I’m not alone: A recent report by Mental Health America found that some 50 million people experience at least one form of mental illness, and 55 percent of them have received no treatment. That’s staggering to me. And while Nietzsche didn’t live through COVID-19 or an endless string of mass shootings, he did endure social revolution, insanity, and typhus. He perhaps understood a kind of spiritual fatigue in ways we may never—God willing. 

We’ve spent the past three years no doubt worried over the health and safety of our loved ones. But how often have we checked in with ourselves? How often did we have to remind ourselves to breathe? I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of holding my breath, of being afraid. As we read in Philippians 4:7: “The peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds.” That’s a good reminder. 

In this issue, we examine wellness from different roads, yet they all lead to one destination: peace of mind and spiritual wholeness. I think we all deserve it. 

Inhale. Exhale. Repeat. 

Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States. This renowned theologian has been speaking and writing about suicide for decades.

So many people live with the pain of losing a loved one to suicide. I rarely go for even a week without receiving a letter, an email, or a phone call from someone who has just lost a family member to suicide. In virtually every case, there is a corresponding sorrow that there really isn’t a lot of material out there, religious or secular, to help console those left bereaved. Those left behind literally gasp for human and theological oxygen.

When someone close to us dies by suicide we live with a pain that includes confusion (“Why?”), guilt (“What might we still have done?”), misunderstanding (“This is the ultimate form of despair”) and, if we are believers, deep religious anxiety as well (“How does God treat such a person? What’s to be his or her eternal destiny?”) What needs to be said about suicide?

1. Suicide is a disease. We are made up of body and soul. Either can snap. We can die of cancer, high blood pressure, heart attacks, aneurysms. These are physical sicknesses. But we can suffer these as well in the soul. There are malignancies and aneurysms of the heart, deadly wounds from which the soul cannot recover. In most cases, suicide is the emotional equivalent of cancer, a stroke, or a heart attack.

Like any terminal illness, suicide takes a person out of life against his or her will. The death is not freely chosen, but is an illness, far from an act of free will. In most instances, suicide is a desperate attempt to end unendurable pain, much like a man who throws himself through a window because his clothing is on fire.

Moreover, still to be more fully explored, is the potential role that biochemistry plays in suicide. Since some suicidal depressions are treatable by drugs, clearly then some suicides are caused by biochemical deficiencies, as are many other diseases that kill us.

2. Suicide is a tragedy, not an act of despair. For centuries, suicide was considered as an act of despair and despair itself was seen as the most grievous sin of all—ultimately unforgivable. Sadly, many church people still see suicide as an act of despair and as the unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit. But this is a misunderstanding. Suicide is not an act which cannot be forgiven. That suicide is an act of despair is not what the Christian Churches, and certainly not the Roman Catholic Church, believe or teach.

In most cases, the person who takes his or her own life does not intend that act as an insult or affront to God or to life (for that would be an act of strength and suicide is generally the antithesis of that). What happens in most suicides is the polar opposite. The suicide is the result of a mammoth defeat.

There’s a powerful scene in the musical adaption of Victor Hugo’s, Les Miserables. A young woman, Fantine, lies dying. She tells of once being youthful and full of hopeful dreams; but now, worn-down by a lifetime of poverty, crushed by a broken heart, and overcome by physical illness, she is defeated and has to submit to the tearful fact that “there are storms we cannot weather.”

For reasons ranging from mental illness to an infinite variety of overpowering storms that can break a person, sometimes there’s a point in people’s lives where they are overpowered, defeated, and unable to continue to will their own living – parallel to one who dies as a victim of a drought, hurricane, cancer, heart disease, diabetes, or Alzheimer’s. There’s no sin in being overpowered by a deadly storm. We can be overpowered, and some people are, but that’s not despair (which can only be willful and an act of strength).

3. We can love someone and still not be able to save him or her from death. There is a misunderstanding about suicide that expresses itself in second-guessing: If only I had done more! If only I had been more attentive this could have been prevented.

Rarely is this the case. Most of the time, we weren’t there when our loved one died for the very reason that this person didn’t want us to be there. He or she picked the time and place precisely with our absence in mind. Suicide is a disease that picks its victim precisely in such a way so as to exclude others and their attentiveness. That’s part of the anatomy of the disease.

We, the loved ones who remain, should not spend undue time and energy second-guessing as to how we might have failed that person, what we should have noticed, and what we might still have done to prevent the suicide. Suicide is an illness and, as with a purely physical disease, we can love someone and still not be able to save him or her from death. God too loved this person and, like us, could not interfere with his or her freedom.

This, of course, may never be an excuse for insensitivity to those around us who are suffering from depression, but it’s a healthy check against false guilt and anxious second-guessing. Many of us have stood at the bedside of someone who is dying and experienced a frustrating helplessness because there was nothing we could do to prevent our loved one from dying. That person died, despite our attentiveness, prayers, and efforts to be helpful.

So too, at least generally, with those who die of suicide. Our love, attentiveness, and presence could not stop them from dying, despite our will and effort to the contrary.

4. There is huge distinction between falling victim to suicide and killing oneself. I receive a lot of very critical letters every year suggesting that I am making light of suicide by seeming to lessen its ultimate taboo and thus making it easier for people to do the act: Wasn’t it G.K. Chesterton himself who said that, by killing yourself, you insult every flower on earth? But in most suicides, a person is taken out of life against his or her will.

Many of us have known loved ones who died by suicide and we know that in almost every case that person was someone who was the antithesis of the egoist, the narcissist, the over-proud, hardened, unbending person who refuses, through pride, to take his or her place in the humble and broken scheme of things. Usually it’s the opposite. The person who dies by suicide has cancerous problems precisely because he or she is too sensitive, too wounded, too raw, and too bruised to possess the necessary toughness needed to absorb life’s many blows.

I remember a comment I once heard at a funeral. We had just buried a young man who, suffering from clinical depression, had died by suicide. The priest had preached badly, hinting that this suicide was somehow the man’s own fault and that suicide was always the ultimate act of despair. At the reception afterwards, a neighbor of the man who had died came up and expressed his displeasure at the priest’s remarks: “There are a lot of people in the world who should kill themselves, but they never will! But this man is the last person who should have killed himself; he was the most sensitive person I’ve ever met!” Too true.

Killing yourself is something different. It’s how some of the Hitlers pass out of this life. Hitler, in fact, did kill himself. In such a case, the person is not too sensitive, too self-effacing, and too bruised to touch others and be touched. The opposite. The person is too proud to accept his or her place in a world that, at the end of the day, demands humility of everyone.

There is an infinite distance between an act done out of weakness and one done out of strength. Likewise, there is an absolute distinction between being too bruised to continue to touch life and being too proud to continue to take one’s place within it. Only the latter makes a moral statement, insults the flowers, and challenges the mercy of God.

5. God’s mercy is equal even to suicide. The Christian response to suicide should not be horror, fear for the person’s eternal salvation, and anxious self-examination about we did or didn’t do. Suicide is indeed a terrible way to die, but we must understand it for what it is—a sickness—and stop being anxious about both the person’s eternal salvation and our less-than-perfect response to his or her illness.

God redeems everything and, in the end, all manner of being will be well, beyond even suicide. Given the truth of this, we need to give up the notion that suicide puts a person outside the mercy of God. God’s mercy is equal even to suicide.

After the resurrection, we see how Christ, more than once, goes through locked doors and breathes forgiveness, love, and peace into hearts that are unable to open themselves because of fear and hurt. God’s mercy and peace can go through walls that we can’t. And, as we know, this side of heaven, sometimes all the love, stretched-out hands, and professional help in the world can no longer reach through to a heart paralyzed by fear and illness.

But when we are helpless, God is not. God’s love can descend into hell itself (as we profess in our creed) and breathe peace and reconciliation inside wound, anger, and fear. God’s hands are gentler than ours, God’s compassion is wider than ours, and God’s understanding infinitely surpasses our own.

6. We die into the loving, tender arms of God. Few images are as primal, and as tender, as that of a mother holding and cradling her newborn baby. Indeed, the words of the most-renowned Christmas carol of all time, “Silent Night,” were inspired by precisely this image. Joseph Mohr, a young priest in Germany, had gone out to a cottage in the woods on the afternoon of Christmas Eve to baptize a newborn baby. As he left the cottage, the baby was asleep in its mother’s lap. He was so taken with that image, with the depth and peace it incarnated, that, immediately upon returning to his rectory, he penned the famous lines of “Silent Night.” His choir director, Franz Gruber, put some guitar chords to those words and froze them in our minds forever. The ultimate archetypal image of peace, safety, and security is that of a newborn sleeping in its mother’s arms. Moreover, when a baby is born, it’s not just the mother who’s eager to hold and cradle it. Most everyone else is too.

Perhaps no image then is as apt, as powerful, as consoling, and as accurate in terms of picturing what happens to us when we die and awake to eternal life as is the image of a mother holding and cradling her newborn child. When we die, we die into the arms of God and surely we’re received with as much love, gentleness, and tenderness as when we were received into the arms of our mothers at birth. Moreover, surely we are even safer there than we were when we were born here on earth. I suspect too that more than a few of the saints will be hovering around, wanting their chance to cuddle the new baby. And so it’s okay if we die before we’re ready, still in need of nurturing, still needing someone to help take care of us, still needing a mother. We’re in safe, nurturing, gentle hands.

7. We must work at redeeming the life and memory of our loved ones who have died by suicide. There is still a huge stigma surrounding suicide. For many reasons, we find it hard both to understand suicide and to come to peace with it. Obituaries rarely name it, opting instead for a euphemism of some kind to name the cause of death. Moreover, and more troubling, we, the ones left behind, tend to bury not only the one who dies by suicide but his or her memory as well. Pictures come off the walls, scrapbooks and photos are excised, and there is forever a discreet hush around the cause of their deaths. Ultimately neither their deaths nor their persons are genuinely dealt with. There is no healthy closure, only a certain closing of the book, a cold closing, one that leaves a lot of business unfinished. This is unfortunate, a form of denial. We must work at redeeming the life and memory of our loved ones who have died by suicide.

This is what Harvard psychiatrist Nancy Rappaport does in a moving book about her mother, who died by suicide when Nancy was still a child: In Her Wake, A Child Psychiatrist Explores the Mystery of Her Mother’s Suicide. After her mother’s suicide, Nancy lived, as do so many of us who have lost a loved one to suicide, with a haunting shadow surrounding her mother’s death. And that shadow then colored everything else about her mother. It ricocheted backwards so as to have the suicide too much define her mother’s character, her integrity, and her love for those around her. A suicide that’s botched in our understanding, in effect, does that; it functions like the antithesis of a canonization.

With this as a background, Nancy Rappaport sets off to make sense of her mother’s suicide, to redeem her bond to her mother, and, in essence, to redeem her mother’s memory in the wake of her suicide.

God’s Empathy

A better understanding of suicide will not necessarily mean that the darkness and stigma that surround it will simply go away. We will still feel many of the same things we felt before in the face of suicide: We will still feel awful. We will still feel conflicted and be given over to guilt-feelings and second-guessing. We will still feel uneasy about how this person died and will still feel a certain dis-ease in talking about the manner of his or her death. We will still feel a certain hesitancy in celebrating that person’s life in the manner we would have had the death been by natural causes. We will still go to our own graves with a black hole in our hearts. The pain of a suicide leaves its own indelible mark on the soul.

But at a different level of understanding something else will break through that will help us better deal with all those conflicted feelings; namely, empathy for and understanding of someone whose emotional immune system has broken down. And that understanding will also bring with it the concomitant consolation that God’s empathy and understanding far exceeds our own.

As Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it: “Nothing can make up for the absence of someone we love. It is nonsense to say that God fills the gap; God doesn’t fill it, but on the contrary, God keeps it empty and so helps us keep alive our former communion with each other, even at the cost of pain. The dearer and richer our memories, the more difficult the separation. But gratitude changes the pangs of memory into a tranquil joy. The beauties of the past are borne, not as a thorn in the flesh, but as a precious gift in themselves.” (Letters and Papers from Prison)

If you are struggling with feelings of hopelessness, call or text 988 for help.

For me, it happened on December 31, 2017, when Internet celebrity Logan Paul and his entourage traveled to a forest at the base of Mount Fuji in Japan, a popular spot for those intent on self-harm, and uploaded a video to YouTube, mocking the body of a man who died by suicide. Paul took the video down the next day, but the controversy reportedly netted him 80,000 new followers. At that point, I realized social media was a runaway train. 

Yet I cannot fully extract myself from it—and that’s by design. A recent Harvard University study reported that sharing personal information on social media triggers the same part of the brain that lights up when we ingest addictive substances. And with our smartphones always nearby, it’s like an abusive relationship we cannot seem to quit. It’s even harder for young people. 

Log On, Tune Out

While we as adults can study the dangers of social media, our youth have a much harder road. A 2023 report by the surgeon general called “Social Media and Youth Mental Health” showed that “up to 95 percent of youth ages 13 to 17 report using a social media platform, with more than a third saying they use social media ‘almost constantly.’” This means heavy social media usage pits young minds against algorithms they are not prepared to handle. 

Though social media has brought about great social change and connectivity around the world, we must continue to talk about its negative effects on our youth, especially girls. The same surgeon general report showed that “social media may perpetuate body dissatisfaction, disordered eating behaviors, social comparison, and low self-esteem” among adolescent female users. That’s like facing a tidal wave of peer-to-peer harassment and the inevitable self-loathing that follows. 

Certainly, as parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, coaches, teachers, or mentors, we can set healthy limits on social media usage while young people are in our care. It’s also up to technology corporations to put in stronger safeguards, such as enhanced privacy for children, and commit to full transparency about how their channels can harm young minds. 

Instagram, studies have shown, is the most detrimental to adolescents. But with 1.35 billion users, it’s a monster that isn’t going away. Psychologists agree that dialogue with young people is more effective than banning apps outright. Kids will find their way back to them. But aside from their minds, what can we do to safeguard their spiritual well-being? Pope Francis has something for us to consider. 

User Error

At the 2022 World Congress of SIGNIS in South Korea, the pope told us that accompanying the youth of today is more effective than coercing them off these platforms. We should, he said, give “particular attention to the need to assist people, especially young people, to develop a sound critical sense, learning to distinguish truth from falsehood, right from wrong, good from evil, and to appreciate the importance of working for justice.” 

That’s good advice—if a bit idealistic. It’s a tall order to limit social media usage, because it’s habit now. That flush of pity, praise, adulation, or envy that we seek is intoxicating, but it might also speak to our own self-worth. Maybe the best we can do is find out what we’re looking for within that digital space and use it to empathize with young adults who want acceptance and belonging. Maybe it’s high time we all ask ourselves this question: How many likes does it take to feel loved? 

In fact, Simon doesn’t really regard Seven Psalms as an album per se but instead as a “musical work,” according to a press release. The statement from Simon went on to describe it as a “33-minute, seven-movement composition,” to be listened to “as one continuous piece.” On top of that, it’s inspired by one of the most beloved collections of writing in the history of humankind, the Book of Psalms. It may sound like a lofty goal, but then again, this is the artist who composed “Bridge over Troubled Water,” “The Sound of Silence,” and myriad other transcendent and sublime contributions from the 1960s onward—both as a solo artist and with his frequent collaborator, Art Garfunkel. Suffice it to say, if anyone could pull off a project of this nature, it’s Simon. 

Though it may seem like a challenging listen, once you hit play and sit back in your favorite spot to tune in to music, it’s an inviting and wonder-filled experience, whether you decide to listen to the whole 33 minutes at once or hit the pause button between the seven movements. I listened to it start to finish on my first go-around, so as to hopefully soak in the true spirit of the music. 

Starting with the movement titled “The Lord,” I was really struck by the various images Simon connected with God. In it, he sings: “The Lord is my engineer/The Lord is the earth I ride on/The Lord is the face in the atmosphere/The path I slip and slide on.” He also identifies God as a “virgin forest” and a “forest ranger.” Simon ends this part of the composition with: “The COVID virus is the Lord/The Lord is the ocean rising/The Lord is a terrible swift sword/A simple truth surviving.” I didn’t take this to mean that Simon sees God as a punishing one. Rather, if God is indeed present in all things, that includes the challenging situations we face as the human race. The COVID-19 pandemic and the “ocean rising” from climate change certainly qualify as major events that require us to work together as an interconnected, global society. 

Like the Psalms of the Bible, Seven Psalms is a mix of praise, lamentation, and prophetic vision. Simon also sneaks in a bit of humor in the movement titled “My Professional Opinion,” which helps balance the weightier moments. Whether it’s an album or a “musical work,” Seven Psalms is a rewarding listening experience from a master of the art form. 

Five Essential Paul Simon Solo Albums

• The Paul Simon Songbook (1965) 
• There Goes Rhymin’ Simon (1973) 
• Still Crazy after All These Years (1975) 
• Graceland (1986) 
• Stranger to Stranger (2016) 

What do you get when you arrange a conversation between the head of the Catholic Church and 10 young people between 20 and 25 years old of various backgrounds, countries, and life experiences? You end up with the compelling documentary The Pope: Answers. 

In the documentary, the young adults travel to the Vatican, where they sit down with Pope Francis to ask him questions and have an honest dialogue about some rather tough topics. Those topics include feminism, the role of women in the Church, abortion, loss of faith, the migration crisis, homosexuality, LGBTQI+ rights, abuse within the Church, racism, and mental health. Participants are Spanish speakers, but subtitles are provided for the film. 

At the beginning of the documentary, we are introduced to the young people who are taking part in the gathering, watching them get ready to travel to the Vatican. We also watch Pope Francis get ready for the meeting. 

Throughout the film, the viewer catches glimpses of the young adults in their everyday lives, something that offers more of a connection with participants and helps frame his or her story. There is no sugarcoating the lives of the participants, one of whom produces pornography on her website. Providing such raw and real glimpses into the daily lives of the participants is a strength of this film. 

When the discussion begins, however, the film truly comes alive. Participants dive right into what’s on their minds and hearts. Sometimes, after asking the pope a question, participants discuss the issues among themselves, as if the pope wasn’t even present. It was still obvious, though, thanks to some excellent camera work and editing, that the pope was listening intently. 

When he did speak, Pope Francis was understanding and open, answering questions in an honest way. His answers reflected his belief that the Church belongs out among the faithful, not inside Church walls. He did not, however, back down from holding firm regarding Church teachings on topics such as abortion and female ordination. He did so, though, in a pastoral way. The pope also did not avoid calling a spade a spade—a phrase he uses more than once—and owning up to the Church’s failures. 

Perhaps the most touching and troubling part of the film came when Juan, one of the participants, spoke to the pope about his sexual abuse by a priest at his high school. He showed the pope a letter that was written to him by Juan’s father and told of the eventual letter the school received from the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, reinstating the priest as a teacher. The anger and hurt are almost palpable. Pope Francis promised to review the case, but another participant in the group said that’s not enough. In response, the pope acknowledged the Church’s failings and said confronting the abuse is an ongoing process that will take time. 

At the end, the pope thanked the participants for their openness, honesty, and willingness to share their experiences with him. Discussions such as this one, he said, are the future of the Church. 

Data show teens continue to struggle with mental health. Helping to address the problem is a moral obligation and will require support from all of us. 

It’s a crisis that continues to expand and alarm not only teachers like me, but also mental health professionals who track the rising number of young people struggling emotionally and mentally. Tragically, too many teens ultimately decide that it’s easier to end their lives than to endure pain and despair. 

The data about teenage depression, anxiety, and soaring suicide rates are so staggering that the United States surgeon general felt compelled in 2021 to issue a 53-page special advisory, “Protecting Youth Mental Health.” 

“The challenges today’s generation of young people face are unprecedented and uniquely hard to navigate,” resulting in “devastating” challenges to their mental health, writes Dr. Vivek Murthy.  

He notes that, “in 2019, one in three high school students and half of female students reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, an overall increase of 40 percent from 2009.” 

For at least a decade, college professors like me have been on the alert as we interact with students under increased stress. And this is not just the normal jitters that manifest themselves near the end of each semester, when final exams loom. 

Our university counseling department regularly shares with us results of a student mental health inventory it uses to identify students who may need early intervention based on their responses to questions about their mental health. 

The 2021 Healthy Minds Study identified issues among college students across the United States: depression, anxiety disorder, academic distress, and suicidal ideation. A decade ago, I would have been surprised by the number of students struggling, but they no longer shock me, even as the figures grow grimmer every year. These hurting teens need the support of their families as they access the services of mental health professionals, but often those two sources are not enough. 

“When a teen suffers through a mental health crisis, the whole family suffers. It’s stressful for everybody,” says Dr. Courtney Cinko, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. “Everyone has to wrap around the child to help him/her get better.” 

Having journeyed with one of my daughters, Annie, through years of treatment for mental health issues, I know I could not have navigated these years alone. Fortunately, my daughter’s aunts and uncles and other adult friends were part of our family’s safety net. 

To understand how crucial nonparental involvement is to a teen’s progression toward stability and mental balance, it’s helpful to examine causes, treatment, and eventual paths to healing. 

Teens, Mental Health, and COVID-19

“We see a mental health emergency crisis nationwide in the wake of COVID-19. It took a toll on children of all ages,” says Cinko, noting that almost two years of social isolation is “a very long time for a child.” Post-pandemic rates of anxiety and depression were higher than before 2019. Even in normal circumstances, adolescence can be a minefield, but there was added pressure during the pandemic, when teens spent much of their time in their bedrooms, in front of laptops or phones. 

“The task of being an adolescent is to figure out who you are, where you fit,” Cinko says. “With the rise of social media, there is extra stress to be perfect because of images of peers they see online. Teens don’t realize that many of their social media interactions are not authentic representations of others their age.” 

Challenges to teens during COVID-19 were unprecedented, especially when parents or caregivers fretting about finances worked many hours outside the home or worked online and were not available to teens. 

Teens “had no one to turn to, no one to talk to them about perceptions of themselves and others that might not be accurate, no one to help them see the world correctly,” Cinko says. 

It Takes a Village

During Annie’s first hospitalization, her family “wrapped around” her, including her aunt, Susanne Bookser, who, because of her background in human services, was not squeamish about visiting her niece in the adolescent psychiatric facility. Her attention to Annie continued once she was released. 

“I have always liked the energy of younger people, and I really believe they need adults in their lives who are not their parents,” Susanne says. “To gain resilience, they need someone they are already connected to and knows their history, so they can feel safe talking openly.” 

To work off stress and get a sense of control, Susanne and Annie immersed themselves in cleaning the house. Regularly, Annie would drive to her aunt’s home to do “a good base cleaning, which she understood the importance of.” 

“It was win-win. I was in law school, so had no time to clean,” says Susanne. “I was desperate. I really needed the help, and Annie really needed the money.” 

There was another connection, a deeper motivation. Susanne had been suicidal at several points in her college years. 

“That sense of aloneness when you are struggling makes you recognize in others the need to be connected,” she reflects. 

The “resilience” that Susanne was hoping to deepen in her niece is one of the reasons that Cinko enjoys working with children and teens in her psychiatric practice.  “Kids are resilient. They are amazing and can bounce back,” she says. 

‘It Put the Power Back in Me’ 

One experience that played a role in Annie’s eventual bounce back was made possible by her uncle, George Barkley. When he heard that she had been hospitalized, he thought back to the promise he and his brother Gregg had made to their late brother, Annie’s dad. 

“Before he went into surgery, Gregg and I took Scott to dinner and promised that if anything happened to him, we would take care of his family,” says George. “When I heard about Annie’s hospitalization, at that instant, I transformed from the ‘fun uncle’ to the ‘supportive uncle,’ watching out for her.” 

Even before her hospitalization, the two had a special bond over horses. They would go off as a pair in family gatherings, talking “saddles and bridles and other horse stuff.” 

To George, horses are “mystical, responding to their riders intuitively.” To help his niece during her treatment, he leased a horse for her. She had to commit to exercising Frenchee, a 2-year-old thoroughbred who had never been ridden—“mucking stalls, feeding, checking hooves”—all of it, or he would cancel the lease immediately. 

As a horse owner and rider, George knew the challenges his niece would face. Riding takes control and concentration. The rider has to lead “emotionally, physically, and mentally,” George explains. 

Annie was up to the challenge of rising at 5:30 before school, a wake-up time that held little appeal to her friends “from an unhealthy environment.” 

Training and riding an 1,800-pound animal forged a “mutual reliance between Frenchee and her,” observes George. Building that human-animal bond takes work. “Sometimes the rider is doing everything right, but the horse won’t respond. You can’t give up. Resilience is key.” 

Resilience is a recurring word one encounters in studies about at-risk adolescents. It is people such as Annie’s aunt and uncle who can “play an important role in promoting resilience” among young people, according to a 2007 article in the academic journal Psychoanalytic Inquiry by a team of doctors under lead investigator Steven M. Southwick. 

The study reports that nonparental adults “who serve as mentors can provide reliable support, communicate moral values, teach information and skills, inspire, motivate, enhance interpersonal relatedness, and foster self-esteem.” 

As Annie took responsibility for Frenchee, George “saw her grow, saw her sense of pride, saw how special she felt.” 

In Annie’s words, “Riding was mentally and physically rewarding. It put the power back in me.” 

Identifying People at Risk

My experience navigating the mental health system with my daughter has given me confidence in a role I assume when I see my students struggling. With guidance from our counseling staff about mental health danger signs—repeated absences, late assignments, withdrawal from participation, verbal messages that signal trouble—I feel empowered to check in on students who might be concealing a crisis. 

Recently, a student in two of my classes missed deadlines for posting short writing assignments. At the end of one class, I buttonholed him before he could get out the door, asking him what was going on. A grade school friend of his had committed suicide, and his favorite high school teacher had died the weekend before. 

When I questioned him about how he was handling this, he responded openly, “A friend tells me that since I have a driver’s license, if I feel unsafe, I can check myself into a hospital.” 

I tried not to gasp. Instead, I suggested he schedule a counseling appointment, offering, with no success, to walk over with him to the counseling suite.  

A few days later, his answer to my query about what he was doing about his feelings was concerning: “I am trying to never be alone.” After more nagging, as I showed him the link for making an appointment, he scheduled one. In the coming months, I will be keeping an eye on him. 

In recent years, I have translated my experiences with mental health professionals and memories of my supportive friends into an openness to listening and asking questions others are afraid to ask. 

One of my friends, a 31-year-old woman named Dana, says she realized while she was my student “that I could trust you more than I could a normal adult. I remember having a panic attack one day in your office, and you handled it well. Then what sealed the deal was when you asked me how I was doing, and you just listened. You didn’t panic about what I would share or give me advice I didn’t ask for.” 

After she graduated and I was unencumbered by a teacher-student relationship, we developed a peer friendship. Over the years, she has been in and out of treatment, and we have stayed in touch, sometimes through a text or notes and cards. Several years after her graduation, she spent six months at a therapeutic farm residential facility, five hours away from Cincinnati, “in the middle of Amish country and not a quick trip for families and friends. 

“There was a lot of downtime, and mail or packages were such an excitement,” she remembers. “The cards you sent were always beautiful and so thoughtful. I taped every single one on my bedroom wall to remind me that someone believed in me. After I was released, I put them in a box so I can reread them.” 

At 31, she is not out of the woods, and because she could not work 40 hours a week, had to quit her full-time job as program director at a Cincinnati nonprofit. She volunteers there, doing therapeutic art and tells me why: “It’s an honor to show up for others like you did for me.” 

A Moral Obligation to Help

In his 2021 advisory on the crisis of mental health, the surgeon general makes clear that “our obligation to act is not just medical—it’s moral.” 

Murthy believes that “in coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have an unprecedented opportunity as a country to rebuild in a way that refocuses our identity and common values, puts people first, and strengthens our connections to others.” 

As a Catholic, that sounds a whole lot like the wisdom embedded in the Church’s social teaching, principles I take to heart and try to bring to life in daily actions. One in particular strikes me as relevant when we puzzle out how we can make a difference in the lives of our young people: the principle of life and dignity of the human person. 

Many of the young people seeking counseling and psychiatric help feel damaged, broken, and lost. Our reaching out to them can remind them that their lives are valuable. Our investment in them can have big payoffs, even if their healing is a slow process. 

Like Dana, my daughter inspires me in her willingness to share her story. 

The first counselor I entrusted Annie to was a wise friend. While I was looking for a quick fix, she offered realistic wisdom, “Her problems did not develop overnight, so we can’t fix them overnight.” 

In the past 20 years, Annie has shed her loneliness, made deep friendships with healthy people, married a “good guy”; they have two happy and loving children. 

After six years of working in corporate sales and marketing, she quit that job to move to a nonprofit, Girls on the Run of Greater Cincinnati, whose mission is to “inspire girls to be joyful, healthy, and confident using a fun, experience-based curriculum which creatively integrates running.” Recently, she was named executive director of that group. 

Reading the first email she sent to local coaches and supporters, anyone who knows her well will be reminded of the long journey telegraphed by these words: “The transition to working on behalf of others comes from a passion that grew out of experiences I had growing up. Upon reflecting about my own challenges during childhood, I felt that I had a responsibility to help others as so many had invested in my success and wellness.” 

I admire this strong, successful woman who had the grit and resilience to emerge whole from a protracted mental health nightmare. 

But she did not do it alone. 

How to Support Teens Struggling with Mental Health 

By Annie (Barkley) Horn 

Support Their Interests. For someone like me, horseback riding was a mindful activity I could do to build confidence in myself, and it served as a release from the stress I was experiencing. I remember my mom driving to and from so many lessons, spending hours at the barn while I did my barn chores, and helping me at weekend horse shows. I also can think of many other loving stand-ins, such as an uncle or family friend. 

Spend Time with Them, but Don’t Question Them. Young people may be hesitant to agree to a lunch outing if they believe they will only be questioned the entire time. Don’t come to the table with an agenda; let the conversation unfold organically and be prepared with some neutral conversation starters if warranted. 

Build Up Their Circle of Trusted Supporters. It’s hard to see the forest through the trees. A network of supporters will make a young person feel loved and encouraged. I recall a time when a family friend met us at the Cincinnati Museum Center to go through the exhibits with my mom and me. At the time, and especially now, I remember thinking how special it was that this person took the time to meet with us. 

Listen with Compassion. If teens choose to talk to you about what is going on, ask if they want you to just listen. Or do they also want advice? Sometimes a kind ear is all that is needed.