It’s Time To Stop Dismissing Mental Illness
March 26, 2021
By Isabella Towne
Staff Reporter
Everyone has been sick. Either it’s been a cold, a fever, the flu. And when you’re sick, you need to take a break to recover. Usually that means that people need to take days off of school or work until they are healthy enough to return. Schools and jobs have a certain amount of sick days that are allowed. This means students and employees get days off when ill without consequences. But, as time goes on, there is now a need to have another form of sick days: mental health days. A day for students to take a break from the stress of it all, to relax and have some time to themselves. It should be viewed as a valid excuse for a day off when needed.
Mental health has been a recurring topic that has been more prominent in the past few years. It is being more discussed than ever, becoming more normalized as time goes on, and more people speak up about their experiences. Since it is now a common issue, like being physically ill, students should be able to take a break and focus on their mental health.
PEACE junior Monserrat Velazquez says that, “Mental health can be damaging to our physical health, so it should be taken seriously as a sick day.” According to nami.org, around 18% of high school students have mental health issues. Being able to take a day off could help tremendously.
Even for those without mental health problems, sometimes just a break is needed. A break from homework, the need to be social, testing, all of that. It can be a day to rest, or to catch up on missed homework. Psycom.net states that, “Forty percent of teens report feeling irritable or angry, 36 percent report feeling nervous or anxious, 36 percent report feeling fatigued or tired, and 31 percent report feeling overwhelmed due to stress in the past month.”
Having a mental health day off would be good not only for mental health, but physical health. In addition to this, a mental health day would help the work ethic in students. Once given a break and are less tired, students are more ready to go and learn in school.
Mathew • Nov 1, 2021 at 8:45 am
November 1, 2021
Dear Corydon Editor,
In Issue Seven ( Mar 26, 2021) Isabella Towne wrote an article called “ Its Time To Stop Dismissing Mental Health”. The Second I read the title, it had grabbed my full attention. As mentioned, Mental Health has been being talked about more and becoming normalized. Seeing the percents on how its taken a huge affected on teens is not surprising to me. I would of liked to see the cause of these numbers to rise. I fully agree with considering everyone taking days off to focus on themselves and to better themselves. Everyone deals with different things in their life and different ways on coping with it. These could also help teachers, to take some days off from work, to focus on themselves due to the high stress they deal with at work. This could benefit anyone on just taking days to rest and to find yourself. School plays a major part in it as well. Stress accumulates over time with amount of work having to be done or even just work you might have to catch up on for a class. For me, I take time for myself to calm down and go with a paste that works best for me which helps me alot. Metal health is so important because it takes a huge affect on how you are on a everyday bases. As mention within the article, the less stress the person has in school, the higher of chances they will want to learn and not have to worry about the endless amount of work they have to complete at the end of the week. I strongly agree with what the author had mentioned. Isabella had pointing out amazing information and happy to see people finally speaking up about it.
Sincerely,
Mathew Jurado, Grade 11
Cesar Garcia • Apr 1, 2021 at 2:05 pm
In Issue 7 (March 26, 2021), Isabella Towne wrote an article titled “It’s Time To Stop Dismissing Mental Illness.” First of all, this was a great article to read, and the topic was appealing to me. I very much agree to the title. Mental health is actually a real illness that causes individuals to suffer in many different ways. For instance, mental illnesses cause a higher chance of depression, anxiety, and even some rarer problems such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. Taking days off to take care of your mental health is very much needed for many individuals, and many can agree on this statement. Not everyone deals with mental health situations, but taking a day off to just relax and not worry about anything benefits everyone in some type of way. The idea of having days off is similar to “Asynchronous Days.” This day provides teachers and students a day off of zoom, and students just complete assignments throughout the day to be considered present in class. Although this is considered a “day off” of zoom, it’s really not a day where you can relax and just rest. This being said, I believe there should be days where there are no assignments assigned to students and a day for students just to focus on their mental health status. Overall, I do definitely agree that mental health is a topic that needs to stop being dismissed for. Great job on this article!
Natalie Dew • Apr 1, 2021 at 1:51 pm
In issue 7 (March 26, 2021), Isabella Towne wrote an article titled “It’s Time To Stop Dismissing Mental Illness”. Within this article, she talks about the importance of taking mental health days – something I 100% agree with. She compares mental health days to sick days that are given to people at work which allows them to take days off to recover. She then goes on to state that she believes mental health days should be given as well. She used a quote from a fellow Millikan student to strengthen her claim on the importance of taking care of mental health, since it is something that everyone struggles with. In the quote, she brings up physical health and how mental health affects it. I agree with this, because if you’re in a bad place mentally, you won’t have the motivation to do anything, which then causes harm to physical health. One thing she didn’t mention in this article that I feel would’ve strengthened her claim is that some people don’t take mental health seriously, but it’s vital that they do. People with mental health need support, and if those around them don’t take their mental health seriously, it can do even more harm. Overall, her article brought awareness to mental health which is important.
Tara Burks • Apr 1, 2021 at 12:13 pm
Dear Corydon Editor,
In Issue 7 (March 26, 2021), Isabella Towne wrote an article titled “It’s Time to Stop Dismissing Mental Illness”. The topic of this caught my attention instantly, and I’d like to offer thanks for tackling this issue. I love how Towne found and cited sources including websites with statistics and students themselves to go along with the serious topic at hand that involves us directly, but I think the article could’ve used some elaboration on what ignoring mental health could mean. For example, it could lead to irritability, anxiety, or general fatigue, so I think Towne could enhance her point by talking about how this could affect a student’s work ethic in class by turning into a cycle where forcing oneself to do schoolwork when in an unhealthy mindset may lead to worse grades and worse mental health until they finally have room to breathe and start all over again.
On another note, I do agree with the idea of having mental health breaks be a standard reason for not being present in class just like physical illnesses are treated. Not everyone may be having problems right now, but at this time everyone deserves some time to wind down to help refresh their mind no matter how well they’ve adapted to online learning, which in the end could even just mean having more frequent async days.
Arian Villanueva • Apr 1, 2021 at 12:06 pm
April 1, 2021
Dear Corydon Editor,
In Issue 7 (March 26, 2021), Isabella Towne wrote an article titled “It’s Time To Stop Dismissing Mental Illness”. I have a lot to say about this, but I’ll start by stating that I agree with everything this article says. There are many things that cause the deterioration of a teenager’s mental health, such as consumerism, digitization, and even school. No one forces you to want to appear ostentatious, no one forces you to use social media, but you are forced to attend school. Thus, we need to work on removing school from that list, since it is a mandatory thing. We need to make it a better place for those who struggle with mental health. So I agree that mental health day should be taken as seriously as a sick day. When I’m in a slump, school is the very last thing that I could care about. I’d rather do anything than even an hour of school work. The exhaustion feels the exact same as if I had the flu. So if schools want their students to perform better, they should consider allowing students to take a day off at least once every 2-3 months. And maybe once a month for those struggling with depression, bipolar disorder, and so on. I’d like to thank you for saying that students without mental illness need a break too. I think it’s important to remember that everyone — not just those who are diagnosed with a disorder — feels burnt out every so often. I’d like to suggest you add a source after stating that “a mental health day would help the work ethic in students.” You might think it isn’t necessary , as it seems like common sense, but this is a controversial topic, some might argue that a day off wouldn’t improve students’ work ethic because students might use it to watch Netflix all day, hang with friends, and so on. Other than that, you did a great job providing sources for the rest of your talking points. All in all, I’m a defeatist when it comes to improvements within the school system, as it has been iniquitous for ages now, but this article was still a good read and I hope to see more about this topic in the Corydon website.
Sincerely,
Arian Villanueva, Grade 11
Aeres Orcullo • Apr 1, 2021 at 10:03 am
Dear Corydon Editor,
In Issue 7 (March 26, 2021) Isabella Towne wrote an article titled “It’s Time to Stop Dismissing Mental Illness” and honestly I completely agree with the title. Mental illnesses aren’t fake news or something that’s only heard of in superstitions or fairy tales, this stuff is real and affecting us greatly. Taking days off for mental health is a great idea, it’s basically taking time off from your problems to sort things out and help get yourself back off the ground from which you fell. In simpler words, it’s days to take time and relax and care for yourself. With mental health days also not exclusive to just selective people with actual mental health problems, it gives everyone a break and time to overall just “get better.”
This idea feels similar to our “Asynchronous days.” Days in which students are given work without attending actual classes. It gives time and opportunities to us, to do work and to catch up on any overbearing tasks that we may have to complete. Mental health days would be serving a similar purpose by giving us “time and opportunities” to focus on making ourselves feel better through mental health. Overall, the idea of taking time off and bettering your mental health and taking care of yourself is wonderful and should really be taken seriously as mental health issues, as well as self-care, are no joke.
Sincerely,
Aeres Orcullo, Grade 11
Joseph Fausto • Mar 31, 2021 at 11:32 pm
March 31, 2021
Dear Corydon Editor,
In Issue 7 (March 31st, 2021), Isabella Towne wrote an opinion article called “It’s Time To Stop Dismissing Mental Illness.” First of all, I wanted to start by thanking Isabella for bringing light to such an important issue. Everyone has a story, we all are dealing with different things in our daily lives. Whether it is mental or physical challenges or even both, I totally agree that sometimes we just need a break from everything. Even though not everyone has a mental illness or is dealing with mental/physical challenges (as stated in this article), we all deserve a chance to refresh and relax our mind, our body, and our soul. In this article, Isabella includes a quote from Psycom.net that says, “Forty percent of teens report feeling irritable or angry, 36 percent report feeling nervous or anxious, 36 percent report feeling fatigued or tired, and 31 percent report feeling overwhelmed due to stress in the past month.” This further proves that us as humans needing a break for the sake of our mental/physical health should be a valid excuse to miss a day of school or work, just like how we take days off when we are feeling (physically) ill. In doing so, our mood and our energy will drastically improve, allowing us to perform better in our daily lives, which would better society as a whole. This is a very well written opinion piece and I once more applaud the writer as not many people choose to engage in this important topic of discussion, or even realize how serious mental health actually is.
Sincerely,
Joseph Fausto, Grade 11
Julianna Caliri • Mar 31, 2021 at 9:01 pm
March 31, 2021
Dear Corydon Editor,
In Issue 7 (March 26, 2021) Isabella Towne wrote an article titled “It’s Time to Stop Dismissing Mental Illness”. I couldn’t agree more on this issue. As it says in the article, mental health awareness has not been looked upon as often as it should be, just like physical health it is very important to have a healthy mind. It’s just as important to be as healthy mentally than physically because if it gets bad, it can lead to worse situations. Seeing the statistics in the article made me really believe that these numbers were true, but I would also like to see a source to see where these percentages came from so I can truly believe that this is true. I also liked the mention of a mental break and how much asynchronous days help with that. It would be beneficial for not only students but also teachers to get a break mentally throughout this madness. As the author mentioned, students would be more motivated to learn if they have a good mindset and are less stressed and less pressured to do so. I fully understand what the author is trying to say and I fully support everything they stand with.
Sincerely,
Julianna Caliri, Grade 11
Andrew Lagana • Mar 31, 2021 at 1:13 pm
March 31, 2021
Dear Corydon Editor,
In Issue 7 (March 26, 2021), Isabella Towne wrote an article that’s called “It’s Time To Stop Dismissing Mental Illness”. I love the idea of there being mental health days. You see, I actually have a mental illness myself. Due to my illness, I have it harder than other people when it comes to school. For one thing, it can take me hours to get an assignment done because I second guess myself. The reason why I second guess myself is because I’m worried about getting summer school as I don’t want to waste a majority of my summer working non-stop. Another thing is that I sometimes have a hard time doing work myself as I feel the need to get some advice from my brother. I get distracted sometimes, thus causing me to waste more time getting work done. I can get tired easily from working during school and after school. So having days off to relax is just what the doctor ordered. I hope there’s mental health days before the school year is over. If there’s not, I’m just going to get more tired and stressed out.
Sincerely,
Andrew Lagana, Grade 12
Emma Garrett • Mar 31, 2021 at 11:27 am
March 31st, 2021
Dear Corydon Editor,
In Issue 7 (March 26, 2021) Isabella Towne wrote an article called “It’s Time To Stop Dismissing Mental Illness”. In the article, Isabella Towne reveals how important it is for workplaces and schools to allow mental health days and I agree. The PEACE junior said “Mental health can be damaging to our physical health, so it should be taken seriously as a sick day”. I agree with her because everyone struggles with different things, others may not know what they are but, we all have our own hard days. Towne also added a few statistics that revealed how many highschool students struggle with their mental health and are overall very stressed out. Mental health is a battle for everyone and everyone has different ways of coping with it. The mental health of students and people in work can be helped if mental health days were an option. I think one day off can be very stress free and can be very useful. Recently this year, school administration has created asynchronous days to allow students to catch up on work and have a zoom free day. These may not be days off but, they are very useful and can help many students be less stressed out from school. The school administration should consider the mental health days for the wellbeing of their students.
Sincerely,
Emma Garrett, Grade 12
Nathan Noriega • Mar 31, 2021 at 10:52 am
March 31, 2021
Dear Corydon Editor,
In Issue seven, (March 26, 2021) Isabella Towne wrote an article called “It’s Time To Stop Dismissing Mental Illness”. This article was a good read and I like that students are thinking about other students and their well being. I think it is a great idea to give everybody days off for their mental well being because school can be very very stressful. Especially between winter and spring break. I like the evidence and percentages Isabella used and I thought this article was very informing. It was full of good information and a great idea. I don’t think this article needed to be any longer because Isabella gets the point across very well. It would be cool if she explained how a day off would improve work ethic in students. I think we should just extend the weekend and have Monday on the weekend. Everybody loves three day weekends so i think that would be great. I like the pictures in the article and they convey the stress that students feel (especially after finals). It was a nice easy read with a good topic, and I am glad I read it.
Sincerely,
Nathan Noriega, Grade 11
Elyanna Lopez • Mar 31, 2021 at 10:22 am
The title of this article alone was able to immediately grasp my full attention. Although the topic of mental health is finally being brought into the limelight, almost nothing has really been done to ensure that it’s been properly accommodated and supported. People have truly been acknowledging it, but in hindsight, also “dismissing it” as you stated in the title. I thought you used a clever comparison at the beginning of the article by giving examples of when people have been able to take off work or school for sick days, because mental health truly is as important as physical wellbeing. The quote from a real student that attends Millikan was a great addition to the article, it is able to help the issue at hand hit a lot closer to home than previously expected. Mental health has become a steadily rising issue for many of today’s teens. The percentages added into the article have made it abundantly clear that there are more than enough of us who are struggling with mental health to actually be able to consider it a real issue to be helped and cared for.
Cooper R. • Mar 31, 2021 at 9:59 am
March 31st, 2021
Dear Corydon Editor,
In Issue 7 (March 26, 2021), Isabella Towne wrote an article titled “It’s Time To Stop Dismissing Mental Illness.” I fully agree with this take. As pointed out in the article, mental health has only become a very talked about subject in the last few years, even though it is just as important as physical health. I like the percentages/statistics the author used to get their point across, and I like how the author credited their sources so that we, as a reader, don’t think she pulled the numbers out of thin air. Something else I liked that the author suggested was having days off to relieve the stress on students. I believe we should keep asynchronous days once we return to school to serve as this purpose. We don’t have to have a lot of them, once a month, but the help that they could give would be tremendous. As pointed out by the author, if students are less tired and are experiencing less stress, they would be more willing to learn and pay attention in class. I wholeheartedly agree with the author, and mental health needs to be recognized for how serious it actually is.
Sincerely,
Cooper Robinson, Grade 11