Column: It's time to talk about mental health

All around him, kids his age are graduating. His classmates are announcing their futures in big, bold underlined letters: Prestigious colleges. Moneyed careers. Bright and shiny lives, ribbons of gold unfurling before them. But for him, he's hoping to be able to hold onto his part-time, low-paying job. Ever since he was little, nothing came that easy to him. What his family indulgently considered "genius" at age 3 wasn't so charming by 9. His nonstop chatter went from remarkable as a toddler to annoying to troubling. As the responsibilities grew, the maturity didn't. The way he never quite grasped the difference between uppercase and lowercase, eventually just making his handwriting a jagged, rushed mess. Waking up more than an hour before the bus came, but still unable to get dressed in time. A room that far surpassed "typical" teenage messes. His parents expected a certain measure of defiance as a teen. After all, they'd both gone through their own growing up rebellious and headstrong. But they quickly ran out of ideas as they soon discovered no punishment, and no incentive, worked. They watched, horrified and angry, as their beautiful child spiraled into a raging, moody tsunami who didn't resemble himself. They fielded calls from teachers. They consulted their pediatrician, their priest. Then came the day they started calling the police. Heartsick and fearful, they fought each other, they fought him, they worried themselves to sleep at night and their home felt different. They stopped hosting parties at their home. They stopped going to family holidays. They didn't know what was happening to their son, but they knew his rages had eventually, slowly, become the ruling authority in the family. How each day turned out seemed balanced on the tip of his mood. They knew they were being judged, and they knew none of this was normal. But when chaos becomes the sea you are adrift in, the horizon seems too hazy to make out any more. No one could help them. They all just waited for the next day and hoped it was good. Years went by as they dragged their child from counselor to counselor, changing by the season as insurance coverages changed. Medications were tried, switched, doubled. Eventually choices became clear: jail or hospital. All the parties by then were numbed by their choices. Help — or the promise of hope — slipped away. "Better parenting would have stopped this," so many charged; "check for drugs," and "pray harder" and "try a sports team." By then he was running away. By then the authorities were involved. I'll stop at this point in this story to tell you the boy in my story is luckier than most. He had parents pulling for him. He had insurance. He wasn't being abused or living in a home affected by substance abuse or serious mental illness. But he was mentally ill. May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and I think it's time we normalized talking about, and for God's sake treating, mental illness. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, more than 20 percent of adults in our country live with mental illness, and at least 8.4 million Americans provide care to adults with mental or emotional illness. Yet less than 45 percent were treated for it in 2019. And the numbers are going nowhere but up. Mental illnesses and their associated public health problems are substantially increasing since the COVID-19 epidemic. In June 2020, 40 percent of American adults reported struggling with mental illness and substance abuse issues, according to the National Council for Mental Wellbeing. If it takes that much toll on adults, how bad is it hitting our children, who rely on functioning adults to see the signs and seek out treatment? One in six U.S. kids between the ages of 6 and 17 will experience a mental health disorder every year. Considering that the average delay between onset of symptoms and treatment is 11 years — years! — in this country, many kids will be like the one in my story, seeking help for years but not receiving appropriate treatment until they are nearly adults. Half of all mental illnesses manifest by age 14 and 75 percent by 24. Suicide is the second leading cause of death for ages 10 to 34. Why don't we consider using some of our funding for mental health treatments and facilities instead of funneling so many billions into prisons? A healthy society would do both, particularly considering in America 37 percent of inmates are mentally ill. In the juvenile justice system, that jumps to more than 70 percent. Mental illness is linked to higher rates of cardiometabolic disorders and chronic illnesses such as diabetes or cancer and often goes hand-in-hand with substance abuse as the afflicted try to self-medicate. So in this season of endings and beginnings for so many young adults, remember the ones who have struggled just to stay upright to get here. The ones who are learning to walk into adulthood with a limp, however hidden. Contact Rini Jeffers at rinijeffers@gmail.com.