13 Reasons Why There's GOT to be a CURE
Emotional well-being has been a fact of my life since I was a little girl, as my paternal Grandmother made repeated attempts to take her own life. This fact was a tremendous influence on why I Majored in & earned my Degree in Sociology.
With the recent EPIDEMIC of celebrity suicide, the question of De-stigmatizing Mental Health has been shocked into the national consciousness, including in the Netflix series "13 Reasons Why" that I've never seen. My awareness of this show comes from media coverage, although I do have this CURE album on CD.
How could these people who had attained the highest level of personal achievement be so depressed that they felt they had no reason to keep on living?
From Kate Spade to Anthony Bourdain, to Chester Bennington & Chris Cornell in the past 12 months & much earlier in the 1990s, Australian rocker Michael Hutchence of INXS the list goes on. If people like this saw no point in living what hope is there for the rest of humanity?
I think I was most profoundly effected by the death of Michael Hutchence - he was like my John Lennon when he hung himself - it took forever for me to get over his suicide.
From the beginning of their wildly successful career, INXS has always addressed the irony of obscene wealth in their lyrics & even in the naming of the band.
Need You Tonight
Elegantly Wasted
Suicide Blonde
Locally, Dr Elizabeth McInvale, PsyD, has been a champion of De-stigmatizing Mental Health issues - making it OK to ask for & seek help.
Daughter of local businessman, entrepreneur, philanthropist & all around good guy Jim "Mattress Mack" McInvale - Dr Elizabeth McInvale has lived with one of the most SEVERE CASES OF OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) that I have ever heard of, Completely, totally debilitating, yet Dr McInvale has made her pain her passion.
Having successfully learned how to manage & control her disease, she earned her Doctorate of Psychology & is on a personal mission to help others with her candid openness in bringing Public Awareness to the fact that the brain is just another organ that can be riddled with disease like the Lungs or Heart or any other organ.
There is no stigma, no shame in seeking treatment for Lung Disease, Heart Disease or Cancer.
And not all diseases of the brain are created equal - yet society lumps them all together into the catch-all-phrase of Mental Illness.
Mental Illness is not in & of itself a Death Sentence. Most Mental Illnesses are highly treatable, nor are they necessarily Genetic. Even a Genetic Pre-disposition to be affected by one of the many Mental Illnesses is no predictor of why one family member is affected while others are not.
It's like "genetic Russian Roulette." Who will get it, who will not???
Either way, the incident of High Profile Suicide & suicide in general has become EPIDEMIC.
What is particularly shocking about the suicidal death of Anthony Bourdain, is his nod to this phenomenon in a recent episode of "Parts Unknown," with Sergio Tankian of System of a Down:
I would have expected to see this as bringing Public Awareness to the phenomenon of the Suicide Epidemic - instead what we all witnessed was a cry for help that came too late for Bourdain.
Which brings us back to the question, "If someone like this was living in such dispair that he saw no way out but to kill himself, how do the rest of us keep putting one foot in front of the other?"
I saw this first hand in my Dad dealing with his Mom's Suicidal Tendencies my ENTIRE LIFE. Some of my earliest childhood memories are of visiting Grandma at the North Carolina State Hospital's Psychiatric Unit as a child of 5 or 6 years old. Children were not allowed inside, so my Mom sat in the car with us outside while Dad went in.
He would return to the car 30-45 minutes later crying so hard to the point of vomit - so we sat there while Dad puked his guts out in the parking lot.
This is part of my earliest childhood memories.
Hence my life long interest in Emotional Well-being & focus on DE-STIGMATIZING seeking HELP & getting treatment for the various different Mental Health Disease of the Brain.
Since the early 2000s, we have seen SHOCKINGLY HIGH incident of Teen Suicide outside our back door in Kingwood, Texas.
Suicide is the 3 rd leading cause of death for ages 10-14 in Texas.
Suicide is the 2 nd leading cause of death for ages 12-18 (middle and high school ages) in Texas.
Suicide is the 2 nd leading cause of death for college-age youth ages 18-22 in Texas.
When examined as an age group 10-24 comparison, suicide is the 2 nd leading overall cause of death for Texas. In Texas, every .74 or < 1 day on an average a young person (ages 10-24) is lost to this “Silent Epidemic” of youth suicide.
Again, sadly, I know this to be true from seeing this first hand with the loss of life in my children's friends at Kingwood High School, beginning with my daughter's best friend's death by hanging in 2006.
Kingwood, as the name implies is an extremely affluent part of town yet I've lost count of the number of Funerals my children have attended & others that they were aware of at Kingwood High School.
If you or someone you know is struggling with Depression, Bullying or Drug Use/Alcohol Abuse, know that there is no shame in seeking help & that help is out there.
We've got to bring these issues out of the closet & make them OK to talk about - just like treating CANCER.
1-800-273-8255
