I have a vivid memory of the day that I found out a person in my life had killed themselves. I watched from the couch as two cars pulled into the driveway, and a handful of people I knew walked into our house. This seemed to be anything but a just a friendly visit. I was asked to go upstairs, and I did as I was told. As | waited to be called back down, I stared out the window. The sky was cloudy, fitting for the mood of what was about to be revealed. I remember wondering to myself, “Maybe he killed himself… “.
I didn’t understand the gravity of that thought, but when I was called to the living room and sat down, I had a feeling that my guess had been right. And it was. A person who I had only known to be kind, funny, and loving had taken his life. He left two daughters, a wife, and the rest of us behind. Including me. This event has stuck with me ever since it happened. Suicides, especially in youth, is a growing epidemic. More teenagers and young adults die from suicide each year than from cancer, heart disease, AIDS, birth defects, stroke, pneumonia, influenza, and chronic lung disease combined.
Mental illness and suicide, especially youth suicide, is a growing epidemic. We need to make an even stronger effort to help those with mental illnesses, and to work even harder to prevent suicides. We can do this by improving the school environment, by restricting availability to lethal means, and by speaking more and speaking differently about mental illness. According to NoBullying. com, 83% of girls and 79% of boys report being bullied either in school or online. There isn’t always something we can do to prevent it online, but we can make an effort to prevent bullying at school.
We need to make efforts to improve the school environment to make students feel more connected and supported. It has been shown that immigrant, gay, lesbian, and bisexual youth have an elevated suicide risk due to bullying and being excluded. People, especially those in minorities, can feel excluded from other people. A way to potentially help with this it to creating groups that are directed toward those with mental illnesses, minorities, and to provide ways to see the signs of a suicidal individual and to prevent suicide.
Schools can start after school and screening programs, as well as fund mental health services for troubled students. By doing this, it may make those who are struggling feel more included and provide them with the help they need and potentially could not get otherwise. When things have been hard and you’re at your lowest, feeling like there is no reason to live anymore, people more often than needed take matters into their own hands. When people feel empty, people may harm themselves to make themselves feel something.
Going even further than that, people will use harmful means to kill themselves. If we restrict access to these methods, we can help prevent suicides. The most effective way to do this is restricting access to the lethal means of handguns. Firearm death remains the most prevalent method of suicide, accounting for 46% of them. According actionallianceforsuicideprevention. org, by keeping suicidal individuals from getting their hands on a firearm, it will delay the suicide attempt. Even if the attempt isn’t delayed, substituted methods of suicide are less lethal than firearms.
It is even shown that drop in suicide rate is driven by decline in rate of suicide by the restricted method. When suicides by firearms go down because people are unable to access the weapon, overall suicide rates also go down. In all my memories, I have hardly an recollection of mental illness being talked about. Anything I heard about mental illnesses and people who had them was never super positive. I basically got the message that it wasn’t a topic that you could just talk about. It was preferred that the subject of mental illness be kept on the downlow.
There is a stigma surrounding mental illnesses that makes people feel like there’s something wrong with having one. T. V stations, movies, newspapers, etc. make statements about those with mental illnesses that would not be tolerated if it were said about another minority group. Stephen Hinshaw, who is a professor of psychology at the University of California-Berkeley, says, “The worst stereotypes come out in such depictions: mentally ill individuals as incompetent, dangerous, slovenly, undeserving. The portrayals serve to distance ‘them’ from the rest of ‘us. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have the desire to be seen as undeserving, dangerous, or any of the examples Stephen Hinshaw gave. Why would anyone else? This serves a problem. For fear of being stigmatized or treated poorly, people will hide the fact they have mental illnesses. They don’t want to be seen as different, and they’re ashamed of themselves. This leads to them bottling it up inside, and potentially not getting the help they need. In the end, this can have consequences. Now, think if we were open about mental illnesses.
Think about what would happen if the topic wasn’t something that you could only talk about in private. Think about how things would change if mental illness was seen not as something that makes a person different, but as something that’s normal, which is what it is. If we as young adults and the adults among us start speaking differently about mentally ill people and the illnesses they face, we can help change the way society and the people in it view those who struggle with these disorders. Some people don’t care much about mental illnesses.
People make jokes about killing themselves because something didn’t go they’re way, or saying they’re depressed because they didn’t have any more coffee at home, or that someone is OCD because they color code things. I’m all for making jokes and being humorous, but there is a point where it goes too far. People don’t understand the volume of their statements and what it’s actually like to be mentally ill. So they may not feel like it’s their responsibility to help. Tight budgets make it hard to fund projects to help mentally ill.
They don’t want to waste their money on helpful rograms for some “freaks” who should “learn to deal with their own problems”. And to those people I say this: Imagine if one of those “freaks” was your husband, or your wife. If it was your mom, or dad. If it was your own child. Or even if it was you. You’d want to help then, right? Spending the time and money to help those who need assistance get the help they need is worth it. The cost, whatever it may be, is worth it to save people’s lives. Mental illness is prevalent in America. 1 in 5 people will be diagnosed with a mental disorder in their lives, and 5%-9% will develop a serious mental illness.
According to the National Alliance on Mental illness, suicide is the 10th leading cause of death among adults in the U. S. and the 2nd leading cause of death among people aged 10-24. What’s even scarier is that these rates are increasing. It’s our job to slow the numbers down, and help people who are suicidal and struggling. We can do this by making the school environment more supportive, by putting restrictions on firearms and lethal means, and we can speak more and differently about mental illnesses. It’s an extremely traumatic experience when someone in your life dies.
It can be even harder to comprehend when that person took their own life. When I was told someone I was close to had killed themself, I was too young to comprehend it. I didn’t understand how serious it was. Now that I’m older, I understand in more depth what occurred. This person struggled with Bipolar Disorder for who knows how long, and he didn’t tell anyone until soon before he took his own life. Knowing that this person in my life was hurting so much that they took their own life is still something I struggle living with.
I’m not the only one who has been faced with this kind of situation. I still think about that person, and all I wish is that I could’ve done something to help. It’s too late to help him, and it’s too late to help those who have already taken their lives. But it’s not too late to start making a change now. It’s not too late to try and save those who are still here with us. We have to make a change, and all it takes is being kind, lending an ear, and getting to work to give them the help they need.