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By: Rohan Davies
Upon reading the recent article on this page titled “RUOK Day: Why Mental Health Stigma Won’t Leave the Community”, I was amazed by how eye-opening it was, delving further into looking at the social interactions we as students have in school and highlighting the work that really needs to be done in order to ensure that school is a place where everyone can feel safe and accepted. Not only that, just how real and relatable it was. It really made me think, how can we explore this further?
An important thing to begin with, as the article highlights, is that there is work going on. There are resources, groups and access to counsellors. I myself am a Peer Ambassador. We examine how to raise awareness about mental health and organise events such as RUOK Day, the wellness wheel (a diagram in which allows students to evaluate the wellbeing in various aspects of their lives), Body Acceptance Week and World Mental Health Day. Whilst I firmly believe that these are all initiatives we should be continuing, an issue that persists within our community is our rhetoric surrounding mental health in both casual conversation and PSE.
The previous article raises the stigma that exists around going to counselling and describes those who seek help as being called “wusses” or “pussies”. This, in turn, makes people feel embarrassed or nervous asking for help and makes the process of seeking help much more daunting or secretive to the extent that they may abandon the effort altogether. Feeling trapped, they may turn to burying their feelings internally, which is simply not healthy.
That’s one side of things. The other side consists of those who consider asking for help or talk about mental health as a joke. Although I don’t know everyone’s thought processes behind this side of the stigma, I feel it comes down to the context in which our community talks about mental health. As mentioned before, the Counselling and Wellness Department do fantastic work, especially in collating resources around mental health. (As a side note, if you need to talk to someone and are weighing your options, they are honestly a great place to go. I know there may be fears around going because of the stigma I mentioned, but it is so incredibly important to just have someone to talk to.)
However, I believe the stigma exists due to the rhetoric we employ when discussing mental health in PSE, assemblies or RUOK Day. I notice that we discuss it as an issue that may or may not affect someone, or something that needs to be talked about only if someone is going through hard times. To quote the Grade 9 and 10 English course, this creates an ‘us vs. them’ divide wherein ‘mental health’ is seen as an ‘illness’ (that’s not to say that mental illness is not valid - that in itself is significant to the conversation), or that which only affects a certain type of person. Talking about it in this way may alienate some and cause them to see the topic as a joke. What we don’t talk about enough is that whilst going through tough times can absolutely worsen a person’s mental health or wellbeing, it is far from the only context in which mental health, or rather, wellbeing, should be talked about.
Mental health is about each and every one of us, because it’s a measure of our mental state. It’s the understanding that there are going to be highs and lows, great times and tough times, and that we need to celebrate the former and look after ourselves during the latter. It’s also the understanding of what influences our wellbeing and what we can do to make ourselves and others feel safe and comfortable.
So where am I going with this? I recognise I have strayed somewhat from my original focus on the stigma around mental health at school. To put it in a nutshell, the solution I propose is transforming the context in which we discuss mental health and wellbeing to simply being us and looking after ourselves. It’s as simple as that.
How does this work practically? Firstly, let’s look at mentor groups. I think there needs to be much more of a focus on mentor group time as a check-in time. That could mean weekly or biweekly one-to-one check-ins with your mentor becoming a standardised high school, and possibly middle school thing. This aims to make talking about our lives and any highs, or maybe lows (if you feel comfortable sharing, of course), somewhat of a more casual thing, or rather something more integrated into all students’ day to day lives, giving people a much easier avenue to talk.
Secondly, PSE. The problem many of us face with PSE is that we cannot relate it to our own lives, making it neither meaningful nor engaging. While there are definitely baseline topics that need to be covered in PSE, I suggest the following change. Rather than externalising discussions of wellbeing to what is happening to others or the world around us, we should use the time to look inwards, undertake explorations of the self, and thoroughly examine what influences our personal wellbeing. While this exercise may feel tedious or uncover influences we don’t want to accept, such as the effect our phones have on our wellbeing, it is key to understanding what is helping or worsening our wellbeing and how we can take better care of ourselves and make the most out of our time.
Practical examples include connecting with nature and the effect that has on our wellbeing, the mental benefits of exercising, exploring the relevance of spirituality, or discovering our passions and how to balance them with our busy school lives. Social aspects can also be brought into this. We can look into how to cultivate civil conversations with friends when tension is present, allowing each person to openly share their point of view and understanding that even if you don’t agree with another, respectfulness creates a more understanding environment. All of this situates wellbeing in the context of deepening our understanding of our own and others’ lives, rather than only talking about it when we feel something is wrong with us. This also aims to do what PSE should be doing, which is taking these lessons and skills outside of the classroom and having it as a more conceptual area of study.
There are lots of other solutions to explore here, such as making the counsellors more familiar faces at school through assemblies or summary videos played during PSE. The intention here is to make talking to a counsellor a less intimidating prospect. We could also look at decluttering the busyness of the school calendar to make the separation of personal and school life easier. In general, I urge you to assess various aspects of the school with a critical eye. Once again, these are only a handful of examples. A Forum-like discussion could really help to cultivate more ideas.
All in all, I believe the reason mental health remains so stigmatised at school is the rhetoric and context we employ when talking about it. We speak of it as an issue that does not affect everyone, causing isolation and division. On the contrary, mental health affects all of us in various ways. Therefore, we as a community need to thoroughly explore our personal wellbeing. Individual check-ins during mentor group time, celebrating the highs and lows, adapting PSE’s focus to exploring the self and its relation to the world: all of this will enable us to examine wellbeing through a more positive and curious lens. It will teach us how to build connections with others, identify and celebrate our strengths and passions, how to balance school and personal life, and how to feel fulfilled in life and the choices we make.
Above all else, it will teach us to accept ourselves while critically assessing our actions so we can advocate for each other and find peace, love, laughter, connection, and understanding in a world that is growing ever more complicated.
I must say, writing this has been one peculiar rollercoaster that, weirdly, brought a lot of clarity to my thoughts. Sorry if it didn’t make any sense. Feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions and I’ll try to answer them, or relay them through DBA. Thank you for reading :)
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