I coach high school debate. This is a very high pressure activity and we are a high pressure team. We have placed at national tournaments. I suspect one of my debaters is cutting or engaging in some other form of self-harm. She is a stereotypical over-driven Asian girl. I'm not a teacher, but I hope I am a "cool grown up". Is there anything y'all who have been in a similar situation to hers would have appreciated some "cool grown up" doing?
joking with her about obviously being stressed the fuck out will probably open a conversational door. at that age i would have been sarcastic but truthful. "oh man, how do you ever sleep?" "i don't, i just hug myself and cry." "how do you even deal with that much work?" "*hysterical laughter turns to sobbing* oh god i don't know what i'm doing with my life"
Engaging her and showing her you appreciate the work she is putting in is something I would have dearly appreciated. And sort of showing that you can be trusted, though that takes longer work. But basically recognising that you do a lot of work and you're excellent, but it's not the end of all everything. Hope that made sense. I do hope you're wrong about the self-harm, but if you noticed, then she probably is. My best school friend was also very driven and wanted the best grades, and she self-harmed too, but we were all too messed up to like even consider telling a grown-up, mostly because we did not trust the teachers around us and they did not seem to have our best interests at heart at all. (I am hesitant to suggest you ask directly, that will likely make her clam up immediately, but if there seems to be a situation where you can ask, might be a good idea. If she's in such a position, she's definitely not getting enough support from her parents and does not feel like she can talk to them.)
Sounds stupid, but being a non judgemental listener would be something younger!cody would have appreciated a lot. Non-judgemental means avoiding phrases like "School is the most important thing right now" or "But homework is important" or "They´re just trying to help". Considering how driven she is, I´m sure she knows that. So letting her bitch about not wanting to do school or whatever else is considered vitally important that she do by adults around her might help. (Obviously you will have to adapt this to her actual situation, but I hope this example gets my point across?) Edit: Trying again. Basically, she may express discontant with things that as a responsible adult(tm) you feel required to stress as good and important and necessary. I´m not saying you should just tell her they aren´t, but it may help to agree with her that even if nescessary and important, they fucking suck. (And swallow that necessary and important reminder. Trust me, she´ll have heard it plenty) Alternately, just offer no opinion at all, just listening without arguing can help a lot.
seconding @littlemissCodeless in that one of the things that was best for me also was finding someone who would listen to me and take my words at face value without going 'no, but you are wrong because...'. (not the sort of depressive thought spirals which kind of do need someone to tell them 'this is wrong' a lot of the time, but just descriptions of circumstances). this is both useful because a) she might be right about something that others are wrong about, and you listening to her without telling her she's wrong may well be helpful there (classic examples are abusive parents, bad teachers, undiagnosed and denied mental shit, etc) and b) even if there's nothing underlying that people aren't considering, someone actually listening to you and validating your feelings (as in, yes, you are having these feelings, that really sucks) can be super useful (especially with minors, where it's more likely that they won't be listened to).
@rigorist (In case you´re not watching this thread anymore.) Here, Mirrors posted a wonderful example of what NOT to do. It basically translates to "Here, let me remind you that this situation which is messing you up is only going to get even worse."
I didn't actually attend school (I was homeschooled) so I don't know how much this applies, but one of the things that helped my brain weird the most was just... casual acknowledgment that I was skilled rather than talented. I spent most of my time from 10 up feeling like I was paddling madly upstream while also on a treadmill just to keep people somewhat pleased with me. When I got excessively complimented in that "oh, you're so amazing, you're going to do Great Things!!" kind of way, that just meant I then had to put extra effort towards not disappointing this person too, who suddenly had even more expectation towards me. =/ The rare times someone was just like "well, yeah, you put in stupid amounts of effort at this, you're good at it." it was somehow so much better. Basically naturally skilled = feeling horrible, worked really hard and earned it = actually complimented. For me at least, I don't know how it works with other people.
Side comment to @LilacMercenary Apparently there is a phenomenon in attitudes towards skills and self worth known as fixed mindset vs growth mindset Fixed mindset seems to be, unfortunately, really common. Probably because it takes less work to just put it on automatic. That's the one where we categorize ourselves as "smart" or "dumb", as an actual trait of ourselves. For instance, I take a test and get a shitty grade. Well, that's because I'm an idiot. Why did I think I was going to do well? I'm never going to be good at this, so why put myself through the pain? Which leads to some pretty shitty self worth issues (See also, almost any time I talked about math before junior year of college) Growth mindset would be getting that test result and going "wow, that's a bad grade. Next time I'm going to study more or ask for help." It doesn't make value judgements on you, and it makes a plan for future issues.
