Xiara's Podcast

Barbara Agiro, a guest on the show, discusses her experience with mental health and the education system. She was a valedictorian in high school but faced pressure to succeed. This pressure affected her mental health, leading to a breakdown in college. Barbara believes that the combination of high expectations and the education system contributes to mental health issues in young people. She emphasizes the importance of recognizing and addressing mental health issues. Statistics show that many students in the US face depression and poor mental health. Barbara encourages open conversation and working on mental health from within. Hello, and welcome to Let's Talk About It, a special edition with your host, Ciara Pilarte. Today, we're going to be talking about mental health and its relationship to the education system. In today's episode, I have a special guest, my cousin Barbara Agiro, who's going to be joining us from the Bronx, New York, the Yankees house. Barbara has faced many challenges with the education system and mental health. Yet, she perseveres. She's an example of diligence and proved that there's always light at the end of the tunnel. Let's give a warm welcome to Barbara. Good night, and it's a pleasure being here. Welcome, Barbara. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Of course, yes. So, as you mentioned, my name is Barbara Agiro, and I am actually your favorite cousin. Hi. That's true. I am 25 years old. I currently attend SUNY Broome Community College, where I am studying for a histotechnician program, and I am passionate about healthcare. Good, good. That's good to know, Barbara. I know that you graduated high school in 2017, and that you were a valedictorian. Can you tell me a little more about that, like the challenges that you faced, and was it easy for you to be a valedictorian in high school? Yes, I was a valedictorian of my high school classroom in 2017. I went to a charter school. It was on the smaller side. We were a little over 100 students in my class, and it was definitely challenging in terms of living up to expectations. So, interesting enough, I didn't know I was top of my class until like the last three months, I believe, of my senior year, and until that time, I don't think I had ever stopped to think about that. It was just doing my best, and like I had mentioned, I did have a lot of pressure from my parents. They came here as immigrants. I was actually born in the Dominican Republic, and I came when I was about 12 years old, and there's always that that pressure and expectations from parents that they want us to be better, and the whole thing that my mother always tells me is that she came here, and she came with me and my brother so that we can have a better shot, so that we can further our educations, and she definitely instilled that in me. It helps, but in terms of achieving being a valedictorian, it was never an ultimate goal of mine. I actually didn't know I was a valedictorian, or I was going to be a valedictorian until I think it was the last three months of my senior year, and I always just tried to do and give my best. I was born in the Dominican Republic, and I came to the United States when I was about like 12, and my parents come from immigrant parents, and they always pushed me to be better, and my brother and I, and to just further our educations, and there was always that expectation to be the best, especially when it came to school. I guess that a lot, you know, we come from the same family, and I know that it's a lot of pressure that our parents put on us. That's your only job, like they always say. So, do you feel like that pressure of doing good in school, and that you needed to do the best that you could for your mother's sacrifice to be worth it, affected your mental health? Of course it did, even to today. Something that I have worked on a lot, but there's always that part of me that believes that it's never enough, and there's always more to do, but after graduating high school, I went into college. I was actually attending Hunter College, where my first semester, I actually had a part-time job at a fast food restaurant, and at the same time, I was doing an internship at a research lab at the school, and then I was handling five classes. So, wow, like let me stop you right there. Two jobs and taking five classes. As a freshman, you know, I'm gonna give it to you. It must have been hard. It was challenging, actually. It led me to really struggle with my mental health. By the end of the semester, near the end of November, I actually had a psychotic breakdown, where I went into a very deep depression and was dealing with a lot of anxiety, and it completely shut me down, and I actually had to skip away from school for some time, and all of that was just all of that repressed pressure and expectations to do well in school and succeed, no matter what you have going on, no matter what is happening, no matter how you feel, and it worked for some time, but that first semester of college really showed the consequences of going through life that way. When you say that the way that the education system works also contributes to mental health issues or the pressure of immigrant family and wanting their children to succeed, that's the reason of these things happening. Like, when you say it's one or the other, it's a combination of both, that is leading to these high numbers of depressions and mental health issues within the younger generation. I can definitely, and of course in hindsight, see that growing up with that set expectation on me of of being the greatest and even for living up to being Valedictorian, which again was something that I didn't, that was never really my end goal, and to kind of being labeled that way by my family and everybody around me, that did contribute a lot because sometimes I couldn't exceed. My first semester, I actually remember failing my first test ever, and that was the beginning of me spiraling, but in terms of the education system, I remember when I actually tried to go back to school, they made it really difficult, obviously because I didn't go back all my classes and I ended up doing really bad, and it took a while for me to justify that and bring documents that justified in a tangible way why I couldn't, why I wasn't able to do well in school. I didn't think that they took that very seriously, and they actually didn't allow me to go back. I had to submit an appeal and eventually, but that was going to take a lot of time, so I actually enrolled in a community college that opened its doors to me, where I learned a little more about what I really wanted from life and went in with a different perspective, and after maturing and doing the work and going to therapy, I can say that I have faced this. According to the Mental Health America, 16.39% of youth age 12 to 17 reported suffering from at least one major depressive episode. That was in 2023 that this data was taken. Also, according to the CDC, in 2021, 42% of high school students in the United States felt persistently sad and hopeless, and 29% experienced poor mental health. Additionally, 22% of students seriously considered attempting suicide in 2021, and 10% attempted suicide, so hearing you talk about this, it's like I want you to know that it's good that you overcome this, because the numbers are there, and they're not lying. A lot of students in the United States are facing major depression episodes, and yes, I feel like it's taking a lot to open the conversation, and in my personal experience, I can say that feeling like I was falling behind from the rest of my peers and not having that support from the school I was attending and just kind of being outcasted, I can see why people don't want to talk about it. I can see why it wipes away everything that anybody has ever known before. I went from like this very smart girl to this girl that is just lost in the world, and I don't think it's fair, and it really discourages people from facing this issue when we should actually be striving for the opposite, but at the end of the day, I think that mental health is more about working from within than the circumstances, because when we see life overall, it's more than that, and it's definitely about no matter what the circumstances are, being able to recognize those pressures, being able to recognize any stressors from outside of yourself, and looking at them in the face and knowing that something good can come out of that, and that it will. Here you have it. This was Barbara Drew for our special edition of Let's Talk About It. This is why she's my favorite cousin. Do not tell the others, please, and you know, thank you for joining us today, and just wish you the best, tuning in for the next episode of Let's Talk About It. Bye! Bye! Bye!