Teens in crisis: addressing high school mental health

Schools across the country have witnessed an extreme mental health crisis afflicting their students.

According to Mental Health America, 20.17 percent of youth (ages 12-17) reported suffering from at least one major depressive episode (MDE) in the past year. 

Even starker, the CDC found that more than 4 in 10 (42 percent) students felt persistently sad or hopeless and nearly one-third (29 percent) experienced poor mental health.

With college applications for seniors coming up, hours of homework a night and extracurriculars becoming overwhelming for highschoolers, there has been a rise in awareness of the pressure brought on students. Mental health is an invisible struggle that many students across the nation go through, although we may not be able to see it, it often leads to students having to struggle alone.  The academic standard that students are being held to is becoming unmanageable and anxiety inducing to many. 

Drawing from personal experience, Franklin Thomas (’27) offered insight into how he manages to prevent overwhelming anxiety. 

“I’ve definitely had anxiety before whether it's studying for tests or taking a test, it's really about good time management,” Thomas said. “I think there are a lot of students here at Samo who deal with anxiety because of school and how hard it can be to manage.” 

As Thomas alluded to, he is not alone in facing these challenges; many Samo students experience similar challenges to their mental health. 

Numerous factors contribute to the observed decline in mental health amongst teenagers, one of the biggest ones being social media. Doctor Braverman, Samo’s school psychologist, gave some insight as to why this may be the case for Samo students. 

“Social media is really sometimes a highlight reel, so it's very easy to compare or feel less than or worry about what's going on when you can see what everyone else is doing,” Braverman said. Overall social media shows unrealistic portrayals of many peoples lives and it can present a fake image, which can lead to unhealthy comparison. Comparison to others can stir up many feelings of insecurity, anxiety, or depression. 

Another contributing factor is the insurmountable amount of pressure from school, from getting into college to having to perform well in sports and various other responsibilities. 

“I think it is really stressful being a teenager and having the day-to-day extracurriculars or family drama, maybe relationship stuff going on and then adding schoolwork and homework that's a lot for one person, especially during your developing years,” Braverman said.

“I try to not overwork myself because I’ve done that before and it never has good results both academically and mentally and so I think it's all about rewarding yourself for the little things after doing time consuming school work,” Thomas said.

All of these various responsibilities are a lot for one teenager to carry, let alone go through by themselves. But at Samo, students don’t have to go through these struggles by themselves; there are numerous resources available on and off campus, one being Rosebud.

Chrys Bader, co-founder of Rosebud, developed the innovative AI self help journaling software in order to improve the mental health of his users. Rosebud’s main goal is to help its users reflect inward, improving their overall mental well being. 

Chrys Bader and Sean Dadashi; co-founders of Rosebud sitting next to one another.

“My co-founder and I actually started this company five years ago and the initial mission, which is still true today, was; can we make technology for good that actually has a positive impact,” Bader said. 

Rosebud has accomplished this goal by helping 50,000 users per year. The organization offers student discounts (Student discount) to ensure the software is available to all struggling teeangers across the nation, including Samo students. 

Not only are there resources off campus like Rosebud, but there are various resources on campus for students. 

“This school does so much for mental health. We have everyday walk-in counseling, all teachers are trained and have ideas of how to provide social support and we have 3 full-time physiologists on campus, Braverman said. “There are almost 200 clubs [on campus] providing social/emotional connectedness and so many other programs.” 

Overall Samo provides students with a diversity of resources and no student should have to struggle alone.