East Students Discuss Their Experiences With Therapy

Then an eighth grader, Jane Smith* sits on her couch with tears streaming down her face, contemplating suicide.  “What if I went in the kitchen, grabbed a knife, and stabbed my heart?” runs through her mind. Sitting there contemplating this idea is a girl who’s mom just passed away, and didn’t know what to do with herself. But Smith is still here today, with great thanks to therapy.

According to East school social worker Becky Wiseman, there are more and more students turning to therapy and counselors everyday to help them with their high school struggles. Some are as serious as Smith, but some, like Rachel Jones*, just have friend problems, mainly with “drama,” and need to talk them out or get a better perspective on the issue at hand.

“It’s just someone who doesn’t have an opinion or will tell anyone about it,” Jones said.

Jones goes to a therapist for different reasons than Smith, but they go through the same teenage girl issues—like who likes who and what happened last weekend—that you can’t talk to your parents about. For Jones, a therapist is someone who is a guide, someone who teaches you how to deal with situations you don’t know how to. Going to a therapist for Smith is a way to digest what is “normal,” and what she can attribute to the loss of her mom.

“[Therapy] helps me put into perspective what is grief related or teenage girl stuff,” Smith said.

There are many therapists in the Kansas City area that specialize in pediatrics or teenagers, but the one therapist that a lot of East students see is Liz Christian, a specialist in teenagers ages 12 and up. She sees students who have problems like family or friends, to students dealing with depression and anxiety, to even some with eating disorders.

“Many people just come in to find new ideas and ways to fix the same kinds of problems and challenges that we all have, ” Christian said. “They just want to find faster and more direct ways to deal with them than they’ve been aware of before.”

Christian knows many of the stories and rumors about East and many other schools like Pembroke Hill and St. Teresa’s.  With many clients from all over she has become convinced that “East is a harder place to go to school than others.” She sees an environment where high academic expectations, a fairly rigid social hierarchy and the strong culture of partying contribute to much of what kids at East struggle with.

“I work with many kids who feel stuck in the social groups and cliques that they got involved in earlier and get in the dilemma of wanting to branch out, but don’t want to lose their original friends,” Christian said.

Jones is one of Christian’s clients, and has been going to her since the beginning of this school year. According to Jones she has learned to let things just blow over and not to take every little thing so seriously.

Smith’s therapist is Dr. Martha Bernard, she has been seeing Bernard since her mom died in seventh grade. Smith has largely been trying to sort out grief related to her mom, but also has been working on not judging people when she first meets them.

“I’m very judgmental so I have high expectations of people, so I get disappointed a lot,” Smith said.

Therapy is something that not only girls are turning to. According to Christian about 15 percent more teenage boys are going to therapy than in the past, and realizing that they don’t have to pretend they have it all figured out or don’t have any issues of their own.

“A safe and neutral place to [talk] is probably more important for [guys] in some ways because girls tend to process their feelings with each other,” said Christian.

Christian finds that most of the teenagers that she sees are just confused with all that high school has to offer. About 30 percent of Christian’s clients are adults, and she sees many similarities and differences between the two age groups. According to Christian, teenagers don’t necessarily have more problems than adults, but they sometimes just aren’t certain about the best ways to deal with them.

“Teens are just at a developmental stage, and a time period in life, when things are presenting themselves to be dealt with and teens are able to feel, think, choose and incorporate more for their experience and that can result in confusion,” Christian said.

Opening up to a therapist was hard for Jones at first. She found that is got easier over time and eventually her therapist became more of a friend and she became more comfortable. Smith doesn’t necessarily tell her therapist everything, but sometimes she still has to remind herself she needs help.

“There is some stuff I know I did wrong, but I just know that she’s gonna help me and that’s what I have to tell myself,” Smith said.

Neither Jones nor Smith have it all figured out quite yet. They are only in high school and don’t know where life will take them, or how long they will continue therapy. However, Smith knows one thing for sure, “I’ve come so far, and I have so far to go.”

*names changed to protect identities