Dear Friend,

     You carry a burden that you won’t share with anyone: this feeling like you can’t share your thoughts, not because no one will care, but because you might think no one will listen. Unspoken thoughts or feelings can stay inside those walls, but they won’t hold forever. These ideals of having it all together will just hasten the blow.

     Callie Holtermann wrote an article about describing mental health in teenagers. She acknowledges that teenagers may not speak their mind. In her article she said, “teenagers ‘are practically begging you’ – without telling you directly.” Basically, her point is that teenagers won’t tell you about their struggles with mental health in person, but they may expect you to take notice, without having or wanting to speak about it. In other words, teenagers want you to come to them first instead of them having to reach out. I agree with her that teenagers don’t speak up, and this needs to be emphasized. Many people, including parents, still believe that they are fine, when in reality, they really just aren’t telling anyone. To teenagers, I encourage you to find at least one person you trust, to start with. You don’t have to spill your life secrets to them, but share a little more than you would. With time, continue to share your thoughts and feelings to that person. Or if you don’t have that somebody, try journaling. Writing down your thoughts can take off a lot of that weight.

     Although the ideals of having it all together could be draining and can set yourself up for failure, this is a way of navigating these ideals in a healthier way. Sarah Dew shared her ways to change the way you think about “having it all together.” She says that, “change and obstacles are inevitable, so striving towards the ideal of having it all together is just setting yourself up for failure. The only way you would ever really have it all together would be if you were able to predict the future and plan for everything that will go right and everything that will go wrong. And that’s just not possible.” Her words describe how it’s impossible to abide by that ideal, even how hard you try. In the rest of her article, she describes steps to be taken to have a healthy way of having it all together. For example, shifting your perspective so instead of thinking you have to have it all together, shift that perspective to having it all together is overrated. An important thing to do is also to let go of perfection and stop comparing yourself. Nothing ever good comes from the constant reminder of how much better someone else is, and that’s unhealthy. You need to remember that you’re your own person, and you need to embrace that. So instead of completely removing that pressure to have it all together, embrace that ideal just in a healthier way.

     But this process has to start small, step by step. Of course, you don’t have to follow this process but if your walls are breaking and they’re too high to climb there’s always a way to open a door.

– Anonymous