The Problems of Our Generation

"Teenagers don't actually have mental illnesses."

TRIGGER WARNING: BULLYING, EATING DISORDERS AND MENTAL ILLNESS IS DISCUSSED HEAVILY IN THIS BLOG. IF YOU ARE NOT OVER THE AGE OF 13 DO NOT READ THIS. YOU MAY BECOME TRIGGERED BY SOME OF THE THINGS IM GOING TO GO INTO SO PLEASE CLICK OFF THIS BLOG IF ANY OF THE THINGS LISTED ABOVE IS TRIGGERING TO YOU.

Before I begin this 'rant' (as I'm calling it) I just want to say I am NOT trying to say that all adults say stuff like this to their kids, nor am I a professional at all on this subject. I'm just a bored teenager who wants to write a rant on the internet so people can hear my thoughts on this. I am not a professional and my words and statements should not be seen as the truth of factual in any way, because I have no idea what I'm doing. Please do not comment something along the lines of "This little girl doesn't even know what she's talking about" because it's true, but I'll delete your comment, Susan.
With this in mind, let's begin!

Mental illness is something I struggle with on a daily basis.
I have OCD, and before you go off and say "So do I! I'm such a perfectionist, I have to keep my desk neat, and have everything be orderly."
That's not all OCD is.

You may be meticulous, but you most likely don't have OCD. OCD is sort of like a sub-category of an Anxiety Disorder, but it's its own thing. Having OCD doesn't always mean you have to organize your pencils by colour coordination, or having all of your pants folded the right way. It can also mean you have to walk back and forth in the same spot until you do it 'right' otherwise, something bad will happen.
"If I don't turn the light switch off 10 times, than its going to burn out and set fire to my whole house."
"Darn it! I stepped on a crack. Now I have to head back to my original destination otherwise my day is going to be completely messed up."
These are just a few OCD thoughts that I have had, but there is many more.

You see, there is a big misunderstanding between having a mental illness, and simply showing emotions. Someone may be upset, and  they might suddenly burst out crying in class, but that doesn't mean they are depressed. Someone can be paranoid of someone following them, but that doesn't mean they have anxiety. Someone can be a perfectionist, and they need to have things in order, but that doesn't mean it's a mental illness!
I am far from a professional, as I'm just some teenager writing in her living room on a Saturday night, but I have some experience with having my mental illnesss being put down.
When I was going through a tough time in my life, my OCD shone through. I started believing I was lazy, even though I'm not. My brain was telling me 'you have to exercise more, your getting fat!" And so I did that. I would work our almost everyday, or I would be outside doing something with my friends. I would never have time to relax, besides when I went to sleep or at school. I started eating less, to. At first, I felt good. I lost a lot of weight, even though I wasn't really trying to do that. I just wanted to be 'healthy' and be an active kid. Everyone would say "Wow Jerzey, you've lost a lot of weight! You look great!" And I didn't really think a lot of it, but I still felt good.
Eventually, I became very underweight. I was ghost white, and I had lost my period. I had been on this mindset for about 6 months, when one night my stepdad snapped me into reality. We had a long talk after he came back from a vacation, and I told him how I had been feeling. I told him how I felt like I was to lazy, and I was going to grow up as an unproductive member of society. I told him about how I was limiting my food intake, and that I ate the bare minimum everyday.

I started going to the doctor after that, including a visit to the E.R. I drank protein drinks like Ensure for awhile, and I started to gain weight back. I'm still gaining weight, but I'm getting better. Slowly.

When I would explain what I was go through to my family, I would just tell them that I had been through a depressive state, and I had to gain weight back. Most of them were understanding, and told me they were here for me if they wanted to talk about it more.
But I remember one conversation with my stepdad, that just stuck.

"You probably just starved yourself for the attention. Your life isn't even that bad."

My stepdad is the adult I trust most in life, but he was going through a stressful time, and he accidentally let that slip. However, words do hurt.
It made me think to why I was doing it in the first place. I wasn't starving myself for attention, right? I was going through a hard time after he and my mom split up, and I'm just having a hard time adjusting.

But was I really? Did I just lose the weight because I felt left out, and I wanted the attention of my family?

According to Teenmentalhealth.org (Source: http://teenmentalhealth.org/learn/mental-disorders/) 1 in 5 teens have some form of mental illness.
My main focus for this blog is to look at why I think mental illness is much more "common"  and just more talked about now, and why some people might come to believe that we are in fact faking all of this. Like I said at the beginning, I'm no way an expert on this subject and I'm simply a girl who wants to share her thoughts on the internet which I will most likely regret in a few years. This is just my opinion and it is not factual at all because I don't know what I'm doing 99.9% of the time.

Teenagers nowadays are in much more contact than the rest of the world than from a few decade's ago, which is an actual fact that we have to admit. A lot of us have access to the internet and we can talk to people from all around the world from a click of a button, and news is much easier to read about nowadays.

To me, social media is a positive thing in my life. I have a few online friends that come from all over the world that have helped me through so much, and I wouldn't trade their friendship for the world. I'm a pretty introverted person, and it's really hard for me to open up to people. Online however, it feels so much easier to talk to my friends because they share many interests as me. We're all quite nerdy and introverted, and we all bond over our shared love of the show Once Upon A Time. (highly recommend watching it!)

However, not everyone's experience with the online world is positive. Cyber Bullying is a huge issue that many teens face. Back before the Internet was created, teenagers were bullied only in person. While this is hard and leads to a lot of stress in school, it's much easier to harass people with the internet. Kids are bullied not only in person at school, but the bullying can continue at home via the internet.

Say there was this nerdy kid at your school. He loves Marvel Comic books, and gets bullied because of it. The typical bullying you would see happen in high school movies happens to him at school, people call him names, push him around and they might even physically hurt him. This kid, we'll call him Jerome, becomes depressed. His grades start to drop, he can barely sleep at night, and he never seems hungry anymore. He always has bags under her eyes and is becoming skinnier by the day, and the poor kid just wants the bullying to stop.
You would think that once he got home everything would be fine, but the bullying continues there to.
People post rude and hateful pictures of him on Snapchat and Instagram, saying hateful comments like "What a loser, I wish you would leave our school!" And "Go to hell, Geek!"
No matter where Jerome goes, the hate follows him.

This is a problem so many teens of today face, and it's disgusting. There is so many more things that can happen, but I don't want to get into that.

According to a few sources I read trough (aka www.teenmentalhealth.com) Almost 1 in 5 teens have some form of mental illness. Why is mental illness so much more common now than just two decades ago?

My answer isn't technology. It has to do with technology, but my best guess is the media.

News is easier to access now more than ever. 'The Digital Age' is upon us, and teens and adults alike can easily find any information they want with the click of a button.
Mental Illness isn't something our generation has made up as an excuse. It's been around forever, but it's just now that we are researching treatments for it and learning more about it. Soldiers in Wars have shown signs of PTSD since forever, and scientists can easily diagnose older veterans who are now getting the help they need for their conditions.

Mental Health is a big part of who you are as a person. Everyone had a brain, and you need to treat it right just like you need to keep your body healthy. If you are going through a difficult time, talk it out. Keeping emotions bottled in is the worst thing you can do.

So if you or someone you know is suffering from a mental illness, don't just tell them their using it as an excuse. It's already hard enough to go through a mental illness as is, but when someone if putting you down for it, it makes it even harder. Be kind, and try your best to understand.