by Daryl Andrews
Recently, I had the pleasure of catching an advance screening on the movie, “It’s Kind of a Funny
Story” at the Toronto International Film Festival. The movie stars Zach Galifianakis, Keir Gilchrist, and Emma Roberts. The movie is an adaption of a Young Adult book by the same title, authored by Ned Vizzini. My over simplified plot summary is the movie follows the journey of a clinically depressed teen who learns how to experience freedom, after checking himself into an adult psych ward.
After seeing 10 movies in a matter of a few days at TIFF, this movie still stands out as a personal favourite. It is a beautiful movie that all youth workers need to see. Recently, I had a conversation with a student who shared with me how depressed he is with his life. Now he didn’t start the conversation that way. Its not like he called me on the phone and said, “Daryl, Im depressed - can you help me?!” Instead it was hinted at from a bunch of different angles. I needed to know how to recognize the signs, and care enough to ask the tough questions.
As youth workers, we have a rare perspective into the life of students. We are not a young person’s parent, or peer. We are an adult in a students life, that they know loves them and wants to support them. Often, we are the first person a student ‘tests’ to see if we will notice. It scares me to think of all the times a student tested me to see if I would notice, and I totally missed the clues. However, I also need to look into the mirror.
The sad reality is, we adults, often avoid the messiness of life. We are experts of pretending everything is alright. Kids are quick to learn from our examples. We might be screaming and fighting in the car to church, but when we arrive, we are all smiles and hugs. At the National Youth Workers Convention in San Diego last month, Mark Yaconelli made the observation, “maybe we should put up signs in front of our churches saying ‘Just Pretend’.”
One of the taboo topics that rarely are spoken about in the church is depression. However, a nationwide survey of Canadian youth by Statistics Canada found that 6.5%—more than a quarter million youth and young adults between 15 and 24—met the criteria for major depression in the past year. Did you read that?! Just in the last year. So I want to make a confession, so that young people do not feel alone - I have and will experience depression. It can be a difficult journey when experiencing depression. Please dont travel that road alone.
I want to share a story. A few years back, I booked a good guy friend of mine to be a speaker of a retreat I was running. One of the traditions we had established at our retreat was a “Girl Talk/Guy Talk time”. However, we had a twist. All the male leaders chatted with the girls, and all the female leaders chatted with the guy students. We had a couple simple rules.
One: Anyone could ask any question, but no one had to answer if they didn’t want to. Two: if your willing to ask a question, you should probably be willing to share too.
As you can guess, usually the guy talks just resulted in boys being boys, and being distracted by something like wrestling. However, the girl talks were often the highlight of the retreat. One experience from those discussion has always stuck with me. I asked all the girls to answer a question by show of hands. I asked “raise your hand if you or someone you call a best friend, had ever cut themselves.” Every hand went up. Everyone. My friend, the speaker, a youth pastor, had never even heard of self-injury.
If you are a parent, student, or youth worker, I urge you to watch “It’s Kind of a Funny Story.” It is an entertaining movie, with a lot of heart. It touches on important topics we need to be engaging. In closing I want to share the lyrics from the song, “Topics” by the band Nevertheless.
She spent the night out with a guy
Who gives attention when she cries herself to sleep
I heard her say
So, she gives him what he wants
As long as he can make her feel okay
But she's not okay
We avoid the topics
We make the kids have secrets
When they are exposed
And everyone else knows
We'll say we never knew it
That they had a problem
'Cause if we would have known
We surely would have solved it
But we can't, it's too late
I said we can't, it's too late
He's skipping classes 'cause he hates them
And hopes he passes not to take them all again
I heard him say
He escapes them with the pills
The ones he takes to make him feel like he's okay
But he's not okay
God, You've got to save us
We hide behind the faces that we make to disguise
The things that we're ashamed of
And all the ugly things that make us close our eyes
They make us close our eyes
Why do we close our eyes?
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