Mental Health Awareness Needed

Adolescent mental health has always been a struggle within Alaska, and throughout the whole world.

 Globally, depression is one of the leading mental health battles faced by adolescents every day. As young adults they are pushed to go through the steps of growing up.

Young adults face all of these hardships that end up being inevitable. Addressing these mental health battles and finding solutions is crucial in developing brains so it doesn’t worsen and extend to adulthood. Promoting psychological well-being will encourage someone to seek help or advice. 

Here at Dimond High, school psychologist Julie Trim, has some things to say on mental health awareness.

 Trim said, “I think that there has been great strides as far as there being more awareness about mental health issues, but there is still much farther to go and hope as a school, city, state, country/society we continue to increase that awareness and put further solutions in place.”

 Trim also said, “I hope that the local and federal government can increase funding for measures that would help be preventative for mental health, as well as continue to increase funding for services to support mental health treatment needs.” 

Students have been isolated for over a year, and just recently have taken a tiny step towards things feeling “normal” again. 

For a lot of kids, school was an outlet; you were away from at-home issues, and you got to see your school friends and be distracted for six hours. 

Trim said, “During all times I would love for there to be classes that all middle school and high school students took that further address how to cope with difficulties in life—I feel that would be a great preventative measure to decrease mental health issues and help support teenagers as they are developing.”

 She also said,  “Both during quarantine and during life normally all individuals are different in how much they struggle, how they react to things and how they cope, but I will say in general it has been a hard year for a lot of people, which means it is an especially important time to prioritize mental health across the board and for individuals to personally make it a priority for themselves to figure out what helps them feel better and to do what they can to follow through on doing the things that make them feel better.”

A student from Dimond recommends to keep yourself occupied, and try to motivate yourself to just simply get up that day.

 They believe that there should be more awareness due to a lot of kids and adults that suffer with these issues usually do not know how to get through it by themselves. 

If you or someone you know is dealing with mental hardships or illnesses, please know that you can contact Trim for help on steps to further a solution. Reach out to your friends and make sure they are okay.