important for a healthy life, but not everyone realizes what to do when they are struggling with their mental health. Mental health not only affects your relationships with friends and family but grades and academic relationships as well. In this article, we’ll discuss how important it is to maintain good mental health, and how to do it.
Depression
Depression is a mood disorder that affects how you feel, think and behave, and can lead to a variety of physical and emotional problems. Depression is commonly found in teenagers (ranging from 12-17 years old). According to the National Institute of Mental Health, over four million teenagers suffered from an incident of depression. In 2019, there was a 44% increase in the suicide plan among teens. Depression can cause struggle with school and grades, decision making, and health. It can often create higher behavioral risks like the use of drugs, violence, and fatigue.
What Depression Causes
Depression is caused by stress, drug and alcohol use, serious medical issues, and even family history! Worrying too much about something can lead to having low self-esteem, and negativity, and can lead to long-term mental abuse. This can lead to headaches, digestive problems, muscle pain, heart disease, heart attacks, high blood pressure and stroke, sleep problems, weight gain, and memory impairment. Similarly, the use of more drugs and alcohol (caused by depression) damages your brain, and other organs, and worsens depression, leading to a higher risk of suicidal behavior. Depression affects your mood, brain, and your body physically.
What You Can Do About It
Many stressful events in your life lead to depression and it may be difficult for you to manage your situation, but there are better ways to deal with problems:
Eating a healthy diet, regularly exercising
Practicing relaxation methods such as yoga, meditation, deep breathing, or massaging
Writing in a journal or about what you are grateful for in life
Taking time for your favorite hobbies
Talking to friends and family
Add a sense of humor to your life (laugh)
Keep yourself organized/have a to-do list
Seek professional advice
These are just some of the healthiest ways to use to deal with stress and any other problems to prevent yourself from going into depression. There are many stressful and depressing life events, but we need to make sure that we control ourselves self-composedly.
Peer Pressure
Peer pressure is the pressure from your friends/peers to make certain decisions and behave in a certain way. This ranges from being pressured to go to a school event, to be as serious as using drugs or cheating at school. According to Gurinder Dabhia, a pediatrician, “A teenager’s brain is only about 80 percent developed.” This means that your friends and people around you can influence the decisions you make now and later in your life.
There are two ways to deal with peer pressure: giving in and saying no. Although it’s the easier option, giving in to the pressure is not the right one. You may think it’s not a bad idea to try something “just once,” but when you do it once, you can do it again. When you’re with your friends, you may not remember to think if something is dangerous or illegal, because you’re being pressured to do it.
To avoid peer pressure, learn how to say ‘no’ to your peers. Even though people may be pressuring you, you are in control of your decisions. Even if it’s not an extremely serious matter (e.g. being pressured to go on a roller coaster), it’s your choice on how you will respond.
However, there are some cases where you have limited options. Another form of peer pressure could force you to participate in illegal/dangerous activities. If someone threatens to hurt you (physically or mentally) if you don’t do what they say, you could be in an extremely dangerous position. To avoid this, hang out in groups or with several people. People are less likely to confront you if you have friends that will stand up for you. Also, make sure you have access to important phone numbers, such as your parents’ and emergency help. If you don’t have a cell phone, hang out with people who do or have another emergency communication device.
How does peer pressure affect your mental health? People who experience peer pressure may exhibit several negative effects on their health. According to parents.au.reachout.com, peer pressure can cause someone to distance themselves from their family and close friends. Also, they can have major changes in their emotions, and distance themselves from their academics.
Toxic Relationships
Relationships are an important part of our daily lives and contribute greatly to our well-being, and recognizing the signs of a toxic relationship or person in your life is an important step to improving your mental and or physical health. Not all toxic relationships are physically or verbally abusive, and not all of these are romantic ones. These toxic relationships could happen between you and your friends, co-workers, or family. Some toxic relationships are hard to realize. Seeing little hints of toxic behavior could be a huge sign of what might happen in the future. A toxic relationship is a relationship that shows the toxic actions and behaviors of the "abuser" in the relationship that is usually physiologically and physically harmful to the victim. Toxic relationships can damage self-esteem and could drain energy from the victim. On the other hand, a healthy relationship contains care and respect. In a healthy relationship, you could be yourself, and it's where you could feel safe and comfortable. Toxic relationships are sometimes shown by self-centeredness and control from the “abuser”. It could also be shown when your boundaries are not being respected, you're giving more than you're getting, you feel unwanted, you're being blamed for their mistakes, and you're being judged for everything you do, or you're being demanded to do many things, etc.
Healthy relationships are safe spaces while toxic relationships are not. Even when a toxic relationship is recognized, it might not be easy to deal with. It mostly depends on the victim in the situation and how their coping process affects the relationship. No one is the same, so some people could have it easy, while others could not. Situations like these are complicated to go through since the victim in the relationship might not want to possibly hurt the other person's feelings. When the victim is going through a toxic relationship they would feel like they’re being controlled, attacked, manipulated, distanced, etc. Some might blame themselves for feeling these things, and they might even think that they're overreacting. When someone is going through something like this it’s good to try and communicate with the person about how they feel, this is also a good coping mechanism. People who cause these toxic relationships might not realize the pain that they're putting on others. Making them see their mistakes might make them understand and try their best to change.
If communication isn't possible, or they still don't see the way they're hurting you, then trying to limit your time to see them or doing your best to leave them would be a good option. You shouldn’t invest your time with someone who isn’t treating you well, but it does depend on the situation if it could be fixed differently. When confronting the situation, there are times when the person starts making up excuses for their actions, or they’ll try to guilt-trip and gaslight the victim into thinking that they’re in the right. Even though the person has been through many things, it’s an explanation, not an excuse. This could cause the victim a lot of frustration and sorrow. The person causing the victim harm would act like a nice person, sometimes, making the victim think that they were wrong. However, the person may start acting toxic again later.
This causes the victim to get confused, making them wonder if they did anything wrong when they didn’t. Confrontation isn’t simple, but there are other ways to cope when you’re in a toxic situation. According to mentalhealth.org.uk, “Extensive evidence shows that having good-quality relationships can help us to live longer and happier lives with fewer mental health problems.” When the victim’s mental health is damaged, it can also lead to the development of unhealthy coping behaviors. Getting advice and support from someone else you trust could be a good way to cope as well. Having trust in someone is great, but the victim may regret trusting the person who caused them harm. When the victim feels regret, they’d feel that they’ve wasted their time, or they’d feel like they should’ve done better.
Even though there was a lot of sadness, anger, and confusion, it’s better not to focus on the past. Getting out of a toxic situation is amazing because many people get stuck. To prevent being in a toxic relationship, making sure that you and the other person maintain a healthy relationship is important for both of you.
Bullying
What would you do if you were getting bullied? Usually, you would speak up and ask for help, but it’s not that simple. Bullying can be a very hard thing to detect, this is because lots of people get bullied and won’t tell anyone about it. The reason why victims keep quiet is that more harm might be inflicted on them. When bullying occurs, it’s when a person or a group of people is targeting someone. When someone is going through bullying, it could degrade the victim’s self-esteem and make them lose confidence. Bullying could also make them dread living each day. It’s not only a problem for the victim, but it’s also a huge problem for their parents and other people who care about the victim because stopping bullying is a challenging task. In some cases, the bully doesn’t even know that they are bullying, and sometimes the victim doesn’t even know that they are getting bullied. That is why bullying should be educated early on, so everyone would understand how bullying could affect a person.
Many types of bullying could happen to someone, such as physical bullying, verbal bullying, social bullying, and cyberbullying. These types of bullying can be experienced by children and adults alike, and some are obvious to spot while others can be more subtle. When someone is being physically bullied, it’s when a person or a group of people are hurting something that belongs to you, including your body.
Physical bullying can include hitting, tripping, kicking, punching, pushing, damaging property, etc. The victim that is in this type of physical situation is usually defenseless. Sometimes even when the victim gets help, the bully’s friends would attack them as well, or they could bribe other people to hurt the victim. When physical bullying is happening to a person, the victim would feel weak and powerless, causing the victim to stress out. In some cases, they may accept the bullying and not do anything about it.
There is a difference between verbal and social bullying. Verbal bullying is when a bully insults, taunts, or name-calling the victim. It can occur to someone at any age, it could also start as something small, but it could start escalating quickly. This could also happen with the other types of bullying. When verbal bullying occurs in someone’s childhood could have long-lasting effects. The victim would start to believe the insults that were thrown at them making them have no confidence in themselves when growing up.
Social bullying is when a bully spreads rumors about the victim behind their backs, making it so no one wants to be friends with them, embarrassing them, and isolating them. The bully could be “friends” with the victim and start to isolate the victim. This could lead the victim to psychological harm. Cyberbullying occurs when a bully sends the victim's personal information to other people without their consent. It could also be a form of verbal bullying and social bullying online. This could cause the victim to be self-conscious about themselves, and they could isolate themselves from everyone.
Bullying should be taken seriously. Bullying causes a lot of damage to someone’s physical and mental health especially when the victim is still a child. Bullying could also cause the victim to cope in an unhealthy way, such as self-harm. You should try your best to get help from people around you. If the victim is unable to stop the problem then they should try to find healthy ways to cope.
Self Harm
Self-harm is described as intentionally inflicting pain on yourself, but not many people realize that it can come in different forms. Plenty of people believe that self-harm is purely physical, but that is not the case, as self-harm can be mental/emotional as well. Both situations can be equally damaging to the person, whether it affects their psychological or physical health.
According to Mental Health America, a non-profit organization that focuses on improving the health of anyone who needs it, self-harm most frequently starts around the ages of 12-14. It can be the result of severe feelings, such as guilt/shame, sadness, depression, anxiety, and other negative emotions. For some, physically harming themselves is a way to cope with the emotional turbulence of their lives. Recent studies have shown that a staggering 1 in 5 adolescents (from ages 10-to 18) have deliberately self-harmed at least once in their lives. However, more than half of these people who practice self-injury are not receiving the medical care that they need, due to an absence of services and unwillingness to obtain help.
Self-harm can range from suicide (in extreme cases), to cutting and degrading oneself. All of these cases should be taken seriously, and not seen as a way to obtain pity and attention from others. Watching content that promotes self-harm in any way can also be a trigger for continuing, or even starting self-injury. Adolescents are more prone to replicating this behavior after watching content that encourages any form of self-harm, whether mental or physical. This is why social media can be a dangerous place for teenagers that have dealt with thoughts of self-harm before.
Unfortunately, race, gender, and sexuality plays a substantial part in self-harm statistics and rates. According to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), nearly half of people that identify on the LGBTQ+ spectrum had genuinely considered suicide, substantially greater than heterosexual students. The LGBTQ+ community constantly faces the emotions that fuel self-harm, and it can go as far as them making a suicide plan. Suicide rates and overall self-harm rates are drastically increasing in not only the LGBTQ+ community but in colored communities as well. Suicide attempts in black students rose about 50% in 2019, as reported by the CDC.
Dealing with self-harm, or even suicidal thoughts can be extremely difficult and take a toll on your health. An important thing to remember is that self-injury is not a coping mechanism and should be treated as a serious problem. There are always emotions behind thoughts and actions of self-harm that can be hard to combat. Steps to deal with self-harm include:
Finding someone to confide in
Communicate in any way that you feel comfortable without hurting yourself
Realize that self-harm is harming you, not helping
Find other ways to release negative thoughts/emotions (art, sports, starting a journal, etc.)
Stay around people that make you feel good about yourself
Remember that there is always a way around self-harm, regardless of how hard it may be
Prevention Numbers
If you need emotional support, or you know someone else who might, here are some hotlines/lifelines available 24/7 across the US.
National Domestic Violence Hotline
(800) 799-7233
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
(800) 273-8255
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration National Helpline
(800) 662-4357
LGBTQ+ National Hotline
(888) 843-4564
Whether you are struggling with your mental health or want to learn more about it, use some of the techniques we mentioned to help yourself cope/get help. If you're struggling with depression, peer pressure, toxic relationships, bullying, or self-harm, try reacting with a calm mind or contacting the Prevention Numbers. Remember that you are not alone and many people struggle with mental health, too.
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