Not too long ago, I received a call from a school principal I had previously worked with. One of her students had attempted suicide—she swallowed over 10 migraine pills and was now in the ICU. I did not think twice. I rushed to the hospital. When I met her, she broke down, sobbing, apologizing through her tears.
“I am sorry, ma’am. I let everyone down. Please forgive me,” she kept repeating. She had gotten into a fight with her mother after going out with friends to celebrate finishing exams. She had not told her mother where she was, and by the time she got home, her mother was panicked and furious. Her mother accused her, “Are you having an affair? Who is the boy you were with?” The girl felt completely misunderstood. She tried to defend herself, then called her father, who works in Dubai, hoping for reassurance. But instead, he said, “Do whatever you want. If you want to die, then die.”
Minutes later, she locked herself in the bathroom and swallowed those pills.
Painfully common stories
Then there is a 14-year-old girl from another school. She lost her mother two years ago, and since then, her teachers say she hardly smiles. She comes to school every day, sits through classes, but she has withdrawn, not really present. Her grades are slipping. It took time for her to trust me, but when she did, she broke down and said just one thing: “I want to go to my mother.” That’s all she had been carrying — grief, silence, loneliness. No one had helped her unpack it.
A 21-year-old boy I met is drowning under the weight of university pressure, social expectations, and his mental fog. He has always been the kid who aces everything, the one people admire. But lately, he has been losing sleep, staring at his ceiling most nights, unsure of what is going on inside his head. He does not feel like himself, and he can not find the words to explain it to his parents or friends. “Just snap out of it,” they would probably say. But it is not that simple. He does not even know what “it” is.
These are not rare stories. They have become painfully common. I have sat across from Gen Z teens describing nightmares about falling in life, failing exams, and dark thoughts they can not shake. Some have panic attacks. Others feel crushed by their parents’ expectations, always being compared to someone else. “Why can you not be more like so-and-so?” echoes louder than any kindness.
During my sessions, when a teen timidly asks, “Can we trust you?” or whispers, “Will you tell our parents we are mad?” That is when the gravity of the problem hits. Expressing pain does not make someone ‘insane.’ We need to say this more often. Still, the stigma runs deep. Fear of being judged keeps them silent. They retreat to social media, make anonymous profiles, connect with strangers, and fall into the dangerous trap of comparison—scrolling through curated lives of influencers without realizing the cost to their own self-worth.
Pretending is suffocating
May is recognized as Mental Health Awareness Month. It is the time for campaigns, hashtags, and carefully worded messages across timelines. But this is also when we need to ask: Are we really doing enough?
We are hyper-connected, yet isolation is rampant. Mental health is being discussed more, but the crisis among students is only intensifying.
In the last eight months alone, I have spoken to over 500 adolescents during school workshops and community outreach sessions. I have watched many go from blank stares to sharing poems and paintings about their inner worlds. At first, some did not even know what mental health meant. Slowly, they found the courage to put their feelings into words.
I have always advocated for honest conversations about mental well-being and also seen how easily people applaud awareness posts while avoiding the discomfort of real struggle. I have witnessed the silence that follows when someone speaks up. That is why I believe in real education—one that dismantles stigma, that creates room for vulnerability, for tears, for not having it all figured out.
But the truth? The pressure to seem “fine” all the time is suffocating. Many young people hide their pain behind smiles, afraid that revealing their truth might cost them friendships, family trust, even future opportunities. And so, they carry on, pretending.
Teach empathy
Awareness is not enough. We need action. Schools and colleges must do more than hold token workshops. Mental health needs to be woven into the way we educate, how we train teachers, how we equip parents. Educators should be taught to spot red flags. Parents need guidance on understanding teenage minds.
Above all, we need more empathy. Sometimes, the best support is not advice—it is just being there. Just listening. And when that is too hard, we can at least point each other toward help. Therapy. Counseling. Support groups. Remind one another: it’s okay not to be okay.
We must create a culture where mental health is not just an annual awareness trend—it is part of everyday care, conversation, and community. Let’s make space for those conversations. That is how healing begins.
Mental health is not a luxury. It is the bedrock of learning, living, growing, and building a meaningful life.
