highschool-era me, very obviously struggling with depression: [stops speaking, doesn’t turn in work, skips class to lay on the sidewalk like a dead possum]
my teachers, inputting my 5th failing grade that week:
Hahaha @ the people in the notes saying just to reach out for help. They don’t give a shit anyway! I did do that. I talked to my advisor, my school counselor, my student dean, my teachers, my parents, everyone! I got yelled at for crying in the hallways, I was told to stop having panic attacks near the counselors office cause it made other people uncomfortable, I legit collapsed on the floor in a hypotensive episode once and had 5 adults step over me while I laid there. I was treated like a problem and a threat to the status quo when I wasn’t ignored outright. I went from one of the top students in the school to not even graduating and got a nice case of CPTSD as a present to remember it by. 5 years later I still haven’t been able to return to any kind of schooling cause even the mention of academics fills me with terror.
The american school system isn’t set up to help struggling kids. It’s set up to force everyone into a narrow channel of productivity and convenience and if you stumble outside of that the system is not made to work in your favor. You have to fight for every inch and hope you’re lucky enough to have people around who care.