The 10th of October 2022, was mental health day, and while I am late in publishing a post about this specific day, it is never too early or too late to talk about mental health.
Going through some degree of bad mental health is something that the majority, if not all of us can relate to at some stage in our lives. Now I am no expert in talking about mental health and I can only talk from personal experience. While I have not been diagnosed with any specific conditions, I just wanted to share with you some of my struggles that I experienced throughout school as a result of my vision & hearing impairment and facial difference.
During my primary school years, up until around year 8 in secondary school, I was a fairly confident and bubbly child. I went to the same primary school right across from the age of 4-11 years old. It was a small village school where pretty much everyone knew everyone else. My parents felt that going to a small school would be good for me, due to my sight impairment. Additionally, due to the majority of my classmates growing up with me, I didn’t really experience any questions or bullying as a result of my medical conditions. I felt accepted and included by my peers and didn’t really have any concerns.
My self-esteem decline as a teenager
Sadly, loss of self esteem is something which is often expected among teenagers. Is social media to blame? Well quite possibly, but I am not here to start this debate. However, it is very clear that there has been a rise in mental health struggles in teenagers over recent years.
We live in a society where we are subjected to comparing ourselves to others who post their lives on social media. We are made aware of the ideal beauty standards, as well as seeing how others in our lives are succeeding in their jobs or studies. I mentioned in my last blog, (Study trip to New York as Visually impaired student), about how I compare myself to others and the effect that that can have. It is quite often that we feel growing up, that if we don’t fit a narrow image, we are odd ones out, and as a teenager, that seems like a really negative and isolating concept.
I think I was around 12 when I started to become more aware of my differences. The change from being in a small class with peers who had known me for years, to being in a large school with multiple classes, was a scenario which resulted in me becoming much more reserved.
I started becoming much more self conscious of my looks- having less jaw bone on my right side and being really concerned with the wind blowing my hair back, showing my right ear which is smaller and sticks out. I remember two incidents where my hair was getting slightly longer and I got shouted at by two different teachers, to tie my hair up (one was a PE class and the other was for using the machines in product design). I was already so insecure and didn’t like having any attention put on me, so between being shouted at in front of 30 other 12-13 year olds and having to quickly try think of an excuse why I couldn’t tie my hair up and expose my ear, I remember freezing on the spot and feeling my heart racing.
I know the situation sounds pretty dramatic now, but that is just one example of where my head was at throughout secondary school. I became very self conscious in how I looked and even became quite angry, questioning to myself “why me?” Why do I have to look different from the other teenage girls, and why do I have to go through operations, just so I can look more “normal”.
While I had my concerns over my appearance, I also had the struggle of not feeling like it fit in because of adjustments I had to have for my vision & hearing. I was reluctant to have enlarged copies of worksheets and to have a classroom assistant, checking with me to see whether I had grasped all the information provided.
The bubbly child that finished primary school had slipped away. I was anxious in class and and miserable in social settings too, due to finding it hard to keep up with group conversations as a result of being deaf in my right ear, causing me to feel left out.
I was a teenage girl who just wanted to be viewed as normal, but I didn’t want to accept the adjustments which I believed made me stand out.
Where I'm at with my mental health now.
Mental health doesn’t just clear up on its own, not completely anyway. My struggles have mainly come from finding it hard to accept my medical conditions and accepting myself for who I am. Acceptance and confidence is a topic I will be coming back to a lot throughout this blog, as it is an ongoing journey and one I expect many of you are also on.
Since leaving school, I have had some counselling to talk through my anxiety and low self-esteem around my appearance. This was initially provided to me by my hospital. I later had a course of counselling in my first term of University. When I started at Uni, I decided to take my mental health into my own hands, as I realised that even though I had now had my most significant jaw operation, I still had some deep rooted insecurities which I needed to address. I discovered that my past perceptions of myself were still holding me back somewhat with regards to making friends and feeling well in myself.
There are areas where I would still like to improve on, but as I said, It is a journey to finding confidence. However, I am happy that I have made improvements in comparison to how I was a few years ago.
I certainly would not have seen myself writing a blog, sharing my most vulnerable experiences with the intention of helping others on the internet.
Lastly, I started off this post saying how social media is bad for young people. I will just note that it has also been a really beneficial platform to connect with others with similar conditions as me. I have other girls around my age who I can refer to as a friend, who can relate to the struggles I have experienced.
If you are finding that your mental health is impacting you in any way, don’t feel you need any formal diagnosis to get some help, even if it is just reaching out to others. Talking is always a good starting point.
This brings me to the end of this post, thank you for taking the time to read it.
Becky. X
