Switched-On :: Blog

I am tempted to write here that composing bad poetry is an unhealthy way to escape your troubles, but I have to respect the editor’s wishes and try to be sort of serious.

Not too long ago, I was feeling pretty depressed over something that happened recently. Instead of talking about it to my friends, I isolated myself. That for sure was an unhealthy way to escape my troubles. Isolating myself wasn’t going to make things better, in fact it probably just made things worse.

A healthier way to have approached the situation was to just let my feelings out somehow. For some reason, at the time, I felt like venting to my friends would be imposing upon them. But see, that’s what friends are for; they’re there to support you (the real friends at least) in times when things are going bad.

What are other ways, healthy and otherwise, to escape your troubles?

- Allyson

Suicide is a very sad and bad thing. The latest magazine issue is about suicide prevention. Suicide comes in all sorts and sizes. There are so many reasons why a person commits suicide and there is so many ways to commit it. I do believe it is against the law to commit suicide, so if you get caught and end up failing you go to jail. It is really sad that their is actually one death every 40 seconds due to suicide. How is this even possible? I know people get into stressful and tough situations but is suicide really the answer? I don’t think so. If someone is having these feelings of being suicidal they should get some help. There is always someone who will be there no matter what. Leaving feelings bottled up is never ok. I think someone should let these feelings loose in a positive way instead of negatively. Doing drugs and drinking alcohol doesn’t help either. They just hide the problems for a few hours but the pain always comes back. Suicide should never be the answer ever.

- Tatiana

Self esteem is often an issue amongst youth nowadays with the increasing demand for excellence in the society. It is very difficult to always meet the expectation of the society or of parents and peers and when one fails to do so, their self esteem plummets. This becomes an issue when it starts to make the youth become more withdrawn from the society and lose faith in their ability to do things that they can originally do. However, some people may have too much self esteem and believe that they are better than others, which isn’t necessarily a good thing either because that might just make people dislike you. Too much or too little self esteem isn’t a good thing. What is important is a good balance and thorough understanding of yourself and your abilities. Parents should also contribute to this establishment of a good balance considering that oftentimes the behavior of youth depends on if their parents are scolding/praising them accordingly.

- Vivian