How often do we wait until we have the answers, or jump into problem-solving mode when someone admits to struggling, when all they need is to know you care? In my opinion, we’d do each other a huge favor if instead of trying to learn how to solve someone’s struggles, we spent more time learning how to care for one another.
What was obvious to me when reading the list was that most, not all, of the counties without a shortage of mental health resources were relatively suburban. They offer numerous advantages compared to urban and rural areas. Good schools, safe neighborhoods, access to healthcare of all kinds, etc. If you win the zip code lottery and find yourself born into one of these areas, there’s a fairly good chance that mental healthcare will be available for you if needed.
I don’t claim to have all of the answers to the challenge of suicide prevention, but the basics are relatively straightforward. This research into teenagers shows us precisely what keeps people alive:
Despite high suicide risk, most teens can identify reasons to live, from family bonds to small future dreams – offering hope for prevention.
What would be beneficial is an adult conversation about establishing guardrails around AI tools to mitigate worst-case scenarios, while also planning ways to ensure that more people don’t have to rely on them for therapy because they have no other options.
As I’ve mentioned before, I didn’t wait until my 40s or 50s to tell someone about my abuse, and my family found out about it in my 20s, primarily due to my roommate having to answer their questions about my mental health breakdown. I didn’t get to choose whether my parents found out, but I’m also thankful that he went ahead and had that difficult conversation with them. I needed them to know what happened so that they could be part of my life while I tried to heal my mental health.
On the other hand, I would be lying if I said everything in the family was great after that. It’s complicated and occasionally messy.
We know that kids who can access mental health support during traumatic childhoods fare significantly better in every aspect than kids who are unable to do so. If we want to do something about not only the youth mental health crisis, but also future adult mental and physical health issues, one of the best things we could do is invest in support systems for children.
But, we don’t. We have never made the kind of commitment that is necessary, and now we are cutting the meager programs that do exist.
