The Northside has long been seen as a safe, close-knit place to raise kids. But the same community strengths that draw families here such as strong schools, involved parents, familiar neighborhoods can also create a pressure-cooker environment for teenagers navigating identity, social status, and expectations.
“Let’s call this area of Jackson what it is. It’s a bubble,” said Daniel Phyfer, vice president of business development at Defining Wellness, a mental health and addiction treatment center near Jackson. And inside that bubble, he said, many teens feel they are performing.
“You know, a lot of kids around here grow up being somebody for somebody else,” Phyfer said.
Daniel isn’t speaking as an outsider. He grew up in Eastover, attended Jackson Prep, went to Ole Miss, and describes himself as someone who looked fine on the surface while quietly feeling the opposite. “Somewhere along the way, I was not comfortable in my own skin whatsoever,” he said. “I wanted to crawl out at all times, and I was very good at masking it.”
That discomfort, he said, often showed up as anger which he now recognizes was fear.
“I masked my fears and insecurities with anger,” he said. “If I could show people that I was angry, they would back away.”
Phyfer said his earliest exposures were the familiar ones: alcohol and tobacco.
“Alcohol for sure and we were dipping. I was stealing my dad’s tobacco and selling it in junior high,” he said.
But the real shift came later, when substances became a tool to change the way he felt.
“I started smoking marijuana regularly,” he said.
He was introduced around age 17, he said, through older students, a pipeline he
described as self-perpetuating.
“It was like a cycle that just moved from one class to the next,” he said. That cycle hasn’t disappeared. What’s changed is access, potency, and concealment, according to Phyfer.
“You can’t trust anything you get on the street,” Phyfer said. “All the pills are pressed. All the cocaine is cut. There are so many synthetics.”
Public safety officials in Mississippi have also flagged fentanyl and counterfeit pills as major threats in the state. And the CDC has warned that counterfeit prescription pills sold through illegal online pharmacies often contain fentanyl and other dangerous substances.
Teens can easily access intoxicants that appear “legal” or at least available in plain sight.
“With the internet also comes a synthetic drug market. You can order drugs online,” Phyfer said.
And then there’s opioid like substances sold at convenience stores that can carry serious risk.
Nationally, products containing tianeptine. sometimes called “gas station heroin” have drawn increasing warnings and poison-control attention.
Phyfer also pointed to kratom products sold locally.
“We, Defining Wellness, are detoxing people off of kratom that they’re buying legally at a gas station,” he said.
Mississippi policymakers and health leaders have debated restrictions on kratom, citing safety concerns.
Ask parents what’s different today, and many will start with the substances: vapes, THC pens, pills, powders. Phyfer starts with something else, the attention economy.
“It’s so much easier now to escape ourselves. Especially teens. You’ve got gaming, social media, and this whole world of technology at your fingertips. We must consider what constant stimulation can do to developing brains and why it matters when teens are stressed, anxious, or insecure,” he said.
“There has to be a balance,” he said. “We are living organisms. We need human interaction, face to face. You need to go outside.”
He also believes covid-era isolation accelerated the problem.
“Absolutely,” he said, when asked whether the pandemic played a role. “Kids were out of school and they couldn’t hang out with each other.”
Phyfer was clear: you can’t force your teenager to open up on demand. But you can pay attention to patterns, especially changes.
“I think that you can pay attention to signs,” he said. “Isolation, anger, restlessness, and discontentment.”
He emphasized that none of these alone “prove” substance use or mental health challenges because teenagers do seek independence, but persistent shifts should prompt a conversation, not just punishment.
And he returned to one theme again and again:
“It starts with communication,” he said. “Parents are tired and life gets busy. But we can’t live in the idea of everything’s good to go. We’re gonna brush things under the rug and it will go away.”
His goal with his own children as they continue to grow up will be different.
“I will encourage them to communicate with me how they feel no matter what the emotion is,” he said. “And if they don’t want to talk to me and they want to talk to somebody else, that’s fine.”
Many parents on the Northside know the tightrope: hold boundaries without pushing a child away; enforce consequences without creating secrecy.
Boundaries matter, according to Phyfer, and so does the language used to enforce them.
“Consequences are necessary for growth,” he said. “I think consequences without shame are healthy.”
What does that look like? He offered a concrete example that parents will recognize immediately.
“If you’re driving drunk, you’re not driving. Period,” he said. “Take away the vehicle.”
But he cautioned against labeling the child as the problem.
“You’ve got to reframe your language,” he said. “Like, okay, hey, that was stupid. You’re not stupid, right? Here’s what can happen if you keep doing that.”
He also acknowledged why parents sometimes hesitate: exhaustion, fear, and the social pressure of a community where image matters.
“We live in a tight knit community,” he said. “People know what’s going on.”
Still, he said, avoiding hard conversations doesn’t protect kids, it isolates them.
“You want to be able to be at a place with your children where they can come to you and say, ‘I screwed up.’” he said.
In a high-achieving culture, teens can feel like their worth is attached to a transcript, a roster, or a ranking. Phyfer said that pressure can shape drug choices, too which can include misuse of stimulants.
“We need to talk about Adderall,” he said. “Adderall is a very powerful drug and while necessary for people who need it, can be abused in many different ways.”
He described a mindset he hears often: “The message in a kid’s brain is like, ‘I can’t be successful without this. I can’t pass this test, I can’t complete these tasks. That negative reinforcement to self is not healthy.’”
The Mississippi State Department of Health notes that properly prescribed stimulants can be effective, but like any drug they can also be abused.
Phyfer kept returning to a “recipe” he believes protects kids over the long haul.
“Community, accountability and structure,” he said.
Not structure as surveillance, he clarified, but structure as responsibility, healthy routines, and identity beyond achievement.
“Every kid has their own thing whether it is music, academics or sports,” he said. “Encourage them to find what they’re passionate about and lean into it.”
But don’t let it become their entire identity.
“That was the problem,” he said of his own teen years. “” I associated my worth with things that didn’t determine who I was at my core.”
He added: “Above all else, they need to be who they are. And they need to be comfortable with that.”
For families in crisis, shame is often the biggest barrier to getting help not the lack of help itself.
“A lot of people just don’t know where to turn,” Phyfer said. “And you have to have enough humility and be vulnerable enough to ask.”
For immediate danger or suspected overdose, call 911.
For trusted public information on opioids and fentanyl risks in Mississippi, the Mississippi State Department of Health provides guidance and resources.
And for parents who think, “This can’t happen here,” Phyfer’s answer is simple:
“Good kids everywhere tried something one time and they didn’t wake up,” he said. “That’s what we’re dealing with in the world of substances. It’s life or death. We’ve got to talk about this stuff and work together if we want to break these cycles.”
