{"id":807684,"date":"2020-05-21T12:15:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-21T18:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=383663"},"modified":"2020-05-21T12:15:00","modified_gmt":"2020-05-21T18:15:00","slug":"letter-to-the-editor-talk-with-teens-to-help-them-better-deal-with-societal-pressures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/letter-to-the-editor-talk-with-teens-to-help-them-better-deal-with-societal-pressures\/","title":{"rendered":"Letter to the editor: Talk with teens to help them better deal with societal pressures"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Increasingly, precious lives are taken to suicide. COVID-19 may exacerbate mental health struggles, but we as a people remain dangerously blind to suicide. The complexity of this widespread issue and its encompassing components cannot be a cause for dismissal.<\/p>\n

For decades, Summit County has exhibited suicide rates significantly higher than the national average. I remember the loss of a sixth-grader last year and the recent deaths of two promising high school students, all in Summit School District.<\/p>\n

Students \u2014 all growing up in a complex and unprecedented world \u2013 should never feel so much pressure as to take their own life. Our student population is pressured immensely \u2013 unreasonably \u2013 by school work, family life, job opportunities, finding a career and the fear of failing to meet these outrageous, rising societal standards. And in our efforts to succeed, do the best and have the highest grades, our mental health suffers. The fear that the next \u201ctragic incident\u201d will contain one of my friend\u2019s names \u2013 as it could have once contained mine \u2013 is insurmountable.<\/p>\n

As an 18-year-old college student who\u2019s witnessed the modern school system first hand and struggled copiously with my own mental health, I challenge you:<\/p>\n

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