Unfortunately, their story is becoming more common. A 2022-2023 report from OHYES!, a state report on youth, found 37% of kids reported feeling sad or hopeless every day for the past two weeks, an indicator of suicidal ideation. Pre-pandemic, that percentage was 26%.
Social media, the pandemic, the Memorial Day tornadoes in 2019, the Oregon District mass shooting of 2019 and the remaining stigma around mental illness are some of the factors causing mental illness in youth to get so much worse in our region.
As I and my colleague, Sam Wildow, set out to tell our readers about the mental health struggles that Ohio’s youth and those who love them are facing in our Mental Health Matters project, we chose to focus on voices of youth who had gone through mental health problems and come out the other side. We wanted to tell those reading, especially kids in crisis, that there is hope, even when it doesn’t feel like it.
We decided to go this route because mental health professionals consider it a best practice to highlight stories of hope and resilience in tough times.
But, as Sam detailed in a column discussing her friend’s death by suicide in high school, we both know young people personally who have struggled with mental illness. It was vital to us to get this right.
Please let us know what you think. Email me at Eileen.Mcclory@coxinc.com or Sam at Samantha.Wildow@coxinc.com.
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