by Amanda Green
[NOTE: Mental Health America reports that over 10% of our youth experience levels of mental-health problems—such as depression—that impair their ability to function at school. Amanda Green is a college student who has graciously agreed to share her views on the stressors that impact college students, and that no doubt contribute to mental health problems. Amanda’s post will be in two parts, Part I this week and Part II next week.]
Recent years have seen a mental health epidemic that disproportionately affects the younger generations, and is highly contagious. According to the World Health Organization, one in seven adolescents experiences a mental disorder. These rates are as high as we’ve ever seen—soon, our workforce will start to feel the consequences. On the other hand, standard of living has been increasing steadily in the past few decades. Anyone who grew up in the depression will tell you that youngsters have it so much better than they did. Nevertheless, depression, anxiety and all their disordered sisters persist to plague children as young as ten these days. Children used to carry with them only a baseball and glove to play with, and their bookbag. Now, they carry heavy burdens of ill-processed feelings. What happened that triggered this change? Is life harder for teenagers nowadays, or are there other factors contributing to this steep decline in adolescent mental health?
Seventeen-year-old Joshua just received an acceptance letter from his top choice for college, one of the best schools in the South. However, he is not happy. All his friends will be going to the state school nearby and he feels conflicted. Should he follow his friends or his dreams? What if his school is not all he expects it to be? Now in senior year, he finally has a stable friend group. It didn’t used to be this way. In fact, becoming part of this group had been difficult enough. Would he have to go through all of it again in college—awkward conversations, lunches alone in the common room, being asked to find a lab partner in Chemistry class and having no one to turn to?
Some may label Joshua an introvert, or having social anxiety, but in reality his doubts and fears are not a disorder—they are normal. Even as we live in a society as modernized and civilized as ours, we are still only primates. And our natural response is not always a condition that must be cured. In fact, we should expect and even hope ourselves to enter into a state of stress when we are faced with uncertainty. Evolutionarily, this makes sense. Our ancestors wouldn’t have lasted long if they had fearlessly entered any uncertain situation with little regard to consequences. Our fight or flight is triggered to save our lives. Suppressing these instincts won’t do us any good. Does this mean that teenagers should stop taking anxiety medication? Not exactly. If these feelings of stress are determined by professionals to be so frequent or so intense that they are unmanageable, then medication may be appropriate. However, we should focus on pinpointing the causes for adolescent anxiety and stress to try and lessen their effects, rather than put children on medication as soon as they start to show symptoms. After all, those symptoms may be normal responses to change.
We are also faced with another question: what are the causes of teenage anxiety and depression? Some blame technology; some blame unrealistic beauty standards; some blame the stars and astrological signs; some blame Donald Trump. While the specific situations that cause stress in adolescents may have evolved with time, I believe the underlying factors that contribute to these feelings are universal and have affected generations long before ours. In other words, times have changed, but teenagers haven’t. Humans have always sought to be accepted by others, a desire found across cultures, social circles, and even in species that have lower cognitive abilities than humans. However, this desire can work against us, for it can quickly become obsessive and cloud our other aims. For instance, teenage college students may neglect class work to go out at night and be part of a lively social circle, which can impact academic performance. Additionally, many teen choices are affected by their concern with how others perceive them.
A concern with social acceptance can damage teenagers’ mental health for two reasons: First they sometimes deny their nature in an effort to fit in, such as by going to parties instead of staying home. Not only can this choice become mentally draining, it can also strip them of their identity because they live for other people rather than themselves. Second, trying to fit in is an endless race. And it is exhausting. As our circumstances and social circles shift, we so often find ourselves having to start rebuilding our reputation anew. Take college, for example, where teenagers take new classes every semester. To become comfortable in every class took some effort in the first place. As they near the start of the Spring semester, they know they’ll have to do it all over again. (To be continued next week.)
Psychology and Stress 