Exeter Needs to Give Us Mental Health Days
By Anna Kim
I’ve seen the reviews on Niche: “Exeter ruins their students’ mental health.” “Depression and anxiety are bred here.” I blindly ignored these warning signs when I came to Exeter. It couldn’t be that hard, right? I mean, if it ever got that hard, the school would help, right?
I was wrong.
“Seven out of ten teens in the US have named anxiety or depression as a major problem among their peers in the community. On a 10-point scale, where normal values for adults are 3.8, American teens rated their stress rate at an average score of 5.8. Three quarters of American high schoolers and half of middle schoolers described themselves as “often or always feeling stressed” by schoolwork,” a Guide2Research article published in Oct. 2020 states.
A Washington Post article published in Sept. 2019 reports on Suniya Luthar, a professor of psychology at Arizona State University. They “have shown that adolescents in high-achieving schools can suffer significantly higher rates of anxiety, depression, substance abuse and delinquent behaviors, at least two to three times the national average.”
Schools like Exeter fit into this category. We’re lauded for excelling, for winning—but when we sit at our desks, late at night, trying to perfect our history essays, trying to ace math tests, we are forgotten While I haven’t had a real Exeter experience yet due to the pandemic, I’ve developed a warped sense of comfort in stress. I know that struggling mentally does not alienate me here—I’ve heard and seen stories of students and their complicated relationship with their mental health, and of the school community in general.
Exonians are perpetually stressed: we are always looking to meet the deadline, and if we hit the deadline early, we turn to our growing list of tasks we have on the backburner, or we try to get ahead. When was the last time any of us had nothing to do? Nothing, as in no sports and instruments to practice, no club commitments to finish, no studying for another test—quite literally nothing. Often, I hear refrains of “only a few days left until Friday!” throughout the day during sports, in the dorm, in my classes. We have developed an attitude where we’re just trying to make it to the weekend.
How is this sustainable? How is it healthy for us, week by week for four years, to long for the “weekend,” only for it to start all over again in 48 hours? In both long-term and short-term energy levels, Exeter students are burning out, and the school can alleviate this by letting us take mental health days.
Exeter should give students the responsibility and trust and allow us to take mental health days. On these days, students would be able to take their health into consideration and truly take time to recuperate. If a student decided to take a mental health day, they would not be obligated to complete any assignments during that day or attend any required meetings or classes. Rather, we should be able to work in tandem with their teachers and another trusted adult, whether that be a counselor, advisor, or trusted faculty member, to create a course of action after these 24 hours.
This is different from the off-day Wednesdays, or other avenues where students can ask for extensions individually with their teachers. The off-day Wednesdays are just another opportunity for more work to be assigned, and many students actually end up spending the majority of their Wednesday doing schoolwork and catching up on other academic or extracurricular commitments. That is the opposite of “wellness days” that Exeter claimed to be giving us. These mental health day options are for when we really just need to take a complete stop, and hopefully seek some rest. I understand that mental health days would be a great privilege, but allowing students to call a day of rest for themselves would really help us. We are surrounded by due dates and check-boxes. Why can’t we be given a check-box for rest? For focusing on ourselves, and our mental health?
What if people use these opportunities to their advantage? Derek Evans, a student activist in Oregon who helped establish legislation allowing mental health days in 2019, recognized, “There will be students that will abuse the system, but there will be students that this will save.” Yes, some may misuse this privilege, but this has the opportunity to truly help students, and even save lives.
Exeter, and the administration, has said before that it is here for the best interest for us. Are they really? We can take “sick days” without anyone casting a doubtful glance, but why is it so different when it comes to mental health? Let us take more control over our own mental health. Let us know when we need a break, a real and needed opportunity to make a step towards recovery by entrusting us to use these mental health days for us to heal.
