Same person, different mornings
"Mental health is not a destination, but a process. It's not how you drive, it's where you're going." Noam Shpancer
By Donika Parduzi | July 6, 2024
The summer days were approaching. The high school’s corridors gleamed in the sunlight that streamed through the large windows, next to which various plants were placed. The strong summer sun signaled the end of the school year. Not only the end of lessons but also the end of those difficult early mornings needed to make the tiring journey to school. Overall, it was the end of a challenging period, emotionally and spiritually.
It also made me think about the question: How much verbal abuse do teenagers face today?
I used to believe that the mundane life of a school student meant that we should be learning machines, purely focused on getting better grades. There was a time when I heard phrases such as “you are taking things too much to heart” or “don’t dwell on it, they mock everyone” along with the notion that you can’t make it through school years without experiencing a depressive phase.
The belief that contempt and insults were normal, something that students had to endure silently, without complaining, was deeply ingrained in teengers’ minds. This silence gradually creates avoidance and a comfort zone from which it is hard to break free from. It felt like fighting a battle alone in a war.
It was painful to have to wake up earlier in the mornings, to arrive at school before everyone else to avoid the bullying crowds. We lived in a time when the more you oppressed others, the more popular you were and the more likely you were to be accepted, especially among certain groups like the supposedly important or popular students at school.
While mosses are important, it is even more important to learn the right mechanisms to deal with mental health challenges.
School, which was supposed to enrich the minds of young people with knowledge, was not doing its job properly. Instead, it fostered divisions between students that were often based on economic status and marked by questions about the outfits some could afford and some could not. Divisions also formed based on the level of contempt that the students exhibited. The more contempt you had for others, the closer you got to the popular kids.
As was the case in my school, Kosovo’s education system prioritized topics such as mosses and emphasized learning by rote. In 12 years of schooling, I never encountered any motivational or helpful phrases, let alone any lessons on mental health. While mosses are important, it is even more important to learn the right mechanisms to deal with mental health challenges. We need to learn how to cope when the world feels overwhelming. There should have been someone who asked us how we were, someone who would have listened carefully to our response.
How did I manage to overcome this?
They say “after hail, the sun shines,” and the sun started shining for me too. School finished and I began to put things in their proper place, like a child putting together the pieces of a puzzle. I was committed to improving the quality of my life. However, this isn’t a process with a formula you can follow — it’s not the same for everyone.
The ways we improve our lives cannot always be learned. I created methods that suit me such as meditation, listening to music or talking to people close to me. I began to focus more on who I was on the inside.
One of the ways in which I did this was by deciding to study law. It was a word with so much weight, a word I often heard. But I did not understand its true essence. I knew that internally, I felt very connected to the idea of justice. I had thought about it since I was in the third grade, but I was often asked about why I was thinking about it so early. As if there is a certain deadline for when one should think about their dreams.
I started studying law at the University of Prishtina. Transitioning from Mitrovica to a new and bigger city was a challenge in itself, but it was a heartfelt challenge, the most profound experience I’ve ever encountered. I began to slowly understand what it meant to be a student.
I started to take an active role in determining what affected me and what didn't.
I started waking up differently. Instead of waking up reluctantly, mornings soon became my favorite time. I would make my way to my lectures, reading the literature that taught me about justice, legal institutions, about issues that I wanted to explore. I wanted to learn. I absorbed every line I read with love.
I was living the student life I had always dreamed of. I began to learn what it was like to be an adult. I began learning how to manage my finances, to be more mindful of how I spend my time and above all and I started protecting myself more from news and information that I did not want to have in my life. I started to take an active role in determining what affected me and what didn’t — even though it’s not always something we can control. However, I also started to work on the way in which I took in the events around me, the way they affected me and the way I processed them.
I started taking steps to value myself more and spend more time discovering what is best for me. I stopped listening to the voices trying to convince us that mental health is not important.
Feature Image: K2.0.
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