Breaking the Silence: Navigating Mental Health Between Academic Pressure and Cultural Experiences.
By Anju She/Her | Year 12 Student | NSW
CW: Mental health, anxiety, self-harm, eating disorders
Mental Health was always something that I thought would never affect me. Sure, I’ve heard about teenagers in my PDHPE textbook struggling with depression or seen people in movies having panic attacks. It wasn’t until COVID hit that I really saw how many people in my year were struggling with mental health.
My best friend came up to me and whispered she had an eating disorder - this I already suspected but hearing her say it out loud made me inexplicably burst into tears. Another friend of mine told me that she was struggling with anxious feelings and was trying to work up the courage to go to the school counsellor (and her parents). I would see scars on my classmate’s wrists and see other students getting pulled out of class.
We all had a very patient year advisor. Although we initially made fun of him, we truly grew to appreciate his wisdom, and how passionate he was about our mental health. Whether it be organising countless mental health seminars, or making us take deep breaths before an exam, he had a massive impact on our year’s attitudes towards mental health. In year 7, people that he would have to ‘talk to’ would be embarrassed, but by the time we hit Year 11, we would confidently say ‘Oh, I’m having a Ted Talk today.’
Come exam season, we would all have exorbitantly high stress levels. The library would be the worst place to study, usually because of the tangible anxious feelings and the looming sense of dread.
Tears could come at any moment; breakdowns were one step away from happening and the grade group chat would be a flurry of activity. One exam, I noticed my friend wasn’t in the hall, and innocently asked her about it later. She confidently told me that it was because she had anxiety and needed provisions. I was shocked; she had some of the best grades in the year and never fit my mental poster of someone with anxiety. I realised I had some serious unlearning to do.
My school is a ‘selective’ school’; in colloquial terms, it’s referred to as a ‘smart’ school. We also have a (very) high population of students with Asian backgrounds and due to this environment, there was another kind of pressure— the parental kind. Although my parents never put any pressure on me to study, I did feel a personal responsibility. As the first person in my family to study abroad, I wanted to make them, and my relatives back in India, proud. However, I do realise that I am only speaking from my personal experience, and these do not reflect cultural experiences as a whole.
Navigating mental health in this context has had its challenges too. Across Asian cultures, discussions about mental health are rare, and my friends faced difficulties accepting that they needed help. The perception of bad mental health as an individual problem or weakness was unfortunately a belief they held, and one that I shared in my younger years.
I think this was when it really started to sink in that poor mental health wasn’t just something that happens to ‘someone else.’ It wasn’t something I, or my friends could block out – mental illnesses were affecting people in my life, and I had to accept its existence.
Recognising that people struggle with mental health was a struggle in itself, but a necessary one. I've come to realise the importance of honest, open conversations which helped us navigate between academic expectations and cultural experiences.
The views expressed in AYAC’S youth blog are personal and and not an endorsement of AYAC; we value and encourage the diverse perspectives of young people.