The case for student mental health days

When I was a kid,

my mom and I made this deal.

I was allowed to take three
mental health rest days every semester

as long as I continued
to do well in school.

This was because I started
my mental health journey

when I was only six years old.

I was always what my grade-school teachers
would call "a worrier,"

but later on we found out that I have
trauma-induced anxiety

and clinical depression.

This made growing up pretty hard.

I was worried about a lot of things
that other kids weren't

and school got really
overwhelming sometimes.

This resulted in a lot of breakdowns,

panic attacks --

sometimes I was super productive

and other days I couldn't
get anything done.

This was all happening during a time

when mental health
wasn't being talked about

as much as it is now.

Especially youth mental health.

Some semesters I used
all of those rest days to the fullest.

Others, I didn't need any at all.

But the fact that they
were always an option

is what kept me a happy, healthy
and successful student.

Now I'm using those skills
that I learned as a kid

to help other students
with mental health challenges.

I'm here today to offer you some insight
into the world of teenage mental health:

what's going on,

how did we get here

and what can we do?

But first you need to understand

that while not everyone has
a diagnoses mental illness like I do,

absolutely everyone --

all of you have mental health.

All of us have a brain
that needs to be cared for

in similar ways that we care
for our physical well-being.

Our head and our body are connected
by much more than just our neck afterall.

Mental illness even manifests itself
in some physical ways

such as nausea, headaches,
fatigue and shortness of breath.

So since mental health effects all of us,

should we be coming up with solutions
that are accessible to all of us?

That brings me to my second
part of my story.

When I was in high school

I had gotten pretty good
at managing my own mental health.

I was a successful student

and I was president of the organized
association of student councils.

But it was around this time
that I began to realize

mental health is much a bigger problem
than just for me personally.

Unfortunately, my hometown was touched
by multiple suicides

during my first year in high school.

I saw tose tragedies shake
our entire community,

and as the president
of a state-wide group,

I began hearing more and more stories

from students where this had also
happened in their town.

So in 2018 at our annual summer camp,

we held a forum with about
100 high school students

to discuss teenage mental health.