When I was attending school, I was unaware of all these mental health issues as there were no discussions or assemblies regarding this particular topic whatsoever. We were never taught nor received any information that gave us some sort of knowledge or awareness of these problems. At least from my experience, I received no support from my school during my period of depression and stress. I strongly feel that students are put under a great deal of stress and pressure by teachers, especially when it comes to exam periods and revision. Of course, this doesn't help much at all when you're meanwhile suffering from a mental health issue. Unfortunately, I fell into this category of having to deal with exams and my depression with a lack of support. It's obvious that students attend school to learn, but the health of students come first no matter what -- I don't believe many teachers took this into consideration when I was in school.
Depression had not only affected my health, it had also altered my personality too. Although I was unaware of my health issue, my mother knew there was something wrong with me. She soon started noticing that I would shut myself away after school, bottling up my feelings and thoughts. My response to her knocking on the door with concern would be "I'm revising!" or "I'm tired!" which was absolute nonsense as I would find myself (most of the time) sitting on my bed with my head in my hands. I couldn't revise!? I couldn't even sleep without thinking of something that would cause me to burst out into tears. I was in such a state and I didn't even realize what I had come to at the time! I had begun to live with my depression, as if it was just part of my life, but there was so much more to it than that! Friends would occasionally invite me to special events and such, I would always reject their kind offers as I refused to go out the house besides from attending school -- which was difficult enough. I would make a range of excuses to not get out the house, I was insane. There were plenty of times when I would skip days off school and as a result to this my mother immediately thought that I was being bullied. That idea soon changed when she had other thoughts on her mind. Although it doesn't seem like there wasn't much support from my mother, she was always there for me. I just pushed her away immediately when she felt concerned and worried about me. You may think this was very selfish of me as some people have parents who couldn't care less, but my depression had caused me to block everyone out of my own little world of useless thoughts. My father on the other hand, was aware of my situation but couldn't do much as he suffers from a nerve disease (basically he's disabled and struggles to walk). This wasn't the only thing that was stopping him, my parents were divorced and so we lived in different apartments. My parents get on better when they're living separately and therefore they spoke on the phone to each other often (which is how he knew all the updates about me, I still stayed in contact with him too of course). My brother was focused more on his exams, but we'd occasionally have conversations regarding school gossip and such. So, the support from my family was quite significant in comparison to my school life, certainly.
As for school, the thing that bugged me the most was that teachers knew that something was up with me, especially one teacher who I'd much rather not discuss about due to how he treated me. No one bothered to contact my mother about my lack of concentration in class and bursts of outrageous tears when a classmate would ask if I was OK. We never had 'counselling', instead we had something called 'student support'. This was a section of the school where students had the ability to discuss any issues they were having, whether it was regarding behaviour issues, bullying or whatever a student needed support for. Half the time, there was hardly anyone there for help after I had come to terms with my illness. I would knock on the door but there would be nobody there to open it. It was such a poor organization and I hope by now that their system has changed for the better. Having said that, it's quite obvious that my school was not at all bothered by offering students support for whatever reason. Instead, teachers were more concerned about the school's reputation and the grades that students achieve by the end of it all. Some may or may not agree but I strongly stand by my point as I have gone through and have experienced all of my school years. Not one teacher had stood by me for support, even during the most difficult time that students struggle the most with (exams).
Whether that was just my school or not, I don't know, but mental health issues most certainly need to be addressed more in schools. It doesn't hurt to sit down with someone and talk out all the negatives. It's a real shame that I had a lack of support from them as it was a place where I had spent the most time at. Nevertheless, I did eventually have therapy by the help from my mother who was worried sick about me. It helped significantly to just chat about all of my problems to somebody who would sit patiently and listen. I soon realized that bottling up all of my feelings was not the answer to all of my problems that were never really problems in the first place. I was just exaggerating too much.
Obviously I can't speak for all schools but my school in particular did not deal with my mental health issues at all.
Depression had not only affected my health, it had also altered my personality too. Although I was unaware of my health issue, my mother knew there was something wrong with me. She soon started noticing that I would shut myself away after school, bottling up my feelings and thoughts. My response to her knocking on the door with concern would be "I'm revising!" or "I'm tired!" which was absolute nonsense as I would find myself (most of the time) sitting on my bed with my head in my hands. I couldn't revise!? I couldn't even sleep without thinking of something that would cause me to burst out into tears. I was in such a state and I didn't even realize what I had come to at the time! I had begun to live with my depression, as if it was just part of my life, but there was so much more to it than that! Friends would occasionally invite me to special events and such, I would always reject their kind offers as I refused to go out the house besides from attending school -- which was difficult enough. I would make a range of excuses to not get out the house, I was insane. There were plenty of times when I would skip days off school and as a result to this my mother immediately thought that I was being bullied. That idea soon changed when she had other thoughts on her mind. Although it doesn't seem like there wasn't much support from my mother, she was always there for me. I just pushed her away immediately when she felt concerned and worried about me. You may think this was very selfish of me as some people have parents who couldn't care less, but my depression had caused me to block everyone out of my own little world of useless thoughts. My father on the other hand, was aware of my situation but couldn't do much as he suffers from a nerve disease (basically he's disabled and struggles to walk). This wasn't the only thing that was stopping him, my parents were divorced and so we lived in different apartments. My parents get on better when they're living separately and therefore they spoke on the phone to each other often (which is how he knew all the updates about me, I still stayed in contact with him too of course). My brother was focused more on his exams, but we'd occasionally have conversations regarding school gossip and such. So, the support from my family was quite significant in comparison to my school life, certainly.
As for school, the thing that bugged me the most was that teachers knew that something was up with me, especially one teacher who I'd much rather not discuss about due to how he treated me. No one bothered to contact my mother about my lack of concentration in class and bursts of outrageous tears when a classmate would ask if I was OK. We never had 'counselling', instead we had something called 'student support'. This was a section of the school where students had the ability to discuss any issues they were having, whether it was regarding behaviour issues, bullying or whatever a student needed support for. Half the time, there was hardly anyone there for help after I had come to terms with my illness. I would knock on the door but there would be nobody there to open it. It was such a poor organization and I hope by now that their system has changed for the better. Having said that, it's quite obvious that my school was not at all bothered by offering students support for whatever reason. Instead, teachers were more concerned about the school's reputation and the grades that students achieve by the end of it all. Some may or may not agree but I strongly stand by my point as I have gone through and have experienced all of my school years. Not one teacher had stood by me for support, even during the most difficult time that students struggle the most with (exams).
Whether that was just my school or not, I don't know, but mental health issues most certainly need to be addressed more in schools. It doesn't hurt to sit down with someone and talk out all the negatives. It's a real shame that I had a lack of support from them as it was a place where I had spent the most time at. Nevertheless, I did eventually have therapy by the help from my mother who was worried sick about me. It helped significantly to just chat about all of my problems to somebody who would sit patiently and listen. I soon realized that bottling up all of my feelings was not the answer to all of my problems that were never really problems in the first place. I was just exaggerating too much.
Obviously I can't speak for all schools but my school in particular did not deal with my mental health issues at all.
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