Here's What Happens When Teenagers Talk Openly About Mental Health

Ross Szabo was the kind of high school senior that college admissions officers dreamed about. He played varsity basketball, volunteered for the Special Olympics and Students Against Drunk Driving, and was elected student body president.

He was also living with bipolar disorder, a diagnosis he'd received two years earlier. He told no one about his inner struggle. He felt so alone that he began to think about nothing except ending his own life. In January, he attempted suicide. He was hospitalized for two weeks.

"I had the classic symptoms: the broken knuckles, the hallucinations, the sleepless nights," he says. "I went into a really deep state of depression. When I got out of the hospital and went back to school, everything was different. People were spreading rumors about me. I lost friends."

Nearly two decades later, Ross has spent most of his adult life advocating on behalf of other young people fighting the same battles he faced when he was their age. He's determined to destroy the stigmas around mental health issues so people with similar struggles feel comfortable asking for help and talking openly about what they're going through.

"The goal is to give people tools they can use to actually work on their mental health. I want to normalize mental health rather than isolate mental illness," says Szabo, who has since formed a mental health speakers bureau, authored a book and built a mental health curriculum that's reached more than 80,000 students across the country. "T...

Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - October 13, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news