Mental Health
This is a text-only preview that omits formatting, video, pictures, and portions of the chapter.
Nearly half of all Americans will at some point in their lives suffer from a diagnosable mental illness. Suicide, which is almost always related to mental illness, is the second leading cause of death among teenagers and the leading cause of death among college students. Drug and alcohol abuse is often linked to mental illness. In short, good mental health offers great protection against many of the dangers you will face in life.
Suicide
When I was in the fraternity, a young man from another fraternity came to our house. He was acting really strange. He was in the laundry room talking to one of my fraternity brothers when he exclaimed “I want to kill myself!” and started drinking a bottle of bleach. My fraternity brother knocked it out of his hand. He then started running toward the back door leading to the outside stairs.
Thinking they could head him off, my fraternity brothers ran up the indoor stairway. He had disappeared. They ran outside and started looking for him. Unfortunately, he climbed up the stair railing to the roof, ran across the top of the house, and either jumped or fell three stories into the street.
About this time, I was getting back to the fraternity house from studying at the library. His neck looked like a rubber chicken. It was raining lightly, so blood was running into the gutter and down a drain. My brothers, having searched the backside of the house, came running around to the front, still searching for him. There was nothing we could do except talk to him and call an ambulance. But you could see the light leaving his eyes. He died on the way to the hospital.
The vast majority of suicides result from an impulse that subsides after about 90 minutes.
Ken Baldwin, who attempted suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge and miraculously survived, reported that as he went over the bridge’s railing:
REMEMBER THIS IF YOU ARE EVER FEELING SUICIDAL!
A few years ago, I received the following email from a vendor that I had met only once for about ten minutes:
Subject: Re: TIMESHEETS
Date: Tuesday, XXXXXXXXXXXX, 2015 at 6:30:58 PM Central Daylight Time
From:TXXXXXXXXXXXX
To: XXXXXXXXXXXXX [his wife]
CC: Talcott J. Franklin
Hard to believe that my closing comments have to be exclusively provided through email messages not such a great ending ending.
Also hard to believe that my phone is going to die faster than my body will very likely within into the next four hours please tell XXX and XXXXXX that I very much enjoyed their service and wish them well ….
Sent from my iPhone
On Sep 8, 2015, at 7:25 PM, TXX XXXXXXX wrote [to his wife]:
Hi I just tried to call you to say goodbye but could not get an answer so goodbye and I know you won’t believe this but I have always Love to you
Right now I am passed lethal dosage so please do not call the sheriffs or anyone else OK
Sent from my iPhone
[Below this there were emails from the wife asking T to prepare his time sheets so they could bill us for his services.]
I include this because I was able to call the first responders and this person did NOT die, primarily because pills are a delayed reaction death. It is not uncommon for a person to attempt suicide and cry for help at the same time.
If you ever feel suicidal, please call someone right away. The feeling will pass! The number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255.
Mental illness
Mental illness has a lot of stigma attached to it, but that really should not be the case. More than half of all Americans will have a diagnosable mental illness at some point in their lives. There’s no shame in having your brain react adversely to a horrible work, home, or school environment, or being depressed over the loss of someone you love through divorce, death, or break-up. The key is to recognize those triggers, extricate yourself from the situation if possible, and get help either by talking to a trusted friend or, better still, a professional.
This is a preview that displays only a limited number of pages. A large portion of the chapter is omitted.
Seek counseling
If you are going through a hard time due to heartbreak, loneliness, trauma, or anything else, make an appointment with a counselor and talk to them. It is a proven fact that talking to a professional about your problems helps you maintain your mental health, whereas isolating makes things worse.
Resistance Technique 6: Maintaining mental health
To learn more about maintaining your mental health, go to https://www.securehighered.com/how-can-i-stay-safe-mental-health