Feeling Sad? Drugs are Not the Answer!

The U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) hosts National Prevention Week each May so schools can participate in prevention-themed activities before summer, when substance misuse escalates. The Youth Council of the Unified Prevention Coalition of Fairfax County is participating by writing blog posts this week. The NPW week focus for Friday, May 20 is Prevention of uicide and for Saturday, May 21 is Promotion of Mental Health & Wellness.

Mental disorders combined with substance use or adverse behavioral patterns may be caused by depression, stress, or a reality- changing life event that causes either suffering or inability to cope with everyday situations. These behaviors are not always understood or accepted by those around us. Sometimes in our lives, we do things in an attempt to conform; other times we do things to react or retreat. These reactions are self-destructive; they may be harmful to ourselves or to the people around us.

When I was 13, I smoked marijuana for the first time. When I was 14, I started smoking cigarettes. Initially, all of this was because of peer pressure and my struggle to fit in with the popular crowd. Eventually it turned into addiction. It seemed as though whenever I had any type of mental stress, pain, or anger, my emotions would be out of control and the only way I felt I was in control was through substance abuse. But I soon realized that I was physically destroying my body.

Because I had seen how friends, family members, and the people around me suffer from mental illness and addiction, I always believed that I would fall down the same path. I saw therapists, psychiatrists, and others in helping professions who all told me that “It gets better.” I became tired of relying on doctors and medication to make me happy; I needed more.

As time went on depression would eat away at me and I felt myself falling deeper into sadness. No matter how hard I tried to block out unwanted emotions, I knew I had to keep up the fight for myself. I knew that to get better I had to begin to advocate for myself. I worked to take hold of my reality. I chose to become more involved in the world, and it made me feel something I had not felt for nearly three years: happiness.

Helping other people made me realize that by sharing myself with the people around me, I was helping myself get better. Giving of myself and making use of my time and talent was one of the best things I could have done to help myself out of my unhappy mess..

Advocate for yourself, advocate for society, or advocate for a better world. Learn to know yourself and what works for you. Let yourself be inspired and motivated by negative issues or conditions, not dragged down by them. And commit your energy to a life of excellence and achievement.

• Three in 10 Fairfax County students (31.7%) reported feeling this sad or hopeless, including almost two-fifths of female students (39.3%) and one-fourth (24.0%) of male students.
• Rates of students reporting depressive symptoms increased with grade level, ranging from 27.2% of eighth-grade students to 35.8% of 12th-grade students.
• Students who had used any substance in the past month were much more likely to report having experienced depression in the past year (45.1% vs. 26.5% of students who did not use substances in the past month).

Click on Fairfax County Youth Survey for more information.

Photo and chart above (from the Fairfax County Youth Survey) highlight Three to Succeed, which shows how having just three assets (or strengths) dramatically reduces risky behaviors and promotes thriving youth.

For more information, please visit the Community Services Board of Fairfax County (CSB).

Or visit MentalHealth.gov

The author is a junior at Westfield High School and a member of the Youth Council of the Unified Prevention Coalition of Fairfax County.

The Unified Prevention Coalition of Fairfax County is a nonprofit organization with more than 60 community partners working together to keep youth and young adults safe and drug-free. Visit http://www.unifiedpreventioncoalition.org and http://www.facebook.com/unifiedpreventioncoalition. Follow the group on Twitter athttp://www.twitter.com/keepyouthsafe.