Ten high school students here are working to eliminate negative perceptions about mental illness.
“We created this project that we’re calling the Open Door, Open Minds,” said Anika Berringer, a Rockwood resident and Guelph Collegiate Vocational Institute (GCVI) student.
“Our project goal is to erase the stigma, or start to erase the stigma, around mental illnesses in schools and homes and communities and Sports.”
She added, “As a team we’d just kind of like to see the stigma start to decrease because it’s hard to go … to a place every single day and have to deal with people making comments and have to deal with all of these negative feelings towards it, just because they know you have anxiety or depression or other mental illnesses.”
Members of the group, who met through an invite-only class offered by GCVI, gets together once a week.
“This class, in particular, really went over and above,” said teacher Sunniva Ronzio. “They took it very seriously.
“I think they appreciated being able to talk about stuff and also realized … just because they may have anxiety does not mean they are, in any way, a dysfunctional person, a bad person, anything like that.”
Students in the Open Door, Open Minds group range from Grade 9 to 12 and all have experiences with mental illness that they’re willing to discuss.
As part of last semester’s class, the group made a presentation to Willow Road Public School and to the teachers and staff at GCVI.
Grade 9 student Nikola Topper Dixon explained the class set up a workshop on mental health for GCVI teachers on a PD day in November.
“We were pretty much showing the teachers what anxiety and some other disorders look like and how to help students cope with it,” she explained.
Group member and Grade 10 student Mashelle Fahim said they also explained how to “help the kids when they’re in a crisis and know that they’re not always faking it.”
All group members said students not suffering from mental illness often use it as a false excuse to get out of class.
“What we did is we explained how all of these things affect us, so they knew that not everybody is the same,” said Grade 10 student Teasha Hurdle.
For example, Grade 12 student Dana Schaffner explained that when a student’s anxiety “takes over” the student is no longer able to learn.
“They don’t have to fix us they just have to support us and work with us,” she said.
Since November, group members say they’ve seen changes.
“I think it was … eye-opening to some teachers to realize that one in five people are affected, so if you have a class of 20 students there’s four of them that have been affected by some sort of anxiety or depression disorder,” Berringer said.
Ronzio said she was proud of the class.
“They put together a PowerPoint and all that kind of stuff and the teachers really appreciated it because … when you go through teacher’s college you’re not taught this sort of stuff; you don’t have experience with it so to have the students say this is what it looks like, this is what it feels like … it’s eye opening and I’d say all of the teachers for the most part are receptive,” Ronzio said.
“It legitimately helped them recognize what does anxiety look like, what can it look like and what can I best do.”
The Open Door, Open Mind group is now taking its message one step further and looking to inform the whole school.
“We are … creating a video that’s specifically for our school so that people in the school know how to use guidance and how to use resources if they need help and where they can get help. And then we’re also going to try and spread our message on how to erase the stigma in schools,” Berringer said.
The goal is for the video to make its debut during Mental Health Week, which runs from May 1 to 7. Teachers will be given a copy of the video and will be asked to play it in the first 20 minutes of the first period class on May 1.
Group members also said they are thinking about running announcements to share each of their mental health journeys.
They’re also considering a poster petition where any student who has or knows someone with mental illness can anonymously leave a handprint on the poster.
“In the middle it would say ‘you’re not alone’ to show how many people actually go through things like this,” Berringer said.
The over-arching message is to seek help.
“Get the help you need because I’m pretty sure almost all of us, if we could go back in time and redo it, we’d get help sooner and say something,” Berringer said.
Fahim said she was hesitant to ask for help because she didn’t want to bother anyone.
“But I’ve noticed and I realize people offer because they want to help you, so you should go get the help,” she said. “It’s a good thing.
“It’s going to make you feel better and it’s probably going to make the person that’s helping you feel better because they’re helping someone.”
Many group members also discussed how they didn’t want to talk to anyone about their mental illness because the term is highly stigmatized.
“People are taking words for mental illness … and then using them as adjectives which for people who are affected by them, it really hurts … but then it also makes that person feel like, ‘well I shouldn’t be getting help because I’m scared to admit it and it’s a joke,’” Berringer said.
The group members hope that by sharing their experiences they can support others who are struggling in a similar way.
“You can’t fix yourself,” Topper Dixon said.
Hurdle added, “You can just make the things you’re dealing with more tolerable.”
“You can learn how to deal with them and say ‘okay my anxiety is putting a road block here, but here’s how I can get around it.’” Berringer said.
“Because anxiety, it’s part of your life but it doesn’t define you,” Schaffner added.
“It all comes down to a fine point of accept yourself and you’ll learn how to deal with it – it just takes time,” Berringer said.
Separate from their school initiatives, the Open Door, Open Mind group has also developed a website specifically aimed at people with mental illness.
“We want to have a bunch of different links to places where you can get help and we’re also going to focus very heavily on positive coping strategies, so we’re going to have lists of different things you can do based off of different feelings,” Berringer said.
“So if you’re feeling anxious maybe go for a walk or do a painting or pick up rocks and paint them or something.”
However, the members point out they’re not professionals.
“We also recommend that if anybody thinks that they are struggling with anything like this that they go get help. Go seek someone that is a professional,” Hurdle said.
The website, www.opendooropenminds.weebly.com, is scheduled to go live on May 1.
“Recovery isn’t linear,” Schaffner said.
“You’re going to have bad days still, but you’ve just got to get your support system and talk about it and to talk about it, you need to get rid of the stigma.”
