My name is Klaara, I attend high school in Tallinn. One day during lunch break, I wasn't hungry, so I went outside and walked several laps around the school. I looked at the students around me and they all seemed happy. And I mean seemed happy.

That thought stayed with me, so I decided to approach people directly and most of them made no attempt to hide the fact that they had or had had suicidal thoughts. I was surprised by just how different what I saw on the surface was from what emerged in those conversations.

It was harder back in the day

From what I have discussed with my peers, they mainly get help from their friends — people their own age who have also experienced mental health problems. But young people should not have to deal with this among themselves; adults should be dealing with it.

In my view, the main problem is that older people now find it very difficult to put themselves in young people's shoes because "things were harder back in the day." We live in the age of social media and digital technology, which means we compare ourselves with others far more than ever before.

Today, life without social media is almost impossible. Yet the platforms young people use, such as Meta's platforms and TikTok, have been deliberately designed to make people feel vulnerable by intentionally promoting content that contributes to mental health problems, anxiety, depressive thoughts and addiction. These platforms have been blamed for the suicides of several young people, yet giving them up is nearly impossible.

These platforms are addictive in several ways. First, they present idealized versions of people and the world. Everything is glamorized — both the achievements and success that young people see and death itself, which, after seeing how good other people's lives appear to be, can seem like an appealing way to escape the pain.

Being addicted to this idealized world is one reason it is so difficult to give up social media, but there are practical reasons as well. Today, people without social media are like outcasts with no access to the outside world. Even important school-related communication takes place on social media.

Social media creates opportunities for comparison on a scale that the older generation has never had to face. If you imagine a life in which nothing remains hidden, you begin to understand the pressure this places on people. For better or worse, the world changes by the minute and we should always remember that the present carries more weight than the past. The way things once were may not help us move forward in situations like these.

Education month

From what I have heard, one of the main factors harming mental health is school. Why is that? Estonia's level of education is above the European average and in today's world, few things are as important as education. If I were to analyze why school causes people so much stress, I would point to excessive workloads, constant comparison with others and the feeling of being trapped.

By comparison, I mean that within a class, we know very well who is a "good" student and who is a "bad" student. Unfortunately, you can also see this reflected in the way most teachers view students. In high school, it is also very difficult to be a "good student" in every subject.

What can be done about this? I have traveled extensively and thanks to spending a year abroad as an exchange student, I have friends from around the world, but nowhere have I seen a perfect school system.

I spent half a school year studying in England where students could choose three subjects to study in depth during the school year and also had two mandatory independent study periods every day. I noticed that it was much harder there to be considered a "bad" student because everyone chose subjects that interested them, eliminating the excessive pressure to be good at everything.

Of course, I do not think that just three subjects are enough. But perhaps we should try to give high school students even more freedom to make decisions about their futures or encourage them to choose the subjects that matter to them and not pressure them to achieve outstanding results in every class.

The world changes every day, but our school system has changed very little over the years; sometimes, it seems, more content has simply been added. When our parents were in school, the curriculum did not include many things that are important today, such as information technology, artificial intelligence, digital media, cybersecurity, climate change and many other topics.

New knowledge is constantly being added, but no one is willing to give up the old. At the same time, the school day has not doubled in length, nor has people's capacity to learn increased. Information overload leads to excessive workloads, which in turn affect our mental health and motivation to learn. There is so much information that students cannot meaningfully study even their favorite subjects. The more that is required, the less people are able to accomplish.

The feeling of being trapped is another matter. Both parents and teachers have emphasized to us the importance of school. When a student misses school, it automatically creates a negative impression. I have seen people who miss school even being mocked behind their backs, something that stops if you are able to stand up for yourself and laugh along with the others. But if you cannot, it can develop into bullying.

This kind of behavior usually stems from the pressure parents place on students and from ideas of "right" and "wrong" defined by social norms. Considering that school is somewhere we have to spend an average of six hours every weekday, it can be quite horrible for someone who feels lonely.

I think parents and schools emphasize the wrong priorities. Everyone talks about how important it is to go to school, but they often forget why we have to go in the first place. The reason is education and learning. Of course, high school is also important for developing social skills, but I think those skills can already be acquired in basic school.

I do not support grading students based on different levels of achievement, but since I cannot currently suggest anything to replace it, I will not get into that. However, since we already have such a system, we might as well make use of it. I think that as long as a student's absence does not create additional difficulties for teachers and the student's grades do not suffer, it should not be treated as such a major problem.

I do not deny that most students achieve better results by studying at school, but consider for a moment the pressure school places on us: We spend half our day there and we are constantly told that we have to be there. But consider a student who feels lonely all day at school and does not go home because a good student — even a good person — would not do that. Feelings of loneliness and being trapped make that student depressed and depression causes their motivation to learn to decline.

If the situation gets worse, the student eventually stays home anyway — not out of laziness, but because they are now seriously depressed. At home, they are no longer able to study because it is too late. Even if they wanted to, they could not manage it because missing school automatically makes them feel like a failure and society makes sure that label sticks.

Because of loneliness, a young person in this situation cannot study at school and because of guilt, they cannot study at home. Social norms lead others to look at them judgmentally even when they return to school. And at home, their parents are disappointed in them because they are "lazy."

As a result of all this, the feeling of being trapped follows them from school into their home and its worst outcome is called depression. The outcome of depression that we can only hope most people never reach is called suicide.

I think the solution to this problem would be for adults to emphasize the importance of education rather than the importance of school itself. Of course, I do not deny that many students need school in order to learn. I do too, but I need the freedom to choose, the ability to decide how I educate myself and the option to leave when I want to.

For me, studying certain subjects independently has worked very well and as long as my parents are confident that my academic performance is not declining, they have never made me feel guilty about whether I study at home or at school. I am very grateful for that because I know that I would not have been able to cope if I had felt the kind of pressure from my family that most students experience during difficult times.

Of course, this is only a theoretical discussion and may not work in practice, but it is worth trying. Education is an obligation and something that stays with us; school is simply a wonderful opportunity.

What to do now?

I think the most important thing adults can do is understand — truly understand. Just because something did not exist in the past does not mean it does not exist now.

As young adults, we are trying to build a bridge between people. I know an enormous number of wonderful people who are all gathering stones to build that bridge. I do it through writing, my friend through speaking, people I know through sharing their thoughts and my people through fighting social pressure and bullying.

Everyone who has ever done something to prevent suicide, everyone who has ever created something, said something or felt something that has helped prevent suicide — those are my people.

All of them deserve our thanks in September and indeed at any time of year. The ideas of the ancient Greek poet Theocritus gave rise to the Latin phrase "Dum spiro spero," or "While I breathe, I hope." It is a very well-known expression, but the original thought behind it has largely been forgotten: "While there is life, there is hope and only the dead are without hope."

Through our own hope, we help others find theirs. We help them be here and stay here; we help them overcome the chaos of eternity. All of us together, adults and young people, can help prevent depression and its tragic end, both this month and in the months to come. Have a wonderful September! Have a meaningful Suicide Prevention Month.

• Child Helpline: 116 111 (24 hours).
• Victim Support Crisis Helpline: 116 006 (24 hours).
• Emotional support and pastoral care helpline: 116 123 (daily from 10 a.m. to midnight).
• Eluliin: 655 8088 (daily from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.).
• Emergency services: 112 (24 hours).
• MTÜ Peaasi.

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