bad days with silver linings

By: Jen Lopez

When you think of mental health, most people think of the struggles that are involved with it. Some people can only think of every mental battle that they face everyday. 

I’m someone who struggles with mental health battles. Just waking up and going to school in the mornings is hard enough to even get through. 

Some people have their ‘bad days’, but for me, it’s more than days, it’s like it lingers with me no matter when. It can hit more than most days, but it’s always something that corrupts me everyday. 

That said, even during those bad days, there are certain things in my life, people, that can still give me hope for good days. 

As I grew up, I was exposed to dealing with mental issues at an early age. I never understood what having trauma was or developing problems like anxiety or depression, but being put into therapy so early on helped me understand it more. 

The whole concept of therapy is to help you understand your emotions, your feelings, the struggles you’re going through, but for me, it felt like I was learning too much about myself. It felt overwhelming having to deal with it, the struggles I was going through. 

I say this a lot, but I feel as though if I was put into therapy later on in my life, I wouldn’t be as corrupted as I feel I am. 

Being exposed to so much so early made me so aware and more scared. I didn’t know how to deal with any of the mental battles I was going through, the self sabotage I would put myself through. I guess I could partially blame myself for it since I wouldn’t tell my therapist the whole truth of my thoughts. I was afraid. I didn’t fully believe I could trust her with keeping my information private. I was scared of being looked at differently, that I would be seen as “crazy.”

Once my sessions ended, I thought that maybe it would finally be over. That I wouldn’t have to deal with all these thoughts and feelings. I was wrong.

I tried to keep pushing. I tried to pretend like what I felt wasn’t valid, like it shouldn’t have any affect on my life. 

As time went on, I met new people, and I gained new friendships. They gave me a sense of hope, like not everything was terrible, which it wasn’t, but I didn’t know that. 

Junior year, I was kind of just exploring everything in life, I was trying to branch out more and create boundaries but also not restrain myself from things.

Along that journey, I met the most important person in my life, my boyfriend. 

Coming into my life, he genuinely made such an impact on it, and he brought me so much hope. He cares for me, he shows me an endless amount of love and support. He is someone who I trust and rely on when I feel like I’m just losing hope.

Johnny: “I'm very happy that you trust me with it because...Like, as someone who I guess you trust and like is important in your life, I'm glad you trust me with everything. And like, you'd rather not hide things from me and you tell me straight up.”

Even with support and words of comfort, I tend to get in my head and make things worse for myself. I always fall and continue to fall. I get so lost in my own thoughts, I feel like it gets to the end, like I just want to give up and stop trying. 

I always fear the way people might view me hearing about my struggles, or hearing how honest and blunt I am when I talk about everything I go through mentally. 

Jen: “Have you ever viewed me differently after hearing like the things that I tell you?”

Johnny: “Yeah. Never in a bad way.” 

Jen: “Like in what way?”

Johnny: “Like a sad way? I don't know if I'm asking or I'm telling. Yeah, never in a bad way. More like, an ‘I get sad hearing about it.’ And like, like, it like tears me up, like tears me apart. Because it's like, ‘Wow, why couldn't I have been there for her? Like before,’ like, whatever, you know?”

More recently, I had found myself opening up to someone new. I usually find it hard to trust and rely on school teachers, or counselors. I tend to fear what will happen if I tell an adult my whole truth. 

I recently had a really triggering moment and I was going through my school day just trying to not break. It was a hard day, I was trying to push myself to just make it through the day, I was halfway there. Then 4th period hit. For whatever reason, I just felt this heavy weight and I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I started to tear up and my friend noticed and was trying to comfort me and hold me, but that really only made me feel more weak and I started sobbing. 

My teacher noticed, but he didn’t want people to look at me and figure out what was wrong. He wrote me a note and offered help and support.

Mr. Nguyen was the first teacher I found comfort in. Going through what I did, I felt a little relieved he wanted to help. When he didn’t push me to talk to him, I just felt this push within myself to just let it all out. His presence was extremely comforting, and I know it would be because throughout the year, he was a teacher I gained this trust and comfort with. I never felt uneasy or stressed when being in class. 

I was scared he too would see me differently once he saw me like that, seeing another side of me I never would have, because to him, I felt like I gave off such a strong personality, someone a bit outgoing and funny. 

Nguyen: “So my first reaction was that, you know, obviously that's not how she normally acts because at this point, you know, you've been my student for six months. I knew something was wrong, but the way I approach it is I don't want to kind of pry because, you know, students sometimes have their own things that they don't want to tell teachers and that's totally–I get it. But I do always want to show my students that, hey, I'm here. I am here to speak to my students. I'm here to listen. So I used that post-it note to write–to make sure that, hey, I'm here if you need something. You can reach me any way you need to. And I just wanted to kind of show my support as more than just a classroom teacher, if that makes sense. More like a mentor educator type role.” 

Jen: “Do you think you view me differently because of that day?”

Nguyen: “No, I don't think so. I mean, I definitely saw another side of you, but that doesn't, that's not going to change how I interact with you, how I view my students. Things will continue as normal because sometimes I feel like that constant normalcy is needed.”

Mental health is a hard thing to take care of, especially being young and not being able to rely on others to support you. 

In many ways, there are schools, communities, or just people that don’t really know how to deal with kids who struggle with mental health. Our school does their best to provide support for students to go to counselors for assistance and feel like their troubles aren’t something they should deal with alone. 

Nguyen: “We have staff here at YB and at the other side of the work here at Eastside, they're very committed. They do their best with what little resources they have and I see the effort like you know our wellness staff put in, right? Our social workers put in, our advisors put in. So I think the people we have are amazing.”

However, sometimes there are issues within schools that may not be in their hands to take care of.

Nguyen: “I just wish they had a little bit more resources available to them to help them with their job. Schools, public schools here in California are not very well equipped to handle the amount of mental health issues that afflict our students.”

I may deal with constant battles in my head that tear me down, make me feel like nothing will ever get better, but I know that the silver lining to it all is the people I have in my life that provide comfort and support when I am just hitting rock bottom. 

Obviously it is no one’s job to “fix” me, I’m not looking for that, but as I go through my days, I find a sense of relief and find it easier to accept help and support from letting my emotions be seen, be heard. It’s less of a heavy burden on myself when I can open up to someone and let myself talk.