![]() ![]() ![]() ‘Improve the moment’ and other tips for moments of crisisĭylan woke up in good spirits on his final day of life, his father said. “It’s important to train them and understand that they are the front line, almost by themselves, so they really know what to do if they see behaviors or changes in a student that causes them concern,” MacPhee said. There was also less academic pressure at first, Singer added, with many schools promising not to flunk students last spring.īut nearly a year in, grades count again in a lot of schools that still haven’t reopened, and students who flourished from interactions with peers and praise from teachers are having a hard time emulating that from behind a computer screen. “Kids that might have been suicidal before the pandemic because of bullying in school, or anxiety about FOMO, like ‘all my friends are doing this thing,’ all of that’s gone,” said Jonathan Singer, president of the American Association of Suicidology and an associate professor of social work at Loyola University Chicago, using an abbreviation for fear of missing out. They have not definitively tied the pandemic to suicides - especially because when schools across the country closed, certain teenagers initially fared better. Mental health experts say suicides are complex and occur due to a combination of factors rather than a single reason. Other parents whose children have taken their own lives over the past year - including a 16-year-old in Maine, a 12-year-old in Texas and a 13-year-old in Washington - have also blamed the pandemic. It’s killing people by depression and suicide, and God knows what else.” “Covid’s not just killing people by the disease. “Had Covid not happened, or our country’s response to Covid been better, I think Dylan would still be here,” Chris said. His father feels his brain chemistry predisposed him to depression the pandemic on top of that proved deadly, he believes. He went to in-patient treatment for a week, then continued therapy.īut in the weeks leading up to his death, the depression had seemed to wane, making it all the more mystifying to his parents why Dylan killed himself. He said it had become dramatically worse in recent months, and it continued to get worse before it got better: In September, he attempted suicide. Dylan had not shared with his parents until then that he had felt depressed for some time. ![]()
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