Tackling Michigan youth mental health crisis: Detroit teens say it takes self-love, inner peace

A new piece published by Chalkbeat Detroit quotes excerpts from essays written by teens participating in a city program addressing youth mental health:

About 20 Detroit teens last summer set out to answer some important questions about how their peers are dealing with mental health struggles.

These high school students, part of a city youth organization called Local Circles, wanted to know two things about their peers: How they practice self-love, and how they find peace in a world in which they constantly feel judged. . . . The Detroit teens detailed their findings, and in some cases confronted their own mental health worries, in written pieces.”

Among the teens excerpted is TaMyra Smith, who writes: 

“The pandemic has done a number on me. I don’t and can’t go anywhere, can’t sleep some nights, always see the negative before the positive, and I doubt almost everything and everyone around me. Just recently, I had five assignments from four different classes that had to be completed the same day. I convinced myself that all of it wouldn’t get done, and I was right. And then I received a C in three of those classes since the work was turned in late. See what I mean? 

. . . . There is only so much teens can take before we begin to not care and want to give up. You never know what goes on in our heads. It could be built up stress and anger that will soon be released. Us teens need to come together, build our own safe environment and stop going against one another.”

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