Peri Yim ’26 trudges through the hallways, going through yet another rerun of their daily schedule: wake up, sit through their classes, finish homework, and sleep. With drooping eyelids, they take a seat in their first period class. Their classmate asks them how their day has been and they halfheartedly respond “Great!” repeating the same word they use to answer the rest of their teacher’s and peer’s similar inquiries.
Yim is not alone. Since freshman year, students are taught to share their thoughts and concerns with those around them, yet according to the U.S. News and World Report, only 59 percent of the adolescent population felt they received the proper social and emotional support they needed. While Yim is aware of the resources students can access from the school, they note the potential difficulties in reaching out for help when students are not as aware.
“I talked to my social worker, and there’s also mental health groups with group therapy,” Yim said. “Students are aware of them because we learn about them in health class, but they might not necessarily be easy to access and utilize because you kind of have to be the one to reach out.”
Stevenson’s Student Services offers mental health support ranging from direct intervention through Student Support Teams (SST) to more self-driven methods like mental health days. However, despite the resources made available to students, some like Peter Malloy ’27 feel discouraged from using them for fear of being mocked by others.
“[When people find out] that you went to go see someone, they can talk down on you,” Malloy said. “[I’ve seen] people get judged a lot for doing that.”
For Malloy, the stigma surrounding mental health diminishes its overall importance and compels people to keep their mental health hidden. Additionally, Yim, among other students, have observed that mental health days, though meant for students who may feel coming to school cannot be handled due to emotional and mental distress, have been misused.
“The small minority of students taking them just to skip school gives the whole thing a bad reputation,” Yim said.
With even some teachers and coaches questioning students’ intentions behind a mental health day, students like Yim may feel misjudged when they really do use them for their mental health. Similarly, John Fallon, Treasurer of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Lake County, Illinois, feels that the implications perpetuated by society shames people into dealing with mental health on their own.
“It is embarrassing for some people at first and people are reluctant to say that there’s something wrong with them,” Fallon said. “And society kind of gives you the message ‘you should tough it out’ or ‘I used to have it worse’ to sort of dismiss it as not important and not recognized.”
Fallon says that, in addition to high schoolers, adults similarly feel outside pressures – such as future job opportunities – which can force them to hide their mental illnesses. A 2023 study by Mental Health America (MHA) found that over half (54.7 percent) of adults with a mental illness do not receive treatment. Students like Jimmy Smith ’25* agree that struggling with lower self-esteem plays a role in mental health struggles.
“People want to feel confident in their own abilities,” Smith said. “But there’s also the feeling that if you’re going out of your way to ask for help, then the abilities that you thought you had aren’t actually as potent.”
Smith, among others, feels that seeking help diminishes one’s self confidence, which feeds into students’ internalized shame concerning their condition or situation. While many try to find solutions to their lack of confidence, counselor Jenna Breuer feels treating mental health should be similar to how one would treat physical health.
“We can wrap our heads around providing treatment and medication and support to people with a broken leg or diabetes or those that are undergoing cancer treatment,” Breuer said. “Yet, we can’t quite always get on the same page when it comes to that type of treatment for those that are struggling with conditions that we’re either not as familiar with, that we don’t understand as well, that we can’t see.”
To Breuer, visible signs of pain are easier to treat quickly; yet for mental health it’s extremely difficult to piece together warning signs for someone struggling internally. Smith notes that self-sufficiency has heavily influenced people’s approaches to problem solving, regardless if it’s mental health related.
“For me, asking for support isn’t the first thing that comes to mind,” Smith said. “I first think about what the problem is and what I should do to resolve it.”
While some may not choose to seek assistance at first, even when they do consider reaching out, students like Yim are sometimes deterred by a fear of how others will react. In addition, students may not feel like they’re able to fully express their feelings to another person.
“Sometimes you have parents that aren’t willing to listen, or you think that they won’t listen, not necessarily because of anything that’s actually happening, but just because you’re scared,” Yim said. “When that happens, it’s really hard to get help just because you don’t know how to ask.”
Yim shares personal struggles finding support systems within their community, as they felt their parents wouldn’t understand what they were feeling. However, Breuer says that when individuals build a connection with peers through empathy, a stronger support system is built for those struggling with mental health.
“Any time you have conversation and open dialogue, it makes a difference,” Breuer said. “And I think any time you’re willing [to talk about your own personal struggles], this is something we care about, this is something we value, this is something we want you to do, then people are hearing that and taking note of themselves and understanding warning signs.”
Breuer feels when a community can create conversation and empathy that is valued, a sense of belonging and bond is formed among individuals. Instead of consulting with adults, many teenagers such as Smith try to find support in their friends, who they feel strongly connected to.
“Based on classroom interactions that I’ve experienced, it would seem that students are much more willing to ask help from other students, instead of reaching out to teachers or perhaps some other adults,” Smith said. “But I also realized that us students aren’t always best equipped to help them.”
Even though students like Smith choose to confide in their peers, the Pew Research Center found that 31 percent of U.S. adults say they would be only somewhat comfortable talking with a close friend about their mental health. To Breuer, students may feel ashamed or scared to risk ruining their relationships with friends and of being judged for what they may be going through.
“A lot of times [we get] referrals from friends that are concerned or from teachers that are seeing patterns of behaviors that are not typical,” Breuer said. “Sometimes it’s concerns from families, just asking for support from the school because they don’t know what to do.”
Breuer has noticed a higher proportion of concerns from friends and family, reaching out on behalf of their loved ones who may be dealing with mental health struggles. According to the National Institute of Health without treatment, students experiencing mental health disorders are at high risk for lower grade point averages, school dropout, and unemployment.
Further, in efforts to deal with mental health symptoms on their own, studies from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) have found that people with a mental disorder, such as anxiety, depression, or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), may use drugs or alcohol as a form of self-medication. Despite the health complications that may come with it, Fallon has noticed that of those who have reached out to NAMI for support, some resort to substance use to cope with their mental illnesses.
“People who have underlying symptoms of mental health often will use substances like alcohol or drugs to cover up those symptoms because of the stigma,” Fallon said. “They’d almost rather be known as someone who uses drugs or alcohol than to be thought of as someone who has or had a mental illness.”
Fallon highlights the adverse effects of turning to substance use when dealing with mental health issues, as the “temporary relief” will bring about long term implications like worsened symptoms, personality changes and a skewed reflection of themselves. According to NAMI, diagnosing mental illness is not straightforward, but rather each mental health condition has its own set of both unique and overlapping symptoms. While difficult to spot such conditions, Smith found that seeking professional help may provide better answers.
“During middle school, I had an extremely hard time writing essays, so we were trying to figure out why exactly that was happening,” Smith said. “I had bouts of rather severe depression, so we had to seek psychological help outside school environments that led to my ADHD diagnosis.”
To better assist students, accommodation plans, including extra time on tests and breaks as needed, may be given based on an evaluation process that looks at data and feedback from the student, family, teachers, and SST members. However, Yim points out that not all adults and students understand what someone may feel when suffering mental health illnesses, leading them to make assumptions.
“People kind of romanticize mental health,” Yim said. “Like you always see people posting [about it], but when you actually meet someone [who’s struggling with a mental illness], the way that they struggle [may not seem like they’re] handling it ‘right’. They might not be taking care of themselves or their hygiene, and we think that that kind of mental health is bad. We can only struggle in a certain way and we have to kind of keep it to ourselves.”
To Yim, mental health is framed to look a certain way, making individuals who don’t fit that image feel even more invalidated. Recently, Sarah LaFrancis, Assistant Director of Student Services, noticed how students have been regularly introduced to ways they should acknowledge and discuss mental health topics.
“As I reflect on Stevenson High School and the students. I am just constantly amazed at how much thought and focus students put on the topics of wellness and mental health,” LaFrancis said. “Students constantly push to talk about these things to break the stigma by understanding the what, the where, the why and they are trying to normalize that conversation.”
LaFrancis recognizes how students are considering steps to become further involved in breaking the societal stigma around wellness and health. Breuer acknowledges that the SST has promoted a space of care at Stevenson, though their influence outside of school remains limited.
“I think the problem is that just because we do that here, it doesn’t mean that the same rhetoric at everybody’s home or everybody’s community,” Breuer said. “And so that’s why mental health and how people seek out help look really different for everyone.”
Breuer highlights the importance of understanding the diverse needs of individuals along with ways of asking others for support. LaFrancis hopes to teach teenagers tactics of self-advocacy which requires individualized approaches to ensure their growth and wellbeing.
“Our goal is to help support students in getting to the point where they feel comfortable self-advocating on their own, and everyone starts at a different point to get there,” LaFrancis said.
*Name changed to protect anonymity.