The Mental Health Crisis in Our Youth
(c) VictoryLab Inc. 2018
Discussing the topic of adolescent suicide is no easy task, as oftentimes it’s a subject that is swept under the rug because it’s simply painful to deal with. However, starting a conversation about child and teen suicide is one of the most effective ways to help prevent it from happening. This is an idea that is very well articulated in Vice-Chancellor of the University of British Colombia, Santa Ono’s TedTalk about the mental health crisis in today’s youth.
Ono conveys his message through personal experience, detailing his own struggle with mental health that lead him to attempt suicide twice, and through the story of Brogan Dulle, a student at the University of Cincinnati that took his own life at the age of 21. Through his speech, Ono shows us how two completely different individuals, with different interests and talents and social standings, can all be battling their own demons, and how they oftentimes lose.
The Mental Health Crisis is Real
The mental health crisis in our youth is becoming more serious every day, with Canadian youth being the highest risk population for suicide. The stigma surrounding mental health and suicide prevents children and young adults from seeking help, leaving them to suffer in silence until they succumb to the pain that they try everyday to deal with. As Santa Ono states in his speech, we as individuals, and as a group, need to bring awareness to this crisis, to talk about it and the kids who we’ve lost to suicide. We need to let everybody who struggles with mental illness know that it’s okay to not be okay, that we are all worthy and important and deserve to be treated as so.
[Did you know suicide is the second leading cause of death for children, adolescents, and young adults 5-to-24-year olds? Together, we can help. Learn to recognize the warning signs and ways you can help stop teen and child suicide by checking out our blog, here.]
Stand Together! Let’s Save and Change Lives
It’s time to do something about the mental health crisis in our youth. It doesn’t have to be huge. Each of us, as individuals, can do our part by starting a conversation about mental illness and adolescent suicide, helping to create a stigma-free environment surrounding mental health. The story of Brogan Dulle shows us that anyone can suffer, no matter how happy they seem on the outside. Let us band together and work towards making the story of Brogan Dulle, and Santa Ono, and any child or young adult who has attempted suicide, be heard.
“The more of us who have, by the Grace of God, been able to stay alive and been able to beat the demons that are inside our heads, the more we de-stigmatize talking about [mental health], the more we can, as a community, take the steps that are necessary to create this web of support for our youngsters, for our kids and for our grandkids”. – Santa Ono
To learn more about Brogan Dulle’s story and the 8 Days of Greatness, please click here. For more information on how VictoryLab can help you or your organization, click here.
(c) VictoryLab Inc. 2018
