Whether it's in the suburbs, out bush or on country, today's teens are grappling with a mental health crisis. Experts say big, bold changes are needed, but what do we all do in the meantime? (Spoiler alert: These stories have a happy ending.)
What do you really know about teenagers, apart from once being one?
As body and brain evolves (and hormones emerge) teenagers shed that smaller person.
They do this while facing a different sort of childhood today — one that's uniquely interconnected and often isolating all at the same time.
This also brings fears for the future.
But this is no snowflake generation. These kids are not all moody moments and dancing for a like on their phone. They also navigate a combination of challenges most of us have never experienced.
Public health data reveals a jump in rates of psychological distress for teenagers in the past decade — as well as self-harm.
The "C" word gets thrown around a lot these days, but in this instance, it's hard to deny. It's an alarming situation all experts we spoke to agree on: this generation of teens is grappling with a mental health "crisis".
No two stories (or teenagers) are alike, of course. For Pacey, Bathsheba and Katiana, where they live, their upbringing and even their gender impact their mental health.
Small city, big heart
Pacey lives in Devonport, in the north-west of Tasmania. It's a port city, and he's lived here his whole life.
He's only 19, but has already been through a lot.
Like almost half of all young Australians aged 15 to 25, Pacey has experienced psychological distress.
It's a term used to describe those broader symptoms of stress, depression or anxiety which can lead to mental health disorders.
We meet his dad Braden at an old fibro house in a quiet, elevated cul-de-sac.
Pacey's out of school now, working as an apprentice mechanic and living at home.
There's a real warmth about them. A vulnerability, too. They've been through stuff, and together.
We start with his childhood, where it often begins.
Nothing remarkably unique, but painful all the same: watching Mum and Dad split up and feeling caught up by all of that.
"It hurt, and as a kid, you open your eyes up to the world.
"Your home life is falling apart. You're growing up and seeing the divorce of two people you're looking up to. Your whole world falls apart.
"You hold these things on top of your shoulders … it becomes a burden."
At the age of nine or 10, Pacey says his mental health was "at its worst".
Not only was he grappling with the divorce, but his "best mate" and pop died.
"It was a good relationship, it was tight ... and his love for Holden was an undying love," Pacey says.
"As a kid, it was a grounding more than anything."
Pacey credits these difficulties — or as the experts call it, childhood adversities — as the catalysts for his downward spiral.
As the Murdoch Children's Research Institute's Harriet Hiscock explains, things that happen in our younger years — and the way we're supported or deal with them — can be "very complex", and can have a huge impact on teenage mental health and wellbeing.
"There's going to be separation and divorce … but how it's done, and the support for parents and families to do it, is often the key ingredient," the paediatrician and researcher says.
The loss of someone close — and not always a parent — has a huge effect on a child's resilience, she adds.
Pacey says watching his parents' relationship fall apart and losing his pop was a "big change of tides".
"It shot me down heaps as a kid," he says.
"It all got tied up into one: depression and anxiety and anger."
Pacey was stuttering at this point, but the real red flag came when he started feeling physically sick every day.
"What made me think about things was spewing before going to school. Bottling up certain things," he says.
"Realising emotions that you should only realise as an adult."
In grade eight, the depression kicked in. Pacey saw a psychiatrist who monitored his brainwaves.
He says "one side was peaking, and the other wasn't," which explained the chronic anxiety that ultimately led to depression.
"Understanding what was going on helped," Pacey says.
And with the latest HILDA data suggesting that mental health improves with age, experts are saying there's something going on at this stage of a teenager's life that we need to help them with.
"I think we're facing a genuine mental health crisis in children and young people in Australia and in other developed countries," says Professor Ian Hickie, a global expert on mental health from the Brain and Mind Centre.
"We don't quite understand how all these things are at play. But we do see worsening mental health for young people, and we need to take action right now."
What we noticed about Pacey was his vulnerability, a tug-of-war between the kid he's always been and the new adult he's becoming.
And despite the unconditional love and support from his dad, his fight wasn't over yet.
He had some "good" friends in high school. But some, he says, weren't so "true".
"It was a big scene of substance abuse: codeine, weed, alcohol, anything you could get your hands on," he says.
Passed around at school, and "adventuring" with it himself, he says he started "just acting like a dickhead" and "lost a bit" of himself in the process.
"It was a dark place, with depression and anxiety," he says.
"I didn't want to do talk therapy. I thought I'd cop it on the chin, do it in my own time.
"Drugs took the edge off. Overthinking stopped when I was on the drugs.
"I go [to a party], I crushed up some pills -- it was codeine — downed 16 lines of it. And I just thought, 'f*** it'."
Pacey says he didn't think about how many pills he took, or the bottle of vodka he drank, only the "numb effect" it created.
"And yeah, I woke up in a hospital bed with Dad to the side of me, bawling his f***ing eyes out, and that's when it all changed.
"What I also realised is that I had people that I classed as best mates, taking photos of me 'dead' on the chair. So that hurt.
"It did end up on the socials that night."
Pacey learnt something valuable — who you surround yourself with can make all the difference.
"Big thing is your peers. You've gotta protect your energy, watch who you're around," he says.
"When my mates posted it online it made me feel very hollow… very f***ing hollow. Very lost.
"It had me thinking about a lot of things … about who's the real mates and who's gonna care at the end of the day.
"When that stuff happened, it was a massive f***ing backstab."
Today, Pacey tries to stay off the "big platforms with all of the bullshit" (i.e. most social media) because it "just floods your head".
"I just got into psychology, and seeking things deep within the brain, how you can actually change things: food, meditation, anything," he says.
Making music helps.
It's what experts refer to as "mastery" — something we can do (no trophy required) to feel good about ourselves.
"I was putting down art, it wasn't just words," Pacey says.
"It wasn't slam poetry, it was rap. It had a rhythm."
"That's when I really started to open my heart up I guess, and find that love for myself."
He also bought an acoustic guitar, and he's been slowly building up the confidence to freestyle in front of anyone.
But more than that, it's the people in his world — his "true" friends, his family and those people in his life who build him up.
This sense of connection is described by Professor Hickie as key.
He says it's everyone's responsibility to take care of teenagers.
"Part of coping and part of the role of distress is to engage others and to make it clear to yourself, 'OK, I've got to do something here. I've got to take action, not just sit here in helplessness'," Professor Hickie says.
Whether it's mucking around in the backyard with his dad and his little brother Rory, or on a joy ride with his mates, Pacey says he can open up more now about his mental health because his dad was honest and open to him about his own struggles in life.
Dad's advice to Pacey wasn't simply about hanging out with the "right" kids. It was about being there for his mates who might be in trouble one day: just to talk to them.
"[Anxiety and depression] can destroy a lot, but having Dad there to express [it] was a big thing. Dad would pick up on things," Pacey says.
"It made me closer to my mates. Gave me a different outlook on the world."
There might not be too much to do around the area, but Pacey says the gravel pit is their favourite local spot for a regular meet-up.
The boys will ask around, and someone — "whoever is up for it" — will be there.
"Most arvos we go for a drive," Pacey says.
"It builds your confidence.
"Community is always around — it's the culture. You've gotta feel it, right?"
We often hear of a young person's story "just beginning", but it feels like Pacey has already lived through a lot.
Resilience, connection and a sense of mastery or purpose in our lives — whatever that looks like — makes kids stronger.
"If I had just one message for adults, it would be to listen. Sit back, take a breath, listen. No matter what your kid's done," he says.
Young and proud
Katiana is only 16. Starting her senior year this year, and at a much different place in her life than Pacey. Katiana carries a quiet strength about her.
She lives in a small place called Fryerstown/Djaara country in Victoria's Goldfields region, just outside of Castlemaine.
She says it's a town "where everyone knows everyone, and with social media, everyone knows everyone".
She's also a proud Wadawurrung woman, which forms the backbone of her story.
For someone so young, this is a special relationship that means everything to her.
She feels the power and connection to this place when she's here.
We were lucky enough to meet Katiana in Ballarat on her country.
It's an important day for her, as she's preparing for a women's cleansing ceremony with her mob as part of the Treaty Day Out festival.
We ask if she's nervous.
"Not really, I'm more excited," she says.
She's been doing this since she was a little girl: preparing her body and her spirit with her mum and mob.
"[There's] a lot of excitement, and I feel very proud, too," she says.
"Like I always feel proud, when I do this. Because I know that some of my family couldn't do it, back in the day. Because of the Stolen Generation.
"So it does make you feel a little bit emotional, because I feel so privileged to be able to do it now."
We can see her confidence and enthusiasm build as the night goes on.
Katiana says that this connection to her culture, to her country, is also an "escape" from the difficulties she experiences at home — and the anxiety she's struggled with since she was a kid.
"It was hard to talk about how you feel, so many things were going on," she says.
"You couldn't just be the focus.
"Too much was happening around me."
In those moments of need, Katiana relied on her nan, her safe place. Someone she could receive "motherly affection" from.
"My mum was not too busy that she didn't care, but too busy that she literally couldn't give me that affection that I needed, that nurturing," she says.
Sometimes, the loss of her nan feels raw. Even six years on.
By the age of 12, Katiana says she was skipping school, smoking weed and drinking with some older cousins.
Life felt overwhelming, and it was at the height of lockdown, during the pandemic.
She knew she had to make changes.
"It was tricky. I just tried to spend as much time with my friends as I could without going into a trap where I was [still] smoking weed and doing all those things," she says.
"I just tried to really understand myself deeper. But even then, I'll still like doing other things because…I just hated everything about my life in that moment."
It was then that she was told she'd be heading off to an all-girls Indigenous boarding school. At first she was angry at her mum.
But today she is grateful she had a chance to prove to herself that she could cope with her feelings of fear, and achieve things she never thought were possible.
When she landed a leading role in the school's production and screening of the Sapphires, Katiana was in shock.
Loading..."It made me feel like I was top of the world and made me feel like I could do anything," she says.
"From thinking I was like, nothing, you know? Really bad mentally, useless. And then this was like, wow, look. I've done all this in the span of one year when I was very low."
Performing reminds Katiana that she isn't alone.
Spiritually she is part of something that has been around for thousands of years, and that's a comfort to her.
The next day, we meet Katiana back at her home on Djarra country. She talks to us about how she uses her love of country and the memories of her worst days to stay strong.
"If I have had a moment with my little sister, I'll go on a walk and just breathe and listen to music and just walk around the block, because there's a lot of trees around," she says.
"I like looking at the trees and having the wind and the breeze in my face."
Her relationship with her mum has improved too, especially since being back at home from boarding school and starting at the local high school nearby.
"My great-great-grandma was stolen. Our women were taken away. My mum didn't grow up with her mum around," she says.
"And then I can really understand why her and I can be distant. She never had that mother."
Katiana is like most other teenagers — she spends a lot of time on her phone. About six hours a day.
While she often uses the "do not disturb" function and knows that "constantly staring at my phone is horrible", she doesn't think that is unusual at her age.
There's some Indigenous content she follows. The problem with that, she says, is there can be "a lot of hate" in the comments, and that "really hurts".
And she knows how easy it is to get sucked into the body comparison trap online. She's been there before.
"I'm a bigger girl. I don't really care. I'm healthy, I know I can run and exercise. I don't want to be dieting. I don't like commenting on other people's bodies, it makes me mad," she says.
We wanted to know what Katiana saw in her future, if she had it all figured out yet?
Not quite. But there was a lot of hope.
"I've had a thought of what I want to do when I'm older. I want to be a social worker, I could help young people. I really want to work with Indigenous kids. And multicultural kids. To understand them and not just my own culture.
"[But] for now, I feel so proud.
"I've grown into, like, who I want to be at the moment.
"I'm a woman now."
Coming home
First child born into a family with seven kids. First of her relatives to graduate high school in Australia.
First chance to make the family proud.
These firsts count for a lot in Bathsheba's story.
WARNING: this story documents experiences of self-harm.
We meet her at her family home, where she's living with mum and six siblings in a small brick house in outer western Sydney.
It has been a modest upbringing. Bathsheba came to Australia as a toddler from a refugee camp.
Her parents had lived there for 11 years, fleeing conflict as members of the minority Karen community on the Thai-Myanmar border.
They carried the trauma of conflict, but with it, incredibly high hopes for their future children in a new country.
Bathsheba, 17, has learnt a lot in the past year, and she's experienced considerable pain at a young age.
It didn't help that her relationship with her father was strained at best.
Suffering symptoms of depression early in high school, it was easy to grab a beer from her parents' fridge when she came home.
Easy to say yes at parties when weed was handed around.
Especially when there was so much pressure from her parents to achieve at school.
She knows now they just wanted the best for her, but it took its toll.
"I did everything, but still didn't feel 'accomplished'. I'd do more. Reach more standards.
"I wanted to come first at subjects, to tell my mum. It wasn't for me, it was for my family.
"It's only recently that I started realising it's my life, not theirs."
These expectations on young teenagers, particularly from a cultural perspective, can be overwhelming.
"If they have a problem, it's seen as the whole family's problem. So it's the shame of that," Associate Professor Harriet Hiscock says.
"And if I've got a mental health problem, not only am I letting myself down, but I could be letting down the whole extended family."
Associate Professor Hiscock says when talking to young people, particularly from Asian families, they spoke of the high expectations at home and a need to thrive academically. Suffering from, or talking about, poor mental health was often not an option.
"That's a lot of pressure to bear," she says.
And with her close friend already self-harming, Bathsheba tried that too. Just to feel something different.
"Looking back now, it was a very difficult time in my life. Especially being the oldest," she says.
"[My parents] couldn't understand me, and they didn't know what to do. So I had to try to find my own way."
"I wanted to feel something. I wanted to feel normal. I didn't want to feel sober.
"It helped to focus my pain on something else. I'd rather feel physical pain than emotional pain."
The gendered data on how girls and boys deal with their mental health is quite alarming.
The latest national figures from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) show rates of self-harm for girls aged 15 to19 have nearly doubled since 2008.
And for girls aged 14 and under, it tripled.
Things started to turn around thanks to a cry for help and a concerned teacher.
But in the end, Bathsheba says it was "much more about [my parents] telling me they're proud of me. That little bit of support kept me going".
Bathsheba says she decided to forgive her father for not being there.
Today, she looks at the mistakes she's made as valuable lessons she's grateful for.
Her family responsibilities, her role as the eldest daughter and her dedication to her church and tight-knit Karen community aren't stifling her sense of freedom and excitement for the future.
She's started a dual degree at university, and for the first time in her life, the future looks promising.
Not because she has it all figured out, but because she is "excited for the future, for what's ahead".
"But it's going to take a lot of hard work. I feel like I have such a clean slate, high school is gone, I have a brand new life canvas," she says.
Credits
Reporter: Gemma Breen
Photography: Brendan Esposito
Digital production: Gemma Breen and Dinushi Dias
Digital editor: Heidi Davoren