MENTAL HEALTH

We Walk A Lonely Road

by Jeneta Nwosu, Highland Park High School Bagpipe (Dallas, Texas)

It’s a feeling of being alone in the world, a feeling that no one understands, and a feeling of having no support: loneliness. And it’s more than the occasional Netflix and ice-cream binge on a Friday night. Loneliness can kill.

Meta-studies use a statistical approach to show a link between mortality and loneliness, like one study published online in the Public Library of Science Medicine journal in 2010, which revealed loneliness can be worse for your health than obesity and as damaging as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

Former US Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, discussed the health effects of loneliness with Ezra Klein on the Vox podcast, “The Ezra Klein Show.”

Let’s talk about it: The glamorization of suicide is catastrophic

by Ava Razavi, Redwood Bark (Redwood High School - Larkspur, CA)

As a die-hard cinema and literature aficionado, William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” was ingrained in my mind as the definition of true love. They were a pair so infatuated with one another, that they would rather die than be alive without the other — romantic right? For a long time, I failed to recognize the issue with this quintessential love story, but it became clear after rewatching the movie a couple of weeks ago. As Romeo drank poison and Juliet stabbed herself, I came upon the horrifying realization that I was rooting for their death. I wanted them to die together so they could be…

Make a difference; save a life

by RubicOnline Staff, St. Paul Academy and Summit School Rubicon (St. Paul, Minnesota)

Suicide Prevention Awareness Month is currently taking place. This is a month meant for spreading awareness and educating people in order to break a stigma that has surrounded mental health and suicide for far too long. This month also helps make plans for the rest of the year and not just this month. In large communities many times people are oblivious to what is going on with someone behind closed doors, and that needs to change. But in Minnesota alone, calls to suicide lifeline increased 44% since the number changed from a 1-800 number to #988 in July.

According to the CDC, suicide is a leading factor of death in the United States, and in 2020 killed more than 45,000 people.