Mental Health and Suicide

vocal1046
Wed, 10 Dec 2014 03:09:13 +0000

Fair enough. I may have misread. A bit of a raw nerve. A big risk for a kid with any chronic illness leaving home is that treatment regimens that worked well under the family roof can be derailed at school. Consistent routines are disrupted or abandoned under the belief that taking medication is a sign of weakness or is no different from illicit drug use. Prescriptions run out. Doses are missed. As illness resurges the kid can get overwhelmed and want to prove that s/he can manage without treatment. It’s a bad road to go down, whatever the diagnosis. I know of kids whose well-controlled diabetes ran wild at college and scuttled Freshman year.

Depression is particularly tricky to monitor and parents used to reading their kids in person can be pacified by a good performance over the phone - even in person - especially if the kid is an actor. The greatest danger is that we and our children do not acknowledge the following information from the NIH, which clarifies how common the illness is and how dangerous it can be if left untreated:

"In 2011, the American College Health Association–National College Health Assessment (ACHA–NCHA) —a nationwide survey of college students at 2- and 4-year institutions—found that about 30 percent of college students reported feeling “so depressed that it was difficult to function” at some time in the past year.

Depression is also a major risk factor for suicide. Better diagnosis and treatment of depression can help reduce suicide rates among college students. In the Fall 2011 ACHA–NCHA survey, more than 6 percent of college students reported seriously considering suicide, and about 1 percent reported attempting suicide in the previous year. Suicide is the third leading cause of death for teens and young adults ages 15 to 24.9."

Profoundly sad to hear of suicide in children as young as your wife’s student @VoiceTeacher or the 12 year old cheerleader in California whose suicide was reported this week. Profoundly sad.