By Dr. Purvita Sarkar Ray, MD (Psychiatry)
Ray of Hope Psychiatric Clinic, Howrah
The student nobody worries about — until they should
There is a student I meet again and again in my clinic.
Not the topper. Not the one who failed. The one in the middle.
She gets 68% and her parents say, “you could have done better.” He scores 72% and his relatives say, “science mein jaoge? itne marks mein?” She is not failing, so nobody organises extra tuition. She is not excelling, so nobody celebrates her. She exists in a strange no-man’s land — not struggling enough to get help, not succeeding enough to get recognition.
This student is everywhere in Howrah, in Kolkata, in every Bengali middle-class household. And this student is the one I worry about the most.
Because nobody is watching.
What we do to our children without meaning to
Let me paint a picture that many parents reading this will recognise.
It is Sunday afternoon. The extended family is gathered. Someone asks your Class 10 child, “ki re, madhyamik-e kemon korbi?” — how will you do in boards? The child smiles and says something vague. Everyone laughs. The moment passes.
But the child heard something underneath that question. They heard: your worth in this family will be measured in March.
This happens dozens of times a year. At Durga Pujo pandals, at weddings, at adda sessions on the verandah. Well-meaning relatives, neighbours, parents’ colleagues — all casually, lovingly, repeatedly tying a child’s identity to a number that hasn’t been announced yet.
By the time I see that child in my clinic, they have been carrying that weight for years. The board exam is not the cause of their anxiety. It is simply the moment the dam breaks.
Why the middle-of-the-road student struggles the most
The academically average student occupies a uniquely painful position in our education system.
The topper has a clear identity — she is “the intelligent one.” The weak student gets intervention — tuitions, counsellors, special attention. But the student who consistently scores 60–75%? She gets expectation without support. Comparison without compassion.
She is told: “You are capable of more” — which translates in a teenage brain as: “What you are right now is not enough.”
She watches her peers and thinks everyone else has figured it out. She scrolls Instagram and sees classmates posting aesthetically arranged study tables and “10 hours of studying done!” stories. She does not know that half of them are performing productivity, not experiencing it. She just knows she feels behind — always behind, perpetually behind — in a race she never agreed to enter.
This is the breeding ground for anxiety disorders. For depression. For the kind of quiet, invisible suffering that does not announce itself dramatically — it just slowly dims a child from the inside.
The pressure is not imaginary. It is structural.
I want to be careful here, because I have heard people dismiss struggling students with “just ignore what others say.” That advice is well-intentioned and almost completely useless.
The pressure these children feel is not a perception problem. It is structural.
In West Bengal, Madhyamik and Higher Secondary results are still published in newspapers. School rankings are still displayed publicly. A child’s stream selection — Science, Commerce, Arts — is still treated as a verdict on their intelligence rather than a reflection of their interests. And the job market our children are preparing for is brutal in ways our generation did not fully face — competitive entrance exams, shrinking government jobs, and a private sector that filters by marks before it asks about the person.
The anxiety is a rational response to a genuinely difficult situation.
What mental health support does is not make the situation disappear. It gives the child the internal resources to navigate it without breaking.
What breaking actually looks like — and what it doesn’t
When people imagine a student having a mental health crisis, they imagine a dramatic moment. A breakdown. Tears in the exam hall. Something unmistakable.
The reality is usually much quieter and much harder to identify.
It looks like a child who:
- Comes home from school and goes directly to their room and does not come out
- Has stopped talking about their friends, their day, anything at all
- Eats very little, or eats constantly, or skips meals and you have stopped fighting about it
- Sits at the study table for hours but cannot tell you what they studied
- Says “I’m fine” in a way that means the opposite
- Used to love something — drawing, cricket, music — and has quietly stopped doing it
That last one. When a child stops doing the thing they love because they feel they “don’t deserve” to enjoy themselves until their marks improve — that is a warning sign that is easy to miss and important to catch.
What I tell parents who come to my clinic
By the time most families reach my clinic at Shibpur, they have been watching their child struggle for months. The most common thing parents say when they sit down across from me is some version of: “I wish we had come sooner.”
You do not need a dramatic crisis to justify a consultation. You need a persistent change in your child that concerns you.
If your child has been noticeably different — in mood, sleep, appetite, withdrawal — for more than two to three weeks, that is enough reason to come.
A first appointment is simply a conversation. I will not label your child. I will not medicate them reflexively. What I will do is listen to them — often, for the first time in a long while, without an agenda.
For many students, that conversation alone is the beginning of feeling less alone.
The difference between healthy stress and a mental health problem
A certain amount of exam stress is normal and even useful — it sharpens focus and motivates preparation. The problem begins when stress stops being a tool and starts being a burden the student cannot put down.
Consider seeking an evaluation if your child:
- Has sleep severely disrupted for more than two to three weeks
- Has recurring headaches, stomach pain, or chest tightness with no medical cause found
- Is withdrawing from friends, family, and activities they used to enjoy
- Expresses hopelessness — “what’s the point,” “I am useless”
- Has refused to go to school or leaves after reaching the gate
- Makes statements like “everyone will be better off without me” — always take these seriously
You do not need to wait for a crisis. You do not need to be certain something is “seriously wrong.” If you feel in your gut that something is different — that this is not just stress — trust that instinct.
To the student reading this at midnight
I know you are not supposed to be on your phone right now.
I know you have a chapter left and a test day after tomorrow and a parent who will check your marks and a relative who will ask at the next gathering and a classmate who seems to have everything sorted while you feel like you are barely keeping your head above water.
I want to tell you something I tell every student who comes to my clinic:
The fact that you are struggling does not mean you are weak. It means you are human, and you have been asked to carry more than humans your age should have to carry alone.
You are allowed to ask for help. Not after the exams. Not when things get worse. Now.
Dr. Purvita Sarkar Ray is a Consultant Psychiatrist in Howrah at Ray of Hope Psychiatric Clinic, 837/6 Sarat Chatterjee Road, Shibpur, Howrah. She completed her MD in Psychiatry from LGB Regional Institute of Mental Health.
Book an appointment: +91 7033731246
