By: Shanzay Tehreem
Ask yourself do you have a healthy mind? Do you suffer from anxiety while public speaking? Do you panic when things and events come unexpectedly? Do you experience countless sleepless nights? If yes, then unfortunately the health of your mind is at risk. Or in other words, we can say that you are mentally ill about which you are not confident enough to talk about. Mental illness is a significant change in how the mind of any individual responds to different situations, it is correlated with distress and complexities while functioning among people. Throughout life, every individual experiences mental health issues at some point. Talking about some very drastic and common mental disorders among teenagers, about which they are not comfortable to talk about, just because society doesn’t consider it as a normal illness and instead labels it “mentally retarded”. Severe mental illnesses include depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and borderline personality disorder. The good news about mental illness is that recovery is possible, but the bad news is that it is not feasible
If I say that our education system is creating robots with a small processor having less processing capacity, wouldn’t be wrong. The endless stream of exams, assignments, quizzes, presentations is a never-ending flow that stresses out the students. The results from this agitated stream push them into anxiety disorders and panic attacks making them machines by killing their dreams, skills, talents, hobbies, confidence which makes them short-tempered, feeling dejected, restless and, helping them become an introvert.
Are we not noticing that, or we do not want to notice that? Mental illness is the factor that will dismantle the roots of the future. The wish to have won over another, the culprit words “I AM BETTER THAN” knowingly or unknowingly are forcefully imposed on youngsters’ minds, to become rich in no time, and to achieve all before time. Media plays an essential role in shaping the mindsets of youth across the globe. In this era of technology where there is nothing out of your reach especially grabbing knowledge where just a click can help you dive into the sea of knowledge, or you can say destruction. Now, as technology is evolved in every aspect of our life and every single person have the access to high-speed internet and open social media. So, the kids and teenagers are now all known to those things that they must not have known about; the deep dark side of the world. As they are not ready to face the world’s bitter reality. Because they are still kids and they live in their fantasy world, and that’s what they are supposed to do, not to get exposure to the things or content that are not for them, At least not at this age.
Depression is the biggest issue among teenagers and that’s terrible because it eats you internally. There are many causes of depression such as family problems, love failures, self-doubts, self-assumptions, humiliation on different points, less importance in friendships. Depression is one of the chief causes of disability, affecting teenagers, they have always been vulnerable to depression for a variety of reasons.
Schizophrenia, a long-term and incurable mental disorder that affects a person’s thoughts or we can say, a disorder that plays with the mind leaving it disabled. This is not as common as the other disorders and turns out to be the most drastic and disabling one. People suffering from this tend to lose the touch with the real world, strong symptoms put in misapprehension, hallucinations, and trouble speaking.
Bipolar disorder, also known as Manic Depression, is a state of extreme health that is characterized by extreme mood swings. Now a day’s relationships, friendships and, relatives are not like they were in the past days loyal, less toxic, friendly and, full of happiness. These ups and downs in relationships cause the teenagers (mainly) to get depressed, feel hopeless and lose interest in routine activities. So, when they experience these things their mood suddenly changes from energetic to dull, down and, feels blue which affects their habits of sleeping, drinking eating, and resulting in losing their interest and becoming introverts.
Another suffering is an anxiety disorder where they feel fear around themselves and underestimate themselves for not being good and confident enough. Responding to some conditions with fear and experiencing trouble to face people are signs of anxiety. Like fast pulse rate and sweating are known as the symptoms of this disorder. It’s normal to have some anxiety but the pressure of society, the claims, pointing fingers of society at teenagers make them even anxious. Whenever they try to do something new out of their comfort zone the society tries to bind them and if he/she stands on their boundaries the society then starts humiliating them and not only them but their family too, due to which he/she never tries to think of taking a step ahead. These anxiety disorders when serious, might result in panic attacks having short episodes where one feels feared and physical sensations where heart pounds and feels like you can’t breathe. Panic attacks start of the blue without warnings.
Concluding about the mental illness, out there many teenagers are suffering from this. And for this, there are many reasons due to which it is increasing from time to time. I’ll say that the mind is a very weird thing. If your mind is strong, nothing can damage you in any way. But if it’s not strong yet, and if certain situations and circumstances come in the way which is beyond the human capacity then it will destroy the person’s thoughts, views, the way he perceives the world, his behavior, nature, and everything. Globally, one in seven 10- 19- year olds experiences a mental disorder. We, now really need to normalize the discussion of the needs of adolescents with mental health conditions.
