Reaching Out Can Make the Difference

Posted on 16/05/2011 | 0 Comments

Youth that are suffering from mental illness more often than not find it difficult to get through school. For some people, all they can think about is how they’re going to get through the day and keep it together. Sometimes things such as anxiety and depression can get in the way of success. The gravity of the anxiety and the depression can take a toll and negatively affect academic performance or social interactions.
 
For most of my life, I was an overachiever and always excelled in school. However, in years past, I dealt with anxiety and depression and found myself going in a downward spiral. It started in junior high and at first, it wasn’t a big deal. A few missed assignments and my grades fell a bit. I knew I could do better but then I stopped caring. My grades dropped from excellent to mediocre. For a time period due to a loophole in the school system, I got away with skipping class without my parents finding out. I never thought I would ever skip class, but things happened and I started doing it more and more. I felt terrible whenever I was at school, so I thought “why should I have to go?” I had a minor intervention and things were fixed, at least for the time being.
 
So then high school rolls around and I moved to a different area, with a new school and a new start. At first, I was doing really well. However, I started heading downhill again. I had difficulty with school and my grades began to gradually fall. Due to my anxiety, I was afraid of approaching anyone, not even my teachers. I felt like I had nobody to talk to. My grades declined from the 90s to failing badly and barely even making the 50s. I was lost in a sea of students and I hardly spoke to any of my teachers if at all.
 
It was hard to spot a teacher who might have cared but one of my teachers who knew me and knew what I was capable of saw what was happening and started talking to me. Confronted by this particular teacher, I couldn’t keep it together and she brought me to the guidance counsellor. It was difficult at first to get me talking but eventually I did… and it felt like a huge weight off my shoulders to let all the thoughts and emotions out. It took a while to figure out how to make things better but it was a great leap forward for me. When I couldn’t bring myself to speak, a teacher reached out to me.
 
So what I want to tell teachers is this: sometimes, all it takes is the simple act of reaching out, and you could make a really big difference for that person. When you look at the sea of students, please reach out and make a difference for those who might be lost in the system.
 
--Karl Yu

Karl Yu is a grade 12 student in Halifax, Nova Scotia and will be attending University this Fall. He has been an active member of the Youth Advisory Council for the Sun  Life Financial Chair in Adolescent Mental Health.  The Chair works directly with youth to provide easy-to-understand materials about mental health and the brain.  The materials are offered free to parents, families, physicians and anyone who wants them. Visit teenmentalhealh.org for more information.

Karl's blog has also been published on: http://www.ourkids.net/blog/the-simple-act-of-reaching-out-makes-a-difference-10108/

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Recent Comment

This is a great set of comments and rings very true. 

I totally agree that scientists (just like everyone else) have their biases and foibles.  After all, scientists are human beings too!  But science is different than scientists. 

The scientific method is the most objective frame that we have by which to evaluate and predict.  Science is not about finding truth.  It is only about being less wrong most of the time.  The scientific method (experimental design and mathematics) gives us the ability to test what we believe.  The scientific method is not used to prove something is correct, on the contrary, the scientific method is designed to prove that something is not correct!  It is designed to test what is called the “null hypothesis”.  It takes ideas that come out of left field (or wherever else they come from) and puts those ideas to an independent test.

t does not drive our beliefs.  It does however challenge our beliefs.  In that way it is self-correcting. Of course scientific inquiry and understanding lives within a wider social context.  That is one of the great features of science. 

But gravity is gravity, social context notwithstanding.  And thus it is nasty, brutish and long.  As Brecht said, (something like this) - the purpose of science is to save us from everlasting error.

By Christina Carew on May 11th

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