You are holding back tears in a classroom, triggered by some unknowingly hurtful statement made by the teacher. 

You’re mad at the teacher, despite her not knowing she was causing you pain. You want to fight, or leave; that is if you could get unstuck from the prick of survival response, your brain snagged like a loose thread on the oversized sweater you wish you could be hiding under.

The lessons taught at the school tell you to leave a situation if you feel reactive. You calculate three options: the bathroom, the hallway, or contacting a staff member. The bathroom is crowded, and you can hear people in the stalls next to you, the thin walls closing in. Teachers can see you in the hallway. You’ll be questioned. You don’t want that. The teachers who would let you into their classrooms are busy teaching, and besides, you wouldn’t want to burden them with your problems.

It takes too long to text someone. Or go home. And at any rate, then you’re missing school. So what can you do? Not much.

What were those strategies that are supposed to help? Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Nevermind, you haven’t practiced this enough for it to be useful to you now.

She hurt you. She hurt you. She hurt you.

You snap.

You get help later. You deal with the consequences of your actions. You should have done better.

The problem is resolved. Help was given. But was it too late?

You didn’t mean to do anything wrong or cause any trouble. You didn’t mean to disturb people. You just needed time to process. 

Speaking from personal experiences, this is much more common and impactful than many adults and students alike would admit.

Just last week, I found myself in a situation similar to what was just described. It was the last day of the marking period and I could feel everyone’s stress intruding on my own emotions. The lights were buzzing, announcements seemed obnoxiously loud, and the teacher was going on about an overdue assignment. Being autistic, I had a meltdown. It lasted two periods and nobody knew what to do, so I was just left alone, visibly uncomfortable and attempting to process the stimuli using any means necessary.

Rocking. Tapping. Banging my head.

In ideal situations, a person having a meltdown should be removed from the overstimulating surroundings and taken to a quiet area. They should not be asked a million difficult questions forcing them to justify their current state, but simply ones requiring a yes or no answer. Communication seems impossible when your brain can only focus on processing input. They may be offered fidget toys, and, when safe to do so, self harming behavior done at an attempt to process input should be replaced with safer alternatives. In a meltdown, the person does not typically feel that they are hurting themselves, instead completely detaching from the world and entering complete survival mode.

But this wasn’t an ideal situation. There were no quiet areas to be taken to, and nobody wanted to disrupt class or risk hurting me by acting on a process they were unfamiliar with. 

Awareness about mental health issues has greatly improved over the years, but the availability of resources needs to keep up with social growth. Even if people had wanted to help me, as many did, there wasn’t much to be done.

Many times people don’t need much. If I had had ten minutes alone to process the situation, the meltdown would have quickly diminished.

This is where sensory rooms come in.

Used as a place for people with sensory issues to decompress, sensory rooms consist of any space that has been made with the goal of being a sensory safe haven. Lights are kept muted and various props to fidget and regulate with are provided. The space could be as simple as an unused storage closet, which we have many of in McCaskey.

Mental illness is difficult to deal with for everyone involved. It is often argued how to balance the responsibility of dealing with the mental illness: should it be placed mainly on the sufferer, or on the people around them?

While it is true that people will only recover if they are ready to, many people suffering from mental illness agree that a push in the right direction is often still necessary.

“People definitely need to be more proactive in noticing and taking action. It can sometimes be so hard to speak up and advocate for yourself!” said junior Jaden Kennet, who is a part of a program called Peer Mediation at McCaskey that trains students to help other students in conflict. “…there is definitely a broad spectrum of situations and Peer Mediation can only do so much,” he added.

Although sometimes extra help is necessary, just having somewhere to go to regulate your emotions is enough for some people. This way, school counselors aren’t overwhelmed by the number of students reaching out for support and can dedicate more time to each person, and students can avoid traumatic interactions.

Getting adults, especially parents, involved could make a big situation out of something that isn’t yet that big. I’m not saying that adults shouldn’t be involved in later aspects of the situation, if it progresses that far, but not every situation gets to the point where intervention is necessary and sometimes intervening when it isn’t necessary only makes matters much worse.

The impact of working in places such as mental health hospitals is often studied, with around 18% of these workers developing PTSD, according to a study in 2018. Although this job is incredibly difficult and stressful, it is not often considered the effects these same conditions have on the patients. They are all exposed to traumatic events, and neither group are given nearly as much support as would be expected.

The current system designed to help people with mental illnesses needs to be made with the help of the people actually suffering. Something designed to help should not be triggering.

The question, then, is if people are going to abuse the sensory rooms. Not anymore than they already do with bathrooms. People will always find ways to cut class, and often that’s because they don’t feel supported in class. These rooms would solve that. There will be exceptions, but those few are not an excuse to cut someone else’s necessities.

It wouldn’t only help people with sensory issues, but people of all backgrounds and struggles.

“People who get overstimulated, anxious, panicked, people who have meltdowns, or simply people having a bad day deserve a place to calm their thoughts and take a break away from noise. Kids with bad home life situations need a moment to cry, to fidget and regulate. Someone who just got a text with bad news needs time to process,” says junior Thùy Nguyễn. “This could prevent fights!”

It wouldn’t have to start as a huge thing. The point of this article is simply to encourage discussion about a topic that affects me personally. Empty closets can easily be converted using donated items. Students in the IB diploma program who need volunteer hours to meet requirements can help out, as can people in the National Honors Society or anyone else who is interested. It could be as simple as writing a pass, then coming back, the expectation being the student is only gone for about five or ten minutes. Like a bathroom.

McCaskey has speeches and lessons in class as a preventative measure. We have social workers who can help students in specific situations. We have therapists, though students have to pay for them themselves. We have Peer Mediation to help students through situations after they have happened. We have plenty of teachers who are willing to help, by means of talking or making adjustments to assignments to better fit the needs of their students.

And all that is great. It really truly is. The entire student body is appreciative to have these resources available to them, however there will always be room for improvements and it is important to listen to the people who these issues affect personally when making decisions.