"We don't always got this": Logansport seniors reflect on challenges of school on mental health

Mar. 20—Logansport High School seniors Jasmine Zimmerman, Emily Sanchez and Carissa Dawson visited The Pharos-Tribune on Thursday, March 14 to talk about a wide range of issues that they attributed to affecting their mental health.

One significant aspect of their lives that they said played a big role in their mental health was school.

This portion of the interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Question: What role does school play in your mental health?

Jasmine: well, it's the cause...

Carissa: The more exhausted I get the more prone I am, especially, to panic attacks. I have problems eating, too, and that stems from the depression. I am also quite prone to passing out. The more exhausted I get and the more stuff I do, I will just be there and I will be doing nothing and I will get tired and hungry and I will just pass out. I will have panic attacks and will pass out. I think that school and outside factors just exhaust me to the point where my body just need to do that.

Emily: I'm just so busy that sometimes I don't eat. I feel like my body has also been changing because I just don't eat sometimes. I'll eat a bag of Cheese-Its or you'll see me eat peanut butter and jelly in the morning, but that's all I will eat. So, then I go to work and I'm about to pass out. I get really bad dizzy spells and I'm pretty sure I have iron deficiency. But I feel like with the amount of work that we get—it's just busy work. I just feel like if teachers were just more lenient. I know it's their job but...

Jasmine: It's our life.

Emily: Yeah. It's affecting me because I used to be this person who was like 'ok. I need to get my homework done on this night as soon as I get home.' But I'm just so tired. I guess it's senioritis. I just don't want to do it.

Carissa: I know for some of us—I know you have cheer after school and speech—but there are some of us who go to school at 8 a.m. and don't go home until 9 p.m.

Emily: I'll go to speech. I'll go to cheer and then I'll go to work and I don't get off work until 10 or 11 at night.

Carissa: We are all at our wits end but how are we supposed to—what else are we supposed to do? We're supposed to get this high school experience. We're supposed to get good grades. We are supposed to do everything that we do. We are supposed to have a social life. We are supposed to be able to meet new people. We are supposed to have a home life with our parents. We are supposed to work because how are we going to pay for gas, or pay for food, or how else are we going to pay for our prom dress. We have a million things that we have to do because that's what we are told to do. Sometimes the things that I love to do feel like work. I love going to theater. It's my favorite place in the world. But sometimes I'm like 'holy cow! Can the world just stop for a minute?'

Emily: I agree with everything you just said. That's exactly how I feel.

Jasmine: I agree with you guys but I also feel like it helps me because I am so incredibly busy that I can just sweep (depression and anxiety) under the rug. 'Oh, I don't have any feelings because I have to go to speech. I have to go to work. I don't have to think about it. I'm doing things and doing things. But then it catches up with you and you have the big break down.

Emily: Or when you are in bed at night and alone and it's so bad.

Carissa: Or when you have that one assignment and it's so daunting for a week and you pull it out and you're like 'ok, I'm ready to write these 10 pages.' And then I start writing the 10 pages and (all the stress) is there and I'm like 'oh my' and I'm sobbing.

Emily: I tend to suppress things, which isn't good at all. Like if something will happen, I'll be like ok and I will move on with my life.

Jasmine: I really try to (move on) because how else am I supposed to live when I'm focused on the past. But then that comes back and haunts you. It really does. Bottling up and suppressing isn't good.

Emily: It's just so easy it doesn't affect me.

Jasmine: You don't realize you are doing it.

Carissa: I mean how do you realize you are doing it? You don't have time to stop and breathe. You get so wrapped up in the whirlwind of every other thing that's going on that the way you feel and the way all of these things are affecting you, it doesn't matter because you still have to get up the next day.

Emily: And you have to.

Carissa: You do not...

Jasmine: You aren't allowed to stop.

Emily: When I'm not in school, I'm either working or I'm with my family but because I'm a part of a Mexican household you have to clean every day. I'm the oldest sibling so I have to take care of the kids. I have to take my grandma places because she doesn't drive. And if I don't do those things I feel like a disappointment. If I'm not doing something in school, if I'm not working, if I'm not doing something for my family then I feel lazy.

Jasmine: I feel like I have a complete act that I put on every day. I'm the speech team captain. What? That's not me. But I do this to make everybody proud. I do this to make myself proud. But me at home in my bed, that's not me. I have so many other things that I'm pushing to make myself look good. I'm pushing to make myself be this person. I am this person but it's hard to be this person. I don't really have much family pressure but I feel like because I don't have those family pressures, I'm left in the dark a lot. I feel very alone because I don't have those people I'm worried about. I don't have people to stress over. It's literally just me and my stepmom at home. It's just us. I understand always trying to push yourself to be better and be someone people are proud of. And work, too, I feel like work, they expect me to be a fulltime person—'I am also a high school student and I also have a whole 'nother life to live'—so there's that. But school is probably the biggest over all.

Carissa: The most realistic stressor I have is my relationships.

Jasmine: I feel like that's not touched on as much just because it's typical teenagers and their dramatic lives. But it is our life right now. It is that big because it's what we are living right now.

Carissa: It's the only thing we know.

Jasmine: It's the only thing we know and we are trying to make everybody else happy and trying to make ourselves happy and that's a lot to balance. I feel like from an older—especially an adult—perspective, it gets pushed under the rug. 'Oh, it's a teenager. You guys have a lot going on, obviously, but it's not that big of a deal. You got this." We don't always got this.

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