Young adults need support

Even though people who have just turned 18 years old are considered adults in many countries, a number of us who are between 18-26 years old still need a lot of help and support. We do not have as much experience about many things in life. A lot of what we do is trial and error. We handle difficult issues by ourselves or take advice from our inexperienced fellows.

Most parents after paying tuition fees, rent and food, assume their work is done, forgetting that we also need emotional support from them. Many of us who have made peace with this reality tend to avoid as much as possible disturbing our parents with our personal crises like heartbreaks, drug addiction, betrayal from friends, uncertainty about life, peer pressure which makes some of us lose our authentic selves, and issues that we are uncomfortable talking about that we carry on from home.

In trying to keep our heads up, we get hooked onto some very dodgy activities like selling drugs to survive, and going out with “sponsors” for sexual favours among others. It's difficult to share what we are doing or seek advice because we are afraid of being judged by those who don't understand us. Sometimes it's too much to take in that it weighs us down and the only way to make it stop is commit suicide or use drugs to cope. Suicide tends to be higher among male students who bottle up their emotions, afraid of being seen as weak or “not man enough”. Loneliness and emptiness makes us unhappy, and this ends up distorting our mental sanity, interfering with our school performance.

In order to solve this, it would be helpful if each tertiary institution provided a professional therapist to minimise suicides in campus. The therapy sessions would be totally voluntary and private for anyone who feels the need to open up to someone. In addition it would help a lot if parents/guardians checked on us emotionally so that we know we are not alone. 

Juliet Wairungi