Macon Magazine

102 maconmagazine.com | APRIL/MAY 2022 T hese past few years have been hard on all of us, mentally. We're healing, but for some it can take a while, and if it's left untreated, the consequences are serious. Among those hurting are teenagers and younger children. According to the World Health Organization, depression, anxiety and behavioral disorders are among the leading causes of illness and disability among adolescents. The reality is, if we don't address adolescent mental health conditions, they extend well into adulthood and impair both physical and mental health. "I often tell parents of children that I work with, they think that kids don't need them as much when they get to be older, but that's not true," said Founder and CEO of the Southern Center for Choice Theory Gloria Cissé. "Young adults need their parents as much as smaller children do. They may not act like it, but they do need us." In Cissé's decades of experience, she has worked with people of all ages dealing with trauma, including children and teenagers. She said some signs of trouble with mental health in youth are anger, worry, trouble sleeping, not eating right, grieving something longer than they should, hurting people and/or animals, destroying property, trying drugs or alcohol or obsessing about eating and exercising. "We have to remember that kids express emotions differently than adults. So, we might think they're just being angry or mean to someone when in actuality, they're experiencing other stuff going on inside of them. They just don't have the words to tell us what it is," said Cissé. "This can have a long-term negative impact on their mental health if it's not treated." Cissé said it's important to treat mental health wounds like physical wounds. Although we may not see them, they exist and can only get worse if they're ignored. MENTAL HEALTH MATTERS COMMUNITY AND GRASS-ROOTS INITIATIVES UNITE TO BRING AWARENESS TO MENTAL HEALTH AMONG TEENS AND YOUTH BY EDNA RUIZ | PHOTOGRAPHY BY MATT ODOM AND DSTO MOORE

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