This is a post I had never planned to write; I hadn’t even considered it previously. However, circumstances have prompted me to reconsider, so here we go.
Teenage mental health and suicide are two things we don’t really like to talk about. However, we need to have these hard conversations with our kids. Kids need to recognize when they need mental health support. They also need to recognize the signs of depression and possible suicidal ideations in their friends and peers.
The story that prompted this post goes a little something like this. For the past year or so my son has been playing hockey with a girl who absolutely hates him. I’m talking about despising him deep down in the pit of her soul. I’m not really sure why she hates him so much, he says he isn’t sure either, but who knows. Teenagers. Plus side, she has prompted quite a few teaching conversations, so I’m grateful for that. We have discussed what healthy friendships and relationships look like. We’ve talked about how abuse isn’t love. Long gone are the days where we should be telling our kids “oh she’s just mean to you because she likes you”. No, that’s total crap and we’re not doing that anymore. Hate and abuse are not cute, they aren’t flirty, and they aren’t acceptable. We’re not doing that anymore. He’s told me in the past that she will go out of her way to trash talk him or degrade him. Even when he isn’t talking to her, she will interject herself into the conversation he’s having just to be nasty. I’ve always told him to just ignore her, we don’t know what she’s going through, give her grace, be kind to unkind people because they need it the most.
Recently he came home raging mad after a hockey scrimmage. We sat down and chilled and he was telling me about how this girl, along with a guy who is much the same way and is always talking trash and being rude to people were both going out of their way to spew hate at him every time he was within earshot on the bench or on the rink. He also mentioned another girl who was taking part, which was a huge shock, but it is what it is, I guess. We’ve already talked about how you become like the people you hang out with, so there’s that. Anyway, it was brought to my attention that this angry girl has repeatedly told my son to go kill himself. Apparently, she says it to a lot of kids, not just him, but I was extremely angry when I found out. Now I hope that she’s not the kind of person who would actually be happy if one of the people she told to go kill themselves decided to give away their possessions, lay tarps all over the garage floor to contain the mess, call all their closest friends to talk one more time and tell them they love them, then go out into the garage, put a shotgun up under their chin and pull the trigger. Sounds gruesome right? I promise you; it is. One of my very best friends in high school did that exact thing. None of us saw it coming. You never know what people are dealing with in their personal lives. I can imagine nobody wants to live the rest of their life knowing that someone took their life because of you.
According to the CDC, Suicide is the second-leading cause of death for teens and young adults, ages 10-19. They also state that 22% of high school students reported having seriously considered suicide in the past year, and 10% of high school students attempted suicide in the past year. Those are just the ones who admitted it, I’m sure there were countless others who felt the same way but didn’t admit it. These aren’t just statistics we randomly throw out to make a point. These are the kids we interact with every single day. I remember the heartbreak I felt when a friend of mine told me through tears that she had just found out her child had created a suicide plan. He’s a great kid. He’s got a loving family, he’s smart and athletic, and he’s got a lot of friends. Looking at him you’d think he was happy and had a great life. Our kids were barely into their teenage years at that point. So much life ahead of them. This is reality, you never know what pain, anxiety, depression or anything else our moody teenagers are hiding behind their sweet smiles.
The teenage years are a critical time in our kid’s development. These years can include incredible growth and opportunity as our teenagers learn to make decisions, manage their emotions, and create significant connections with their peers and their communities. Our teens are developing their interests, building resilience in the face of challenges, and striving to achieve goals that will be the foundation for their adult lives. Developing teenage brains are well suited to these challenges, but quite often the systems that serve them are not. Our kids are growing up in an era of new and sometimes discouraging challenges. Some of these include the pandemic with its financial and emotional consequences, devastating and frequent school shootings, constant exposure to images of violence or a sexual nature online, constant connection to social media and video games that can lead to or worsen isolation, and a number of other challenges teens face every day.
The pressures our teens face grows continuously, but the help and support available to them is extremely inadequate. This is likely what contributes to young people experiencing mental health struggles at increasing rates, to include suicidal ideation and suicide attempts. As stated previously, suicide is the second leading cause of death for our teens, with 10% of high school students attempting suicide in the last year. Along with that, the percentage of high school kids who admitted to feeling sad or hopeless most of the time increased from 28% in 2011 to 42% in 2021. These are just the numbers for the kids who admitted it, can you imagine what the actual numbers are? Now you know I believe that the lack of nutrient dense food, sunlight, and physical activity all contribute to this as well, but we’ll save that for other blog posts as well.
So, what is bullying? The National Institute of Health defines bullying as being unwanted aggressive behavior by another person or group of people. In bullying, the aggression is repeated multiple times or is highly likely to be repeated. Bullying can be cyberbullying, a type of aggression that is carried out electronically, like over the internet, social media, mobile devices or e-mail. Bullying can take place at home, school, work, sports practices, extra-curricular activities, social events, or if it’s cyber bullying it can take place anywhere at any time. Acts of bullying can include physical bullying such as beating, kicking, pushing, stealing things, hiding or damaging another person’s belongings, or forcing someone to do things they don’t want to do. Verbal bullying can include teasing, name calling, insulting another person, threatening someone with physical harm, spreading rumors or lies about another person, or repeatedly telling someone to go kill themselves. It could also be relational bullying like excluding someone or refusing to talk to them, making them feel left out, and encouraging other people to bully someone or exclude them. Cyber bullying has become increasingly worse for our teenagers since they all have access to their cell phones and social media. These days it’s all too easy to snap an embarrassing photo of someone and share it all over social media. That can be truly devastating to someone.
It’s important to talk to our kids about bullying and depression. If they see something they need to say something, not just sit back and be a bystander. Teach them to look for the signs of being bullying in their friends because sometimes people feel like they have nobody to talk to and nowhere to turn for help. Some of these signs include depression, loneliness or anxiety, low self-esteem, not eating well, being tired or feeling sick, missing school, disliking school or their performance at school or sports decreasing a lot, self-destructive behaviors like running away from home, inflicting harm on themselves, drinking alcohol or experimenting with drugs, thinking about or attempting to take their own life, unexplained injuries, lost or destroyed personal possessions, difficulty sleeping or nightmares, the sudden loss of friends or suddenly avoiding social situations.
Bullying can seriously affect your teen’s health and wellbeing both in the short term and the long term. Bullying can affect both emotional and physical health and wellbeing. It can lead to physical injury, social problems, emotional problems and even death. People who are bullied are at an increased risk for mental health problems, physical health problems, problems adjusting to school, work, or social situations. Being bullied can also cause long term damage to self-esteem. Children and teens who are bullied are at an increased risk for substance abuse problems, academic problems, and mental health problems later in life like depression and anxiety.
We’re never going to be able to prevent bullying, it’s been a fact of life since the dawn of time. There are plenty of things we can do to help our kids manage bullying. If they see someone being bullied, they can step in and try to calm the situation. Every time I think about this I’m reminded of that scene from Shang-Chi and the Ten Rings where the character Katy steps in and starts singing Hotel California at the top of her lungs just to cause confusion in the situation. Even if your kid decides not to stage some impromptu karaoke, they can still try to be supportive and friendly toward the kid who is being bullied so they know they aren’t alone. A while back I was reading a story about a kid, we’ll call him Jake, who was giving the Valedictorian speech at his high school graduation. Jake told the story of how he had cleaned out his locker and taken everything home from school one day because he’d planned to end his life that weekend. He was a lonely, awkward freshman in high school who was being bullied and felt like he had no friends. He took everything home so his parents wouldn’t have to clean out his locker after. As he was walking home carrying this large stack of textbooks some kids were harassing him and knocked his books everywhere. There was a neighbor kid, we’ll call him Dave, who was the same age who saw it happen. He rushed over to help Jake pick up his books. They got to talking and Dave invited Jake over to play video games that weekend. Monday morning Jake was carrying all his books back to school with Dave’s help. Over the next few years their friendship grew, and they became best friends. They had a ton of fun experiences in high school. Jake went through puberty and grew a lot. He became athletic and made a lot of friends. As Jake recounted this experience and his intentions to end his life because of bullying and loneliness everyone in his graduating class couldn’t believe it. Here was this smart, athletic, popular kid who had planned to end his life. At the end of the speech, he looked into the audience and thanked Dave for saving his life that day. I share this story because I think it’s important that we as parents help our kids understand that the teen years are hard, but things do get better. I also think we need to help them understand that they always have a choice, and they can always do something that makes a difference. Even though they are kids, they are not powerless.
I’m not sure what made this bully, or any other bully out there in high school land feel like they need to hurt people. I truly hope that they can get through this and find the goodness on the other side, because there really is goodness out there. Life can be hard. Life can also be incredibly fun, beautiful, and fulfilling if you just give it the chance to be.