A growing crisis in teenage mental health
Thousands of teens are anonymously screaming for help. Credit: Getty Images/martin-dm
Our teens — especially our daughters and those who are LGBTQ+ — are in profound emotional pain, feeling extreme hopelessness, experiencing sexual violence and other trauma, and even considering ending their own lives.
A study released Monday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lays out the numbers in stark, worrisome detail — an extensive examination that underscores the heartbreakingly awful state of our teens' mental health.
Nearly 60% of teen girls and almost 70% of LGBTQ+ teens reported feeling persistently sad or hopeless in 2021. Nearly one in every three teen girls and almost half of LGBTQ+ students seriously contemplated attempting suicide.
The numbers are lower — but pronounced and concerning — for boys. For everyone, the statistics represent marked increases from a decade earlier.
The CDC's Kathleen Ethier, the director of adolescent and school health, said the center had never before seen such "devastating, consistent findings."
Behind each of those statistics are thousands of teens, anonymously screaming for help. And too many others we've already lost.
Adriana Kuch took her own life earlier this month, just after she was allegedly bullied and attacked at her New Jersey high school, in a vicious beating that ended up on social media.
Adriana was just 14.
Her father has blamed the school for not properly handling the assault and bullying. In the weeks since Adriana's suicide, the school superintendent provided a tone-deaf and inadequate response. He has since resigned, and four students have been criminally charged in the initial assault.
Too often, attention to mental health focuses on adults, especially those who commit criminal or violent acts. But that's a very different discussion from the one we need to have about our teens. Gov. Kathy Hochul's budget proposal widens the spotlight a bit, providing some funds for school mental health services and suicide prevention programs for at-risk youth. But that alone won't change the larger thinking around our teens' mental health care.
When our children are in physical pain with a fever, a broken arm, even a bad scrape, a school nurse or coach or teacher is quick to call, to ask that we pick them up and get them medical attention. And it's often a simple fix; the red and purple bruise is evident, the break easy to set.
It's so much more complicated to find answers for children in emotional, social and mental pain. Often, distress is not as obvious as a cut, nor treated with the same urgency. The next steps aren't as clear, and a destructive stigma still hovers. Schools often don't have sufficient resources to address our children's mental health needs and it's not easy to find outside assistance. Newsday reported late last year that therapists, psychologists, and other professionals for children and teens have monthslong waiting lists.
But the children are in pain. They know it — and we do, too.
Adriana's tragic death has opened up yet another conversation about bullying, social media, and mental health, in her town and beyond. The CDC data only fuels the need for that discussion and the broader calls for action. While welcome, such steps come too late for Adriana and her grieving family.
But perhaps they're not too late for someone else.
If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, please — please — call or text 988 to reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Don't wait.
Columnist Randi F. Marshall's opinions are her own.
Randi Marshall is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
