Hiding In Plain Sight: Youth Mental Illness Documentary – A Review Part IV

Addiction is like chasing an obsession. People often can’t think of a way out of it. “Saying stop it,” won’t work. People will always go back to their symptom relieving ways if they don’t find long term cure for their conditions.

“At 10, I started smoking pot. At 13, I was doing heroin daily.” Whatever pain is, it’s masked by drugs, you’re reaching a state of oblivion 24/7 by trying to feel better.

Delusions occur when you’re in deep psychosis. When you break from reality and can’t tell the difference between what images are generated by the brain and those that are real. Psychosis is when the patient is reacting to voices they are hearing from inside.

These symptoms occur later in adolescence, like 17, 18 and 19. They start responding to external stimuli that doesn’t exist in reality. This is often paranoid and delusional behavior.

Everything feels like a lie. Often the family doesn’t have the tools to cope and they distance themselves from the patient.

People who cut themselves cut for two reasons. “Cutting felt like I was alive. I cut, burn, bite or scratch until it bled. It’s addicting to feel that instant relief.”
1. When you feel numb, cutting gives you the feeling of being alive.
2. Instead of constantly feeling overwhelmed, anger and anxious, cutters want to feel some other emotions.

“Why is that not eating enough, not drinking, not partying, not sleeping enough – all these are socially acceptable, but not cutting?”

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Cutting was my all-purpose solution. The fear of an unknown never resolves, because the unknown expands infinitely outward, leaving you to cling pitifully to any small shelter of the known: a cracker has twelve calories; the skin, when cut, bleeds. That’s when I wanted to cut. I cut to quiet the cacophony.
~ Skin Game by Caroline Kettlewell

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Conclusion: You Deserve Help

In our society, there’s a double standard between how we deal with physical vs. mental breakdowns. There’s a stigma when it comes to mental health. We cover our eyes and ears and pretend that the problem doesn’t exist.

Some people can make their worst experiences to carve a path forward or break and dig themselves into oblivion. Some start blaming themselves for where they are, they become reckless because they “can’t see past tomorrow.”

But, everyone deserves a chance to have a lending hand to help them through their toughest emotions and trauma. We all live with a certain amount of existential angst with us as we grow and age. It is when anxiety becomes bigger than our personal definition of ourselves, that’s when there’s a problem. The first big step is to seek a caring adult.

But recovery is taking one step at a time. It’s going to be difficult, its going to be messy. But on the other side, you’re a better version of yourself.

A counselor makes a student promise him, “You won’t harm yourself tonight. And I’ll see you tomorrow.” A father says that you don’t get involved in this fight for mental health because this is like a membership to the ski club. You get into because you’re dragged into it.

“Watching your kid living like this, and not knowing if they will make it is a terrifying feeling.” Your loved ones deserve to know how you are and what you’re feeling. Go talk about it.

It’s also important to know that we’re all worthy of love. We must seek it, and find it to survive this ordeal called life. We must love who we are. Find out our true self and align with it. And then go in search of a parent or friend to help us with our journey of discovery. For caregivers, you must always remember to meet children and teens where they are.

You’re not alone. You mean a lot to a lot of people. Your life matters. There are so many ways out. Suicide is not one of them. You’re stronger than you know. Keep fighting.

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I am a war zone. I am home to a battleground littered with cursed hearts and broken minds.
~ Nicole Lyons, From Her Poetry Book Hush

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