E LET’S TALK very weekend, we go out as a community and band together to raise awareness for some issue. We stay up all night and walk to honor cancer survivors. We dress up for galas that support autism research and we sleep in tents so that more people will understand homelessness and poverty. We do all of this and yet, there is a disease that takes the lives of more teenagers annually than cancer, heart disease, AIDS, birth defects, stroke, pneumonia, influenza, and chronic lung disease combined. Despite this, its name goes largely unspoken. If you start to ask questions about suicide, experts will quickly begin to use words like ashamed, afraid, stigma and isolated. In fact, they say that these factors are the primary reason why teenagers often commit suicide with little or no attempt at getting the help that they need before: they are scared. We are starting a conversation that we believe will lead to the end of suicide in our communities. As always, we value you and your input and are asking you to visit www.inthevue.com, where we have opened up a line of communication specifically for this topic. We invite you to write a letter to someone you have lost from suicide as a memorial or simply comment on how suicide has affected you. You may remain anonymous in your comments. The more we talk about suicide, the closer we come to killing it. There are several types of teenagers for which school and the stressors that come with it can cause anxiety, which can lead to depression and suicidal thoughts. There are more than 5,400 suicide attempts every day by young people who are in middle and high school. As our community still grieves from losing teenagers to suicide in recent years and as it tugs at our hearts to search for a solution for this issue, the first step must be this: We need to stop being afraid and start talking about suicide and kill it. Why now? Annually in August our kids start preparing to go back to school, getting new shoes and new school clothes as their parents gather up supplies from a school-provided list. On the first day of school, these kids pack it all up into a backpack that sometimes can weigh up to 20 pounds and they board a bus that takes them back to school. When this happens, some kids are not only carrying the books in their backpacks, they are literally carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders as the anxiety that comes along with school bears down upon them. Students who are considered perfectionists, those type-A high-achievers who set high expectations for themselves and strive to meet them at all costs are at risk for anxiety and pressure. Conversely, those that suffer from learning disabilities, who feel pressure to learn the same way that their peers do and may feel that their teachers do not understand them are also at risk for anxiety and depression related to school. These are not the only ones, either. Teenagers who have low self-esteem, those who are considered “loners” without friends or a support group, and those who suffer from mental health issues or experience abuse or neglect in their home are all particularly susceptible to the added anxiety that school brings. If this sounds like most all kids that you know, it really is. Many children deal with the everyday stresses of life just fine. However, some struggle and that struggle is one of the reasons there are more than 5,400 suicide attempts every day by young people who are in middle and high school. Why is this happening? For every reality, there is an underlying cause. But for teenage suicide and the rise in mental health issues for that generation, it’s tough for experts to decide on just one.
