How to recognize mental health struggles your teen may be covering up
Many struggling teenagers do not look obviously distressed from the outside.
They still go to class. They still joke with friends. They still post on social media, show up for practice, study for tests and talk about college plans.
Which is one reason adults are so often left after a suicide asking the same agonizing question: Were there signs that somebody missed?
The answer, according to mental health experts, is usually yes, but rarely in the clear way many people imagine.
Instead, emotional distress often reveals itself in scattered fragments. A withdrawn lunch period. A sudden personality shift. Isolation. A troubling comment made quietly to a friend.
And because teenagers often confide in one another long before they confide in adults, experts say preventing tragedy increasingly depends not just on schools and parents, but on helping entire communities better understand how emotional distress can actually look — and how to respond when they see it.
Amanda McGough, a Charlotte psychologist and suicide-prevention specialist who has worked with Myers Park students and families, says she continues to be amazed by how good people can be at hiding what they’re experiencing.
“And essentially,” she says, “when we look back on individuals that we’ve lost to suicide, what we typically see is that there were warning signs, but no one person (in their lives) tended to have all those pieces of the puzzle. So one person’s seeing a certain thing, but everything else looks okay. Somebody else saw something else or had a different experience, but everything else looked okay on the surface. … It makes it hard to see.”
The signs are not always the same, says Heather Bonner, founder of the Charlotte-based mental-health nonprofit Mission 34: “You might have a complete physical change, and then you might have a complete personality change. Different people show different signs, and some are really good at covering it up.”
Bonner — whose son Sean, who took his own life in 2018 while in college a little more than two years after graduating from Charlotte Latin School — says distress often eventually reveals itself in some form, even if the warning signs differ dramatically from person to person.
In suicide prevention training, she says, the focus is not just recognizing warning signs but building the confidence to ask direct questions when something feels off.
“I’ve noticed you’re not engaging,” she says as one example. “What’s going on?”
Kate Weaver, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness’ Charlotte chapter, adds that “a lot of people, when someone dies by suicide, say there were no signs. And we believe, in fact, that’s rarely true. There are signs. It’s hard to know what they are if you don’t know what to look for. And a lot of kids are masking and not telling anyone the way they’re feeling … for many reasons — whether it’s stigma or the inability to articulate what it is.”
“We want kids to have the tools to talk to each other, to find a trusted adult, and to understand when not to keep the secret,” Weaver says. “Because a lot of the time, kids will say, ‘Don’t tell anybody.’ And we know that they need to tell someone when something is really wrong.”
She adds: “There’s a myth that asking someone if they’re thinking about suicide will give them the idea, or make it more likely.” But she says the research shows that asking directly about suicide does not increase risk — but in fact can reduce it.
McGough also notes that teenagers are more likely to confide in one another than in adults.
“We’ve got a lot of research that points to that,” she says. “That’s just kind of part of teenage culture.
“So not only do we need to help each individual teen know that there’s support out there, but they also need to know, if my friend is struggling, what do I need to do? When should I break their privacy — their confidentiality — and share this with a trusted adult?”
McGough says that some students worry peers will notice them seeking counseling, particularly in high-achieving environments where stigma around mental health can remain strong. “Because then if I need help, perhaps I’m signaling, ‘Actually, I’m not okay.’”
The experts also stressed that schools alone cannot solve a broader youth mental-health crisis, particularly as counselors and educators are increasingly asked to navigate emotional needs far beyond traditional academic roles.
“I think that as adults, we can look back at high school and realize, from the adult perspective, that everything is problem-solvable,” McGough says. “Things get better. Life does not end in high school. And yet, in the moment, for an adolescent, it can feel extremely different. The things that they care about, the things that feel big to them, important to them, we really need to take that seriously — even if we see it differently.
“We need to be open to listening. We need to be very nonjudgmental. We really need to lean in with validation, support and care.”
If you or someone you know is experiencing a crisis, help is available. In the U.S., you can call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, or visit 988lifeline.org for confidential support.
This story was originally published June 4, 2026 at 5:00 AM.
