Our Year 12 cohort learnt some top tips for dealing with mental and emotional pain, when Attitude presenter Jannah Hibberd visited our school on Wednesday 17 June.
Jannah’s talk “The Pits” focused on mental health issues including phobias and being “bullied by our thoughts”. With humour and care, Jannah talked through mental health issues spanning from a bad mood (“we all have these”) and mild depression (shouldn’t last more than two weeks) through to situational depression (grief) and major depression. “Life is hard, but it’s never going to be too hard,” she told the students. “It’s normal to struggle, but there is always hope – and help helps.”
Jannah said 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys will go through depression at high school, and outlined some of the symptoms to watch for at each stage on the depression spectrum. She told the students they are more resilient than they realise, and that it’s absolutely okay to ask for help. To wrap up the hour-long session, she ran through some practical things students could do to keep themseleves well physically, spiritually, socially and mentally.