“What’s wrong, what’s bothering you?”, a question I tend also to ask myself most days. I can’t exactly pinpoint the thing that is making me experience such irritation or sorrow. I tend to make people who care about me frustrated. They want to know what's wrong and they want to help, but they just want me to speak. To speak about my emotions. How do you expect me to tell you what’s wrong when I don’t even have a clue what’s causing this? What is this unpleasant feeling? 

I am like a raincloud pouring over everyone who cares about me. The dark clouds block the cheerful sun, and the droplets drip and drop onto the shoulders of my loved ones, turning their happiness into sorrow. My miserable problems soon slither their way into everybody else. “I tend to bottle things up, I have emotional walls built.” these bottled emotions, these feelings, these problems hide like a camouflage snake until they spring up and bite someone. Just enough to make them feel hurt. To make them feel a certain kind of misery too. “I am an independent person.” Not in the way that most people would first bring their minds to. When it comes to letting people in and letting my guard down, that's when I become independent. I believe that never should anyone I love have to deal with problems of my own. Problems that no one necessarily finds untroubling. But do I need to be heard? Do other teenagers need to be heard? 

“Challenging as it may seem to talk about these issues, young people often are desperate to be heard. At the same time, talking to a parent can feel hard.” Parents are difficult. They say they're always there for you and will help no matter the circumstances. For me, it’s hard to open up to them. I say one thing that needs to be heard but it turns into a pinched battle between who is “right or wrong”. Parents should know what is best for their children, right? If that's so, how would I talk to them about something they might have never experienced before? I don't. It’s as plain and simple as it sounds. “Be gentle, be curious, and, over time, be persistent but not insistent.” This is A quote from a New York Times article that I read. A quote I suggest to parents, struggling to help hear their children, should follow. Teenage mental health can be hard to manage, but should never be thrown to the side. Our loved ones are there to help and listen, even if it’s not the most reassuring help, it’s what teenagers need at this point in their life. 

 Work Cited 

“Is Teen Mental Health in a State of Crisis?” The New York Times, 2022, www.nytimes.com/2022/05/05/learning/is-teen-mental-health-in-a-state-of-crisis.html?searchResultPosition=1. boutonn, anna. “Is This Freedom, or Is It Loneliness? | Teen Ink.” Www.teenink.com, 21 Mar. 2023, www.teenink.com/nonfiction/personal_experience/article/1183803/Is-This-Freedom-Or-Is-It-Loneliness. Accessed 14 Apr. 2023.