Depression, anxiety biggest concern among teens today

High school senior Catherine Singleton was 16-years-old when she started getting panic attacks at school. After she stopped going out with friends and fell behind in her school work, she realized she needed to get help.

“I never said anything about it to anyone,” Singleton said. “And then I started having panic attacks. They wouldn't happen often but every once awhile.”

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention reports that around 15 million teens suffer from a treatable mental emotional or behavioral disorder. NBC news called it an “acute health crisis.”

Singleton is now about to graduate. She has been meeting with a therapist since the middle of her senior year. Her therapist saved her life, she said.

She believes that because of the stigma around mental health, many young adults don’t get the proper help.

“It's not talked about enough how common this is in teenagers and its becoming an epidemic where people my age feel like they cant reach out to anyone or say anything so they start relying on substances and abuse them,” Singleton said.

Findings from Pew Research suggest that the pressure students face in school is a contributing factor to teens’ well-being. Pew Research reports that 61 percent of teenagers said they feel “a lot of pressure to get good grades.”

“Feeling so very overwhelmed at a competitive high school you feel alone with your work and have so much going on and it completely contributes to the anxiety,” Singleton said.

LaJuana Norfleet ‘95 director of student support services for Alamance-Burlington Schools has been passionate about helping teens through emotional and behavioral struggles since she was a teenager herself.. She said her middle and high school counselors inspired her to pursue social work after she graduated from Elon University.

Norfleet said that the national trend of depression in teens is something she is seeing today at Alamance-Burlington schools.

“This year alone we have seen an escalation where teachers are requesting homebound services for, like, depression,” Norfleet said.

With these homebound services offered by Alamance-Burlington schools, students can complete classes online and continue to get counseling from home.

According to findings from Pew Research, most American teenagers would say that anxiety and depression are top concerns among their peers.

“We see some of these students with issues in trauma and some of these students being exposed to trauma,” Norfleet said.

Norfleet said she sees most students seeking help who are suffering from “ACE” — or “Adverse Childhood Experiences.” According to Norfleet, this could be range from bullying at school, pressure to get good grades to homelessness and abuse. She said that the national increase in students seeking help for mental illness is “a direct correlation to ACE.”

Braedyn Robeson, leader in Students Promoting Awareness, Responsibility, Knowledge and Success at Elon — known by students as SPARKS — suffered with mental illness throughout middle and high school. Now he is a leader at Elon, speaking to freshmen classes and working to rid campus of the stigma he says is present at Elon.

“In high school there aren’t a ton of resources or support for people struggling with depression or anxiety,” Robeson said. “I wanted to be part of something that made people feel comfortable with talking about what they’re struggling with.”

Norfleet said she hopes to partner with Elon in the future and talk to students who suffered with mental illness in their past.

“We actually could learn, I think, more from the college students,” Norfleet said. “What were some of your coping strategies? What do you need that you did not have?”