OPINION - NOVEMBER 2019

At first, I thought I had a nasty case of the flu.

I was in the middle of a conversation with someone during my sophomore year of high school when my mind went blank. My hands became clammy and my breath started to stall. Two measly frosted blueberry Pop-Tarts began to creep their way up my throat. I managed to excuse myself, stumbled out of the class and nearly tripped down the stairs to find the nearest bathroom.

I thought it was a fluke until these episodes started happening frequently. Months later, I got the diagnosis I was looking for. It wasn’t something that doctors could see on a scan or hear through their stethoscopes. There wasn’t an antibiotic or surgery I could get to make it disappear.

Generalized anxiety disorder, they called it. I was having panic attacks at school.

During those miserable months, there were days where I desperately wanted to miss school to stay home and rest — but I couldn’t. They wouldn’t be considered excused absences. And in the words of of one of my former teachers, I could just “suck it up and go to class.”

My mental health journey has been lengthy and demanding; it’s something I continue to work on every day. I have good days and bad days like everyone else, but it’s those challenging days that make being a student especially hard. When you’re feeling anxious or depressed, and those feelings start to manifest into very real physical symptoms, getting out of bed at the crack of dawn to go to class for eight hours can be grueling.

When I was in high school, “mental health days” were not acceptable. Fortunately, now some schools across the country, like those in Oregon and Utah, are allowing students a few excused absences every year to let them take care of their mental health and recuperate.

The idea of allowing students to take time off and focus on their mental well-being is catching on: Susan Valdes, a representative from my home state of Florida, filed a bill that would require all public schools to count mental health days as a legitimate excuse for missing class.

“It is time for us to take mental health as a whole more seriously,” Valdes said. “I hope Florida will join [other] states in being at the forefront of overhauling how we view mental health in our society.”

According to an article published in USA Today, teenagers are more depressed now than they’ve ever been. Studies show that major depressive episodes in young people age have increased by 52% since 2005. What’s even more concerning is that my generation isn’t getting the help they desperately need: only 20% of teens will receive any sort of treatment for their mental health disorder.

Mental health days are long overdue and are essential for today’s stressed out, depressed and anxious youth. They’ll help students do better in school in the long run and potentially save lives. Someone who wakes up feeling like the world is falling apart, plagued by worries of school shootings and climate change, needs time alone to distract themselves with things they enjoy. Teens who stay home are more likely to talk with their parents about how they’re feeling and get the help they need to get back on track (therapy, medication, etc.)

Chiara Feider-Blazer, 20, is a junior at Loyola University Chicago studying international business. As someone who has struggled with her mental health in the past, she said this new type of excused absence would be beneficial and help reduce the stigma.

“I think that diagnosed students would feel better,” Feider-Blazer said, “because it would normalize their issues and validate how they’re feeling. Personally, when I changed my anxiety medication, it would have been nice to have an opportunity to adjust to all the side effects without the pressure from school.”

Not everyone agrees with me that mental health days for students are a viable option. Critics say young people will take advantage of them just to miss class and that being anxious or depressed isn’t a significant enough reason to stay home.

The Republican senator Dallas Heard is one of those opponents. According to him, these health days would lead to a slippery slope.

“[If] there really is no consequence for ramping up this idea that we should not have to come to work or practice or school because we’re having a bad day, I’m concerned that’s going to start eroding our society to the point where we have much bigger issues,” Heard said.

Yet students already miss class to take care of their mental health. They’re just not considered excused absences in most cases, which can affect their permanent records and chances of receiving scholarships. And while there will be students who abuse the system, most schools are only limiting mental health days to three or four times each semester.

“I think the vast majority of students would appreciate having the option open to them, even if they choose not to use it,” Feider-Blazer said. “The benefits outweigh any negatives.”

When the captain of a school football team breaks his foot, no one thinks twice about giving him time off to recover. Teachers don't tell him to suck it up.

If I had been able to take legitimate time off from school when my anxiety attacks were at their cruelest, my life would have been so much easier. When you break a bone or have the flu, you stay home to heal. It should be the same with mental health. My generation is tired of being told otherwise. We’re waiting on the rest of you.