Visions Journal

Navigating mental health support for youth within a broken system 

Sakura 

Reprinted from the The Vibes Are Off: Young People, Anxiety and Depression issue of Visions Journal, 2025, 21 (1), pp. 22-24

It’s 3:30 a.m. on a Tuesday morning. We’ve just returned from a long-awaited family adventure over spring break. I want to believe it’s jet lag, but the tears coming down my face cannot be dismissed as time zone adjustments.

I feel helpless, let down, frustrated and angry. So incredibly angry. 

I’m ruminating on a recent warning from my son’s clinician, who said my son might never be admitted to a specialized in-patient psychiatric unit—a last resort after years of failed attempts to figure out what’s going on for him. 

I’m angry at the mental health and education systems that have failed my child for five years. Despite counselling and medication, my once very social, physically active and academically gifted 15-year-old spends most days bedridden due to severe anxiety and depression. 

Invisible suffering

No one from my son’s school ever asks why my kid’s been absent for weeks and months at a time. No one from Child & Youth Mental Health seems to understand that the longer time goes on, the greater the risk of losing him entirely. And I mean that literally—he has attempted to take his own life at least once. 

Despite multiple therapists, plus educational accommodations and medication reviews, my son continues to struggle, with no timeline for when he’ll get targeted help. He’s missing out on critical developmental experiences due to his inability to attend school and get out of the house regularly.

I’m very worried. Will he finish high school? Catch up? Get a job? How is the isolation from his peers impacting his brain development? His self-esteem? Is he ever going to be truly happy? How is the stress of this situation affecting my own relationships? With him, my other child, my partner and friends?

The overwhelm is never-ending.

A stretched school system

Even though the red flags have been documented since elementary school, I’m constantly reminding everyone about how long my son’s been struggling. The elementary school counsellor did what she could, but her time was split between three different schools.      

As a seasoned parent advocate, I understood that one-on-one support from the school was rare, but I held onto hope that, with a bit of focused support, my son would develop the coping skills he needed. I was hopeful this was just a phase.

Then COVID happened. Then, a year later, the transition to high school. 

I did my best to set up supports because I knew high school would be a challenge. His attendance had already been declining, and he was apprehensive about an unfamiliar learning environment. 

However, due to a lack of understanding and communication among staff at my son’s school, the support that could have made a difference wasn’t offered—like a unique program targeted at youth transitioning to high school and at risk of dropping out (we learned about it too late) and school-based outreach (off-site student support was terminated just weeks after my son started accessing it).

No doubt the pandemic demand for mental health support outweighed the capacity of the public system. It doesn’t take a bunch of research to conclude this is why my son has not been a priority. It’s all triage now. I still cannot count on him receiving adequate support unless he’s physically harming himself or others. Even then, resources are temporary and limited.

Doing what’s possible

Given that context, it’s not surprising my kid is falling through the cracks. He doesn’t come from an abusive home, he doesn’t use substances or participate in risky behaviour and he doesn’t struggle academically. He misses his friends, misses learning and wants to get better. Most poignantly, he has a loving, fiercely determined parent who will never stop advocating for him. So he’ll “probably” be fine, right?

Well, he hasn’t been fine and neither have I. However, a few weeks after returning from our trip, my son was finally admitted to the in-patient program. Following seven weeks of professional interventions and assessments, he was diagnosed with autism. 

To say I have conflicting feelings about this is an understatement. It’s a relief to finally have a reason for why things have been so hard. But I’m furious it took so long. This is my second child diagnosed with autism at age 15. No wonder it’s been so difficult! I’ve raised two autistic children on my own, without support, for nearly two decades.

This experience has left scars that will likely never heal. It’s unsurprising so many adults struggle with their mental health considering the failure to support them as children. I often think about how it could be worse, that it is worse for many other kids. And that mine are the lucky ones only because they happen to have me as a parent.

I have found a lot of strength in community. Most recently, I accessed a peer support worker through Family Smart. This has helped me maintain a sense of hope and validation. It’s a free and easy-to-access resource I wish I’d known about years ago. Having one-to-one support for me reminds me I’m not alone, and that others share my frustration in navigating an underfunded education system disconnected from an underfunded mental health system.

As for this new diagnosis, I hope we can now access appropriate, meaningful support before my son ages out of the system. We have less than three years to figure out the best path forward for him into adulthood. And the world really needs this kid. He’s a bright and compassionate human being who has the potential to contribute to society in remarkable ways. It would be an absolute shame to continue to deny him the support that would allow him to thrive in a world that needs people like him now more than ever.