Video Transcription

Recognising the signs of mental ill-health

Back home, she was someone so outgoing, so social—just, you know, all in all, loved going to school and looked forward to it. Then she came here, and within the first month, there was a huge decline in her. There was a lot of school refusal; she was just struggling all in all—a lot of self-isolation.

There was a time when I just didn’t want to tell her anything, because how do you talk to the person who gave you life about how hard it is? I think I just tried to shut off completely. I tried to say that everything was fine, but it was not fine.

So, when I’m not sharing something with her, it’s very obvious that something is up. Another thing I noticed with her was that it looked like she was just obsessively watching series. It felt to me like she was escaping a lot. Over time, it really worsened. In the beginning, there was a lot of irritability—just behaviour that isn’t heard as well.

The signs that I would say I saw were probably more crying at nighttime—it was almost like clockwork. Then she stopped wanting to go to school. She said, “I don’t want to be there.” I’m like, “There’s something not right here.” Then she started not wanting to go to parties. She’d say, “I don’t want to go here,” and I’d think, “Okay, this is weird because you’re 18.”

Little things like that— a lot of it is instinct, I think, too. You just kind of know. Something’s not right here. It doesn’t feel right. So, dig a little bit deeper.

Video by headspace