The Importance of Talking About Mental Health Among Young People: “Hey, it’s okay”

Tim shared on LinkedIn a photo of his group of friends, which also includes his friends Ian and Martin. Everyone laughs. But behind that smile is also a lot of sadness. Sadness that no one knew about. In 2016 Ian decided to take his own life, in 2022 Martin.

“I think that picture is so typical,” Tim says on the phone. “We all laugh, but that doesn’t mean anything. Because two of us are gone. So many people have problems that you don’t see on the outside.”

He received countless sweet and supportive comments on the post. At the same time, Tim notices that many people find it difficult to imagine that you don’t see mental problems from the outside. The question is whether Tim and his friends really didn’t realize anything. ‘No’, is the answer. “We really didn’t see anything.”

It clearly shows the problem that young people feel a lack of space to talk about their mental health. To change that, the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport (VWS) launched the youth campaign ‘Hey, it’s okay’. The aim is to encourage young people to talk more about their feelings.

The number of young people with mental complaints is increasing, according to research by the RIVM. In total, 1 in 3 young people suffer from psychological complaints. 50 percent of students suffer from mental complaints. It is also striking that GP visits for mental complaints are decreasing, while this does not apply to the proportion of young people who suffer from mental complaints. This may be because these young people do not seek help.

Research published last year confirms that the mental health of young people is going downhill. Researchers talk about an “unprecedented decline in mental health” in their report Health Behavior in Schoolaged Children (HBSC).

“If something bothers you, you can just share it,” Tim’s group of friends said when Ian took his own life in 2016. “But even that wasn’t enough to do,” says Tim. Because last October, Martin, a second friend from the group of friends, also takes his own life. In both cases, the group did not see this coming. “The situation with Martin was identical.”

Because Martin’s death is so recent, Tim is still living in some kind of shock. “We live in a kind of sad film. There is a lot of despair in the group. Have we missed something with each other? That also makes me insecure somewhere. Especially in the first month I didn’t sleep very well, it kept me very very busy.”

The sadness, anger and despair also fueled the fire in the group of friends. Together they decided to set up the foundation ‘We see each other’. Through activities and initiatives, they want to make mental health among young people easier to discuss. “We want to make the conversation more normal.”

Their main message is that you should not be ashamed of mental health problems. “The reality is not that everything always goes well. The reality is hard and difficult and we all have to relate to that,” says Tim.

Black border remains

“We read a lot of success stories or stories of people who are depressed and are now feeling better, but we just want to normalize that sometimes you don’t know. That you are despondent and have existential questions. You don’t have to have a solution for that, it just be there.”

Rather, says Tim, “if I hadn’t mentioned this to you at all, I wish it had never happened. The black edge remains, but at the same time we’re happy with all the attention it’s getting.”

‘Mental health of young people is getting worse’

Frederieke Vriends is director of Mind Us, another (new) organization that aims to improve the mental health of young people. According to her, the mental health of young people is not going well. There is no single clear reason for this. “It is a combination of factors such as the increasing complexity in society. We are dealing with many more crises, high performance pressure and little perspective when it comes to your home and the pressure of social media.”

To improve this, there should be more room for young people to talk about their mental complaints. “This does not always have to be done immediately with a therapist, but can also be done with people in everyday life, such as a teacher or a football coach or parents and friends.” It is also important that there is more education about what constitutes mentally healthy behaviour. “For example, it doesn’t help if you’re on social media until 1 a.m. every night. That’s not good for your mood.”

Finally, it is important to look at policy level to see if anything needs to change. “Should we take more into account how choices turn out for young people and students? Do we have to do something with social media? We cannot leave everything to the young people, because then the line we have now will continue to go down.”