sendingtrees:

total-limerence:

isolate:

chainedcoffin:

total-limerence:

teachers need mental health training. not to help students solve their complex health issues by any means, but to notice that missing a day of school is the least of our worries. to notice that an A+ doesn’t matter when your entire world is falling apart. teachers need to be trained to notice the unique cry for help instead of criticising it. telling a student that they’re failing and putting their future at risk does not cause progression.

when I was in 8th grade, I considered going to school 3/5 days a week a victory, because at least it was more than half. frequently I went only 1 or 2 days, and sometimes not at all. I barely handed in any projects because most of the time I didn’t hear about them, and the rest of the time I didn’t know the material. I failed tests. I never talked. I didn’t have even a single friend. when (only very rarely) asked where I’d been, I would say I was “sick” every time.

literally not one teacher ever stopped and thought that maybe something was wrong. they were fully prepared to fail me without ever asking why a 14-year-old who literally lived across the street was not coming to school. my mother had to beg them not to hold me back.

it’s not an exaggeration to say it would have turned my life around if any caring adult had paid attention to me and made sure I was ok. I should have been put in therapy. the sad truth is that teachers will ignore you unless you’re loud/unruly, and if you are they will harass and penalize you for it rather than trying to find out what is causing your behaviour. teachers look after kids for a huge chunk of their lives, they really need to learn to recognize warning signs that something is up.

In high school I didn’t care much about my grades. Not because I was lazy, or because I was ungrateful of being in school, but because to me; when my mental health was declining, getting a good grade was the least of my worries.

I spent every day worrying about class because I’d have to leave halfway through to travel an hour away to some therapy clinic, and I’d end up missing out on some stuff. I’d be pulled up on it the next day and made to feel bad about taking control of my mental health.

I got a C+ on my Biology paper, and my horrid teacher pulled me out of class, told me this wasn’t good enough, and actually had the nerve to call me ‘disabled’. At that point, my mother was so angry that she called the school. I was removed from that biology class, and put in the back of a class four years below me, and was made to sit doing nothing. My biology teacher however, continued as normal. I failed all science exams because I wasn’t taught, because they gave up on me.

I’ve always been naturally small and have never had a mental struggle with my weight. However because of my fast metabolism, people like to accuse me of having an eating disorder because I have a thigh gap.

In school, three grown teachers on three different occasions told me ‘I was getting skinnier and skinnier every day.’ And that ‘You don’t look like you eat anything.’ I ignored this to begin with, until a few days later, without my knowledge, my mother was called into my principle to ask if she was abusing me, and if I was being fed, because I ‘look skinny.’

This is also why teachers need mental health training- because the abuse they would receive if they commented on a larger students weight and said ‘they have an eating disorder’ would be indescribable. But no, an uneducated person sees a skinny kid and assumes they have an eating disorder.

The education system needs to fucking change.

In 8th grade my mom passed away and I struggled with school work. Then I went to a new school for freshman year and all of my teachers knew abt this, and when I would be too depressed to get up or do the work they would yell at me and wouldn’t help. They said that they had no “proof” I was struggling and wouldn’t spend a moment with me. My grades were horrible and I was dealing with a lot of kids telling me I should be over the death.

I wanted to die that year. I wanted desperately to end it all. If my teachers, even just one, reached out to me I would have felt so much better.

This could really save a life