2022 Mental Health Essay Contest Awardee: Gold
No Longer Silent: Confronting the Stigma Surrounding Mental Health
Catherine, Illinois
On Thursday, January 7, 2021, at 9:33 PM, a relentless buzzing from my phone finally forced me away from my desk to stagger toward my bed to silence my notifications. The words “sudden” and “tragic loss” immediately caught my attention, and I read the rest of the email with a hand over my mouth. I jumped to ask my friends, desperately hoping that I misinterpreted the email, but a deluge of frantic texts quickly proved me wrong. Dylan, a senior, had committed suicide.
My hands could not stop shaking. I knew Dylan. At least, I knew his name. Everyone did. He was the star quarterback and captain of the football team, expected to graduate with honors, and received over a dozen offers to play football at Division III schools. I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that a kid with such a bright future decided to take his own life. All the symptoms and risk factors I associated with suicide—depression, self-loathing, and poor academic performance—seemed to have nothing to do with Dylan. At that moment, I realized that perhaps, my perception of what constitutes mental illnesses was warped.
Growing up as a second-generation Chinese American, I never mentioned mental health to my parents. The only word I knew for “depression” in Chinese was “shen jing bing,” which my parents loosely translated as “crazy disease.” High school rolled around and suddenly, I felt like I was drowning under the weight of all the new expectations. However, whenever I used buzzwords like “anxious” or “numb,” my parents simply remained silent and turned away from me. The only thing I could do was keep working and pray that I wouldn’t collapse under the pressure.
When I finally opened up to my friends about my struggles, we came to a shockingconclusion: none of us knew what to say or do. After that conversation, I couldn’t help but wonder if Dylan faced the same issues as I did. Did he reach out only to be disappointed when no one knew how to respond? Could his death have been prevented if someone had recognized the underlying symptoms?
I couldn’t stay silent any longer. I was the student representative of the School Safety Committee, which offered an opportunity to meet with the principal, the dean, teachers, and counselors to discuss student safety concerns, and I was determined to make mental health awareness one of their priorities. During the meeting in March, I stood up and gave a three-minute speech about how the health curriculum at my school was insufficient to teach students coping strategies. By September this year, we were ready to offer the school’s first Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) training to sophomores, juniors, and seniors in collaboration with the Josselyn Center. For one full school day, students would learn how to identify, understand and respond to signs and symptoms of mental health issues in themselves and their peers.
The event was an enormous success. Students received a comprehensive handbook covering different mental health disorders, their symptoms, and possible treatments. All the presentations were discussion-based instead of in a lecture format to encourage students to share their experiences. Students also participated in a variety of interactive activities, such as painting and making mood trackers. At the end of the day, students received an MHFA Coping Kit that included fidget toys, calming essential oils, and a pocket-sized pamphlet with links to mental health resources offered at my school. The event also led to the creation of a Mental Health Advisory Board to facilitate cooperation between students and administrators to improve access to mental health resources and events, and there was already talk about hosting a school-wide event in honor of Mental Awareness Month in May.
While I was glad to see my school finally prioritizing mental health, it was stillbittersweet that all the new prevention measures only came after a student took their own life. Nevertheless, on a national level, schools should receive funding and personnel to implement their own versions of Mental Health First Aid training. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, as of 2019, more than 1 in 3 high schoolers reported persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness, and 1 in 6 youth reported making a suicide attempt within the past year. Therefore, students need to know how to react efficiently and effectively when their friends or peers reach out to them for help.
My generation also needs to put in the effort to recognize and combat the stigma surrounding mental health. In particular, we need to steer conversations about mental health toward AAPI communities. Far too often, Asian Americans are held up to the pedestal of being the “model minority”—the group that succeeds at all costs and doesn’t need help from anyone—and having a mental health disorder is associated with failure. As such, it is of little surprise that Asian Americans are the least likely racial group in the United States to seek out mental health services. However, stigma not only creates shame but also a lack of awareness about available resources, an issue that spans entire generations. I realized my parents turned me away not because they didn’t want to help me, but because they didn’t know how to. Therefore, there needs to be an increased focus on training professionals who are bilingual and culturally-aware to facilitate discussions about mental health between AAPI parents and their children.
We cannot let an entire generation of children grow up thinking that it is normal to sacrifice their mental well-being for material success. Let us come together as the first generation to accept instead of shame victims of mental health disorders. Let us come together to ensure that stories like Dylan’s will never happen again. Let us come together to rewrite how our society perceives mental health.
NIH recognizes these talented essay winners for their thoughtfulness and creativity in addressing youth mental health. These essays are written in the students' own words, are unedited, and do not necessarily represent the views of NIH, HHS, or the federal government.
Page updated September 28, 2022
