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Tag: Suicide

  • Colorado governor signs 4 gun control bills months after Colorado Springs massacre

    Colorado governor signs 4 gun control bills months after Colorado Springs massacre

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    Colorado’s governor signed four gun control bills Friday, following the lead of other states struggling to confront a nationwide surge in violent crime and mass shootings.

    Before the ink was even dry on Gov. Jared Polis’ signature, gun rights groups sued to reverse two of the measures: raising the buying age for any gun from 18 to 21, and establishing a three-day waiting period between the purchase and receipt of a gun. The courts are already weighing lawsuits over such restrictions in other states. The U.S. Supreme Court recently issued a ruling that expanded Second Amendment rights.

    The new laws, which Democrats pushed through despite late-night filibusters from Republicans, are aimed at quelling rising suicides and youth violence, preventing mass shootings and opening avenues for gun violence victims to sue the long-protected firearm industry. They were enacted just five months after a mass shooting at an LGBTQ club in Colorado Springs.

    “Coloradans deserve to be safe in our communities, in our schools, in our grocery stores, in our nightclubs,” Polis said as he signed the measures in his office. The governor was flanked by activists wearing red shirts reading, “Moms Demand Action,” students from a Denver high school recently affected by a shooting, and parents of a woman killed in the Aurora theater shooting in 2012.

    Gov. Jared Polis signed four gun control bills by Sandy and Lonnie Phillips, parents of Aurora theater shooting victim Jessica Ghawi, at the governor's office in Colorado State Capitol Building in Denver, Colorado on Friday, April 28, 2023.
    Gov. Jared Polis signed four gun control bills by Sandy and Lonnie Phillips, parents of Aurora theater shooting victim Jessica Ghawi, at the governor’s office in Colorado State Capitol Building in Denver, Colorado on Friday, April 28, 2023.

    Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post


    Supportive lawmakers and citizens alike had tears in their eyes and roared their applause as Polis signed each bill. Colorado has a history of notorious mass shootings, reaching back to the Columbine High School massacre in 1999.

    Republicans decried the bills as onerous encroachments on Second Amendment rights that would impede Colorado residents’ ability to defend themselves amid a rising statewide crime rate. Gun rights advocates pledged to reverse the measures.

    “This is simply bigoted politicians doing what bigoted politicians do: discriminating against an age,” said Taylor Rhodes, executive director of the Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, referring to the new age limit on gun purchases. Rhodes said he has confidence in the lawsuits that his group has filed.

    A third measure passed by the legislature will strengthen the state’s red flag law, and a fourth rolls back some legal protections for the firearm industry, exposing them to lawsuits from the victims of gun violence.

    The new red flag law, also called an extreme risk protection order, empowers those working closely with youth and adults — doctors, mental health professionals and teachers — to petition a judge to temporarily remove someone’s firearm. Previously, petition power was limited mainly to law-enforcement and family members. The goal is to act preemptively before someone attempts suicide or attacks others.

    At the signing ceremony, Senate President Steve Fenberg, a Democrat and one of the bill’s sponsors, said Republicans and other gun control opponents often respond to mass shootings by saying it’s too soon to talk about restricting firearms.

    “It isn’t too soon. It’s too late for so many of the lost souls,” Fenberg said. “We needed to have done more to prevent what happened.”

    Republicans argued that the law would discourage people — especially military veterans — from candidly speaking with medical doctors and mental health professionals for fear of having their weapons temporarily seized.

    The law requiring a three-day delay between buying and receiving a firearm — an attempt to curtail impulsive violence and suicide attempts — puts Colorado in line with nine other states, including California, Florida and Hawaii.

    Colorado has the sixth-highest suicide rate in the country, with nearly 1,400 in 2021, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). A RAND Corporation analysis of four studies found that waiting periods are linked to lower suicide-by-gun deaths.

    Opponents raised concerns that people who need to defend themselves — such as victims of domestic violence — may not be able to get a gun in time to do so.

    In raising the minimum age to purchase a firearm from 18 to 21, Colorado joins California, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, New York and Rhode Island. Proponents point to now oft-cited data from the CDC showing that gun violence has overtaken vehicle accidents as the leading cause of death for children and teenagers in recent years.

    At the ceremony, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser likened the new laws to the campaign for vehicle safety that spawned groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the forerunner of Moms Demand Action.

    In their speeches about rolling back legal protections for gun manufacturers, lawmakers looked often to Sandy and Lonnie Phillips, whose daughter, Jessica Ghawi, was slain in the 2012 Aurora theater shooting. The parents tried to sue the companies that had sold the shooter ammunition and tear gas but were unsuccessful. Ultimately, the couple ended up owing more than $200,000 in defense attorney fees and had to file for bankruptcy.

    California, Delaware, New Jersey and New York have passed similar legislation over the past three years. Opponents of the bill argued that it would merely bog the firearms industry down in bogus lawsuits.

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  • Louisville shooter’s parents recount mental health struggle

    Louisville shooter’s parents recount mental health struggle

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    NEW YORK — A man who opened fire at a Louisville bank, killing five co-workers, had confronted mental health problems over the last year but the situation appeared to be managed until just days before the shooting, his mother said.

    In an interview with NBC’s “Today” show that aired Thursday, Lisa Sturgeon said her 25-year-old son, Connor, called her April 4, six days before the shooting at the Old National Bank in the city’s downtown. He said a panic attack forced him to leave work, and he thought he should take time off for a while.

    Lisa and Todd Sturgeon said their son’s mental health struggle began a year earlier with panic attacks, anxiety and a suicide attempt, but he was seeing a psychiatrist and taking medication, TODAY reported.

    Lisa Sturgeon said they had lunch the day after he called, and she set up an psychiatrist appointment and joined him there.

    “We thought he was coming out of the crisis,” Lisa Sturgeon said.

    When the Sturgeons saw their son for the last time at a family gathering on Easter Sunday, a day before the attack, he was helping people find the last eggs in the egg hunt and joking, Todd Sturgeon said.

    The next morning, Lisa Sturgeon said her son’s roommate called saying Connor told him by phone: “I’m going to go in and shoot up Old National.” She called 911 but her son was already at the bank.

    Police said Connor Sturgeon bought the AR-15 assault-style rifle used in the attack at a local dealership on April 4, the same day that Lisa Sturgeon said he told her about the panic attack. He killed five coworkers while livestreaming before police fatally shot him.

    The five bank employees killed in the shooting were Joshua Barrick, 40, a senior vice president; Deana Eckert, 57, an executive administrative officer; Tommy Elliott, 63, also a senior vice president; Juliana Farmer, 45, a loan analyst; and Jim Tutt Jr., 64, a commercial real estate market executive.

    Eight others were injured, including a police officer who was shot in the head.

    The Sturgeons expressed their sorrow.

    “We are so sorry. We are heartbroken,” she said. “We wish we could undo it, but we know we can’t.”

    The Sturgeons said their son shouldn’t have been able to buy the rifle because of his mental state. They have been told that their son, who was seeing two mental health professionals, was able to walk into the store and walk out with the weapon and ammunition in 40 minutes, Todd Sturgeon said.

    “If there had been a delay or something of that nature, that would have been helpful,” Lisa Sturgeon said.

    Todd Sturgeon acknowledged that the issue is complicated, balancing protecting against the threat while being conscious of individual rights and liberties.

    “We have really smart people in this country and there’s no reason why we can’t find a solution to this problem,” he said.

    While the families of four of the victims declined to comment, Barrick’s family said in a statement to TODAY that the shooting “didn’t have to happen.”

    “The fact that anyone can walk in and buy a semiautomatic weapon, its only purpose being to kill many in seconds, is simply wrong. Enough is enough. Inaction is not an option,” the statement read. “We deserve to be safe in our communities — whether that be at the bank, the grocery store, our schools, or anywhere else.”

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  • Suicide note and weapons found when police searched the Nashville shooter’s home, warrant shows | CNN

    Suicide note and weapons found when police searched the Nashville shooter’s home, warrant shows | CNN

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    Editor’s Note: If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, please call the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 to connect with a trained counselor or visit 988lifeline.org.



    CNN
     — 

    Investigators found a suicide note when they executed a search warrant at the home of the shooter who killed six people at a Nashville school last week, along with more weapons and ammunition, according to an inventory of items seized.

    The search warrant and the list of items found were released Tuesday, just over a week after the shooter, former student Audrey Hale, opened fire at The Covenant School, killing three 9-year-olds and three adults.

    The warrant, executed the same day as the shooting, shows authorities also found several Covenant School yearbooks and a school photo, in addition to the shooter’s journals. Some of the journals are described as being related to “school shootings; firearm courses,” the list indicates.

    A total of 47 items were seized, according to the list.

    Hale, 28, fired 152 rounds in the attack, which was planned “over a period of months,” police said in a news release Monday. Hale “considered the actions of other mass murderers,” that release said, and “acted totally alone.”

    Hale, who police said was under care for an emotional disorder, had legally purchased seven guns and hidden them at home, Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake previously said.

    Hale was armed with three guns during the attack, which ended after Nashville officers arrived on the scene and confronted the shooter.

    Two officers opened fire – a moment captured in bodycam footage later released by police – and killed Hale at 10:27 a.m., 14 minutes after the shooter entered the private Christian school, according to Nashville police spokesperson Don Aaron.

    Police continue to work to determine a motive for the attack, but they said previously that writings left behind by Hale – which continue to be reviewed by police and the FBI – made clear it was “calculated and planned.”

    Hale targeted the school and Covenant Presbyterian Church, to which the school is attached, police said, but it’s believed the victims were fired upon at random.

    Those victims were Evelyn Dieckhaus, William Kinney and Hallie Scruggs, all 9 years old, as well as school custodian Mike Hill, 61, substitute teacher Cynthia Peak, 61, and Katherine Koonce, 60, who was head of the school.

    Four police officers who responded to the shooting described to reporters Tuesday how their training guided them as they hunted the shooter.

    Officer Rex Engelbert praised two staff members “who stayed on the scene and didn’t run.” They gave him the concise information he needed, as well as “the exact key I needed to enter the building,” he said.

    Engelbert and Detective Sgt. Jeff Mathes became part of a team that cleared classrooms and searched for the shooter. When they reached the first-floor atrium they took gunfire from the shooter.

    “We were still unsure where that was, but our job is to go towards it, so we went through a pair of double doors,” Mathes said.

    Detective Michael Collazo, who heard the shooter might be on the second floor, joined the group.

    “At some point around that time frame is when we started hearing the first shots … that’s when everything kind of kicked into overdrive for us, “Collazo said.

    After they went up a stairwell and down a second-floor hallway, they encountered a victim on the floor.

    “Doing what our training tells us to do in those situations and following the stimulus, all of us stepped over a victim. To this day, don’t know how I did that morally, but training is what kicked in,” Mathes said.

    Smoke was filling the building and the fire alarm was blaring, Collazo said. Then there was a gunshot to their right.

    He asked Engelbert, who had a scope on his rifle, to lead the team toward the gunshot. Engelbert said things were unfolding “very similar to the training we receive.”

    “We then proceeded continually towards the sounds of gunfire and then once we got near the shooter, the shooter was neutralized,” Mathes said.

    The school shooting – the deadliest since 21 people, including 19 children, were killed at a school in Uvalde, Texas, last May – renewed debate over the scourge of American gun violence, access to firearms and school safety, a fight that spilled over into the state legislature this week.

    Tennessee House Republicans on Monday took steps toward expelling three Democratic state representatives who participated in protests at the state Capitol last Thursday calling for more gun control in the wake of the deadly mass shooting.

    A vote on whether to expel the three members – Reps. Gloria Johnson of Knoxville, Justin Jones of Nashville and Justin Pearson of Memphis – is slated for Thursday, according to The Tennessean.

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  • WV legislators OK transgender care ban with health exemption

    WV legislators OK transgender care ban with health exemption

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    CHARLESTON, W.Va. — West Virginia’s Republican supermajority House of Delegates swiftly OK’d a proposal to add mental health exemptions to a bill that would ban certain health care for transgender youth during the last day of its 60-day legislative session Saturday.

    The chamber approved changes made by the state Senate late Friday that would allow some transgender youth to continue receiving medical interventions, including hormone therapy, if they are at risk of self-harm or suicide.

    The bill now heads back to the Senate for final approval, which it is likely to receive Saturday before heading to the desk of Gov. Jim Justice. The Republican governor has not taken a public stance on the measure.

    Lawmakers in West Virginia and other states advancing bans on transgender health care for youth and young adults often characterize gender-affirming treatments as medically unproven, potentially dangerous in the long term and a symptom of “woke” culture.

    But every major medical organization, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychiatric Association, supports gender-affirming care for youths.

    House members — who passed a much more restrictive version of the proposal last month that included no mental health exemptions — voted to approve the amendment in a unanimous voice vote with little discussion. The amended bill then passed 88-10, with all ‘no’ votes coming from the body’s shrinking delegation of Democrats.

    The only lawmaker who spoke on the floor prior to the vote was Democratic Del. Ric Griffith, who cited data from peer-reviewed medical journals showing that hormone therapy and other interventions can drastically reduce psychological distress and suicidal ideation for transgender adolescents.

    “We talk a lot about, ‘Parents know what’s best for their children,’” he said. “This is a fairly narrow allowance when a child could potentially be suicidal.”

    The rate of suicide ideation, or having suicidal thoughts or ideas, for transgender youth in Virginia is three times higher than the rate for all youth in the state, according to research complied by WVU Medicine physicians using West Virginia Youth Risk Behavior Survey data.

    West Virginia’s bill would outlaw those under 18 from being prescribed hormone therapy and fully reversible medication for suspending the physical changes of puberty.

    But the change approved by House lawmakers Saturday — proposed by Senate Majority Leader Tom Takubo, a trained physician — would allow young people to access puberty blockers and hormone therapy if they are experiencing severe gender dysphoria, under certain circumstances.

    Gender dysphoria is defined by medical professionals as severe psychological distress experienced by those whose gender identity differs from their sex assigned at birth.

    Takubo referenced 17 peer-reviewed studies showing a significant decrease in the rates of suicide ideation and suicide attempts among youth with severe gender dysphoria who have access to medication therapy.

    “These kids struggle, they have incredible difficulties,” he said.

    He found a supporter in another trained physician, Sen. Mike Maroney, chair of the Senate Health and Human Resources Committee. Maroney said lawmakers would set “a dangerous precedent” by disregarding medical research in favor of political gain.

    “Who are we, to win an election, to tell people how to practice medicine? To change treatments? It’s unbelievable,” the Republican said, adding that lawmakers wouldn’t apply the same standard for drugs for cancer or mental illness.

    The legislation includes a ban on gender-affirming surgery for minors, something medical professionals emphasize does not happen in West Virginia.

    With Takubo’s change, a person under 18 would have to be diagnosed with severe gender dysphoria by at least two medical or mental health providers to gain access to medication therapy. One would have to be a mental health provider or adolescent medicine specialist.

    The dosage must be the lowest possible necessary to “treat the psychiatric condition and not for purposes of gender alteration,” according to the bill.

    Providers must be specifically trained to diagnose and treat severe gender dysphoria in adolescents and would have to provide written testimony that medical interventions are necessary to prevent or limit self-harm or the possibility of self-harm. The minor’s parents or guardians would be required to give written consent to the treatments.

    Hormonal therapy could not be provided to minors before the age of puberty, something West Virginia physicians say doesn’t happen anyway.

    The bill includes exceptions originating in the House version for individuals born with a “medically verifiable disorder,” including people with ambiguous “external biological sex characteristics” and for people taking treatments for infection, injury, disease, or disorder that has been “caused by or exacerbated by the performance of gender transition procedures.”

    People also can access treatment if they are in “imminent danger of death, or impairment of a major bodily function unless surgery is performed.”

    The House vote came two days after a crowd of protesters descended on the state Capitol, where cries of “trans kids matter” could be heard from the Senate chamber as lawmakers debated bills. Democratic Del. Danielle Walker, the Legislature’s only openly LGBTQ member, led chants of the state motto: “Mountaineers are always free.”

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  • Parents of sailor who died by suicide urge Pentagon to implement mental health measure named in his honor that became law over a year ago | CNN Politics

    Parents of sailor who died by suicide urge Pentagon to implement mental health measure named in his honor that became law over a year ago | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    More than a year after Congress signed into law a bill meant to help service members struggling with severe mental health problems, the Pentagon still has not issued guidance to the services to put the bill into practice.

    “We hear the rhetoric all the time, but we need action,” said Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton, who co-sponsored the Brandon Act. “They’ve been sitting on their hands and more Americans die every day as a result.”

    The Brandon Act is named after Brandon Caserta, a young sailor whose parents described him as a “very charismatic and upbeat young man” who “always helped everyone he could.”

    But in June 2018, Caserta took his own life at Naval Air Station Norfolk, Virginia. In letters to his parents and to his friends, Caserta said he was constantly hazed and bullied in the Navy, and he saw no other way out.

    He notified his commanders he was depressed but they took no action and showed no sympathy, according to Brandon Caserta’s father Patrick, who served 22 years in the Navy.

    “They said, ‘Suck it up and get back to work,’” Patrick Caserta told CNN. “You can’t have that. That’s now how you deal with it.”

    The Brandon Act was included in the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act. If a service member seeks mental health services or self-reports a problem, the Act requires a mental health evaluation. It also allows service members to seek confidential help outside the chain of command.

    “His letter led us to this,” Teri Caserta, Brandon’s mother, told CNN. “He wanted us to do something about suicide and the toxicity that happens in our military system. That’s why we created the Brandon Act.”

    But 15 months after it was passed the law has not been implemented and the Defense Department hasn’t followed through its requirements and issued guidance for the military. Therefore, the mental health evaluations and the confidential reporting required by the law are still not available to service members.

    In 2021, the latest year for which numbers are available, 519 US service members died by suicide. Though a slight decrease from the previous year’s 582 suicides, the trend over the last decade and more has been increasing.

    Last year, three sailors assigned to the USS George Washington died by suicide in a single week. Then, in December, four sailors at a faculty in Norfolk, Virginia died by suicide in one month.

    “DoD needs to do this,” said Moulton bluntly. “Active-duty service members don’t have a way to report mental health issues outside the chain of command because DoD just hasn’t gotten out of their own bureaucratic way to implement this act. It just requires the Secretary of Defense and his department to do their job.”

    The issue of military suicides has plagued the Department of Defense for decades. According to a 2021 study from Brown University, more than 30,000 active-duty personnel and veterans died by suicide during the 20-year War on Terror, which is more than four times the number of combat deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

    The Defense Department is currently working on implementing the requirements of the Brandon Act, according to a spokesperson.

    “Due to the complexity of the requirement, publication of policy to establish self-initiated referrals for a mental health evaluation via a commander or supervisor is currently in development,” said Cmdr. Nicole Schwegman, who stressed that there are mental health services available for members of the military seeking help or an evaluation.

    “A full continuum of mental health and wellness support is available worldwide to ensure access to care,” Schwegman said, including specialty and primary care clinics, as well as virtual health platforms.

    Last month, the Pentagon’s Suicide Prevention and Response Independent Review Committee unveiled 127 recommendations to combat military suicides, including a waiting period for gun purchases on base and raising the minimum age for buying firearms on base.

    The Pentagon said it would review the recommendations closely.

    “Even one suicide is too many, and we will exhaust every effort to promote the wellness, health, and morale of our total force,” said Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder after the release of the recommendations.

    But for the parents of Brandon Caserta, the committee’s recommendations and the Pentagon’s promises to review its report smack of more waiting and less action.

    “As painful as this has been, had someone else done this before us, our son would still be alive,” said Patrick Caserta. “We want to be that person that saves lives later on.”

    Editor’s Note: If you or a loved one have contemplated suicide, call The National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-TALK (8255) to connect with a trained counselor.

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  • West Virginia Senate passes modified transgender care ban

    West Virginia Senate passes modified transgender care ban

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    CHARLESTON, W.Va. — West Virginia’s Republican supermajority Senate passed a bill Friday that would ban certain health care for transgender youth after approving a significant change to add exceptions for young people at risk for self harm or suicide.

    “These kids struggle, they have incredible difficulties,” said Majority Leader Tom Takubo, a pulmonologist, who urged support for mental health protections.

    The bill would outlaw those under 18 from being prescribed hormone therapy and fully reversible medication suspending the physical changes of puberty, buying patients and parents time to make future decisions about hormones.

    The rate of suicide ideation for transgender youth in Virginia is three times higher than the rate for all youth in the state, according to research and data complied by WVU Medicine physicians using the West Virginia Youth Risk Behavior Survey.

    During a speech on the Senate floor, Takubo referenced 17 peer-reviewed studies showing a significant decrease in the rates of suicide ideation and suicide attempts among youth with severe gender dysphoria who have access to medication therapy.

    He found a supporter in Senate Health and Human Resources Committee Chair Sen. Mike Maroney, another trained physician, who said lawmakers would set “a dangerous precedent” by disregarding medical research in favor of political gain.

    “Who are we, to win an election, to tell people how to practice medicine? To change treatments? It’s unbelievable,” the Republican said, adding that lawmakers wouldn’t apply the same standard for drugs for cancer or mental illness.

    The legislation also includes a ban on gender-affirming surgery for minors, something medical professionals emphasize does not happen in West Virginia.

    But Takubo’s approved change would allow young people to access puberty blockers and hormone therapy if they are experiencing severe gender dysphoria, under certain circumstances.

    Gender dysphoria is defined by medical professionals as severe psychological distress experienced by those whose gender identity differs from their sex assigned at birth.

    Lawmakers in West Virginia and other states advancing bans on transgender health care for youth and young adults often characterize gender-affirming treatments as medically unproven, potentially dangerous in the long term and a symptom of “woke” culture.

    During Friday’s debate, Republican Sen. Eric Tarr repeated those concerns, saying the medical interventions doctors are practicing are too extreme and driven by “woke” culture.

    “They’re trying to take pronouns out of our textbooks for kids,” Tarr said.

    Every major medical organization, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychiatric Association, supports gender-affirming care for youths.

    With Takubo’s change, a person under 18 would have to be diagnosed with severe gender dysphoria by at least two medical or mental health providers to access medication therapy. One would have to be a mental health provider or adolescent medicine specialist.

    The dosage must be the lowest possible necessary to “treat the psychiatric condition and not for purposes of gender alteration,” according to the bill.

    The providers must be specifically trained to diagnose and treat severe gender dysphoria in adolescents and would have to provide written testimony that medical interventions are necessary to prevent or limit self-harm or the possibility of self-harm.

    The minor’s parents and guardians also would be required to give written consent to the treatments.

    Hormonal therapy could not be provided to minors before the age of puberty, something West Virginia physicians say doesn’t happen anyway.

    The bill now goes back to the state House of Delegates for approval. It’s unclear what House lawmakers will make of the bill’s changes in the Senate. The proposal that passed the House by a wide margin last month included a ban on puberty-blocking medication and hormone therapy, with no exemptions for mental health.

    The bill passed the House 84-10, with all ‘no’ votes coming from the body’s shrinking delegation of Democrats. They accused GOP lawmakers of putting children’s lives at risk to score political points with the national conservative movement.

    That version provides exceptions for individuals born with a “medically verifiable disorder” including people with “external biological sex characteristics that are irresolvably ambiguous” and for people taking treatments for infection, injury, disease, or disorder that has been “caused by or exacerbated by the performance of gender transition procedures.”

    People also can access the treatment if they are in “imminent danger of death, or impairment of a major bodily function unless surgery is performed.”

    Speaking against Takubo’s amendment Friday, Republican Sen. Mark Maynard said he didn’t see why any changes were necessary. He worried additions could make the state vulnerable to a lawsuit.

    “This amendment would disintegrate the clarity of the bill in its very simple terms,” Maynard said. “These guardrails are already in this bill as it came to us from the House.”

    The vote came a day after a crowd of protesters descended on the state Capitol, where cries of “trans kids matter” could be heard from the Senate chamber as lawmakers debated bills.

    Democratic Del. Danielle Walker, the only openly LGBTQ member, led chants of the state motto: “Mountaineers are always free.”

    “They are trying to come for trans kids in West Virginia, and they’re going to come for every single one of us next,” said Sam Green of Huntington, wearing a transgender pride flag draped around their shoulders while addressing the crowd.

    Cecelia Moran, an 18-year-old high school student from Marion County, said she feared banning any kind of medically proven health care could result in more young people leaving West Virginia, one of only three states to lose population in the 2020 U.S. Census.

    “I think a lot of young people already struggle to stay here and feel welcome here and are already planning on getting out of the state as soon as possible,” she said.

    Her mother, Rebecca Moran, said the bill is “just completely unnecessary” and decisions about healthcare should be made by families and health care providers.

    “This is not what’s harming our kids,” said Rebecca Moran, a city councilor in Fairmont. “There’s so many other things: homelessness, poverty.”

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  • Donna’s Law: A tool for preventing suicide

    Donna’s Law: A tool for preventing suicide

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    Donna’s Law: A tool for preventing suicide – CBS News


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    In any given year, suicide accounts for between 60-65% of all gun deaths in the United States (approximately 25,000). So far, three states have passed legislation called Donna’s Law, which would allow people who fear that they may become suicidal to place themselves (voluntarily and confidentially) on a “do not sell” list, to block their purchase of a gun. Correspondent Susan Spencer looks at an innovative way to save lives.

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  • Police seized gun, knife, masks from Idaho murder suspect’s parents’ home, court documents say

    Police seized gun, knife, masks from Idaho murder suspect’s parents’ home, court documents say

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    Police seized gun, knife, masks from Idaho murder suspect’s parents’ home, court documents say – CBS News


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    Investigators found a gun, knife and masks at the family home of Bryan Kohberger, the man charged with murdering four University of Idaho students last November, according to court documents unsealed Thursday.

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  • Pentagon’s suicide prevention committee recommends age limit and waiting period for on-base gun purchases | CNN Politics

    Pentagon’s suicide prevention committee recommends age limit and waiting period for on-base gun purchases | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A suicide prevention committee that was established by the Pentagon last year is recommending instituting a waiting period for gun purchases on bases and raising the minimum age for buying firearms in an attempt to reduce the number of suicides among service members.

    The Suicide Prevention and Response Independent Review Committee (SPRIRC) announced the suggested measures as part of a broader set of 127 recommendations to reverse the current trend of suicides in the military, which has steadily increased over the last 15 years.

    The committee recommended putting in place a seven day waiting period for gun purchases on Defense Department facilities and a four day waiting period for ammunition purchases.

    The committee was created by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in May 2022 to review the Department of Defense’s ongoing suicide prevention efforts. The committee submitted a first set of 10 recommendations to Austin in December before submitting its latest report.

    Dr. Craig Bryan, one of the members of the committee, said a high percentage of suicides on base involved guns purchased at base military exchanges.

    “There’s a very strong scientific basis showing that waiting period, even as short as seven days, significantly reduce suicide rates,” said Bryan, a lethal means safety expert, in urging the Defense Department to “follow the science.”

    The committee also recommended raising the minimum age to purchase weapons on base to 25 years old.

    “There’s arguably only one thing that all researchers agree on,” said Bryan, “and that one thing is that taking steps to slow down convenient access to highly lethal methods like firearms is the single most effective strategy for saving lives.”

    According to the Defense Department’s annual report, 519 service members died by suicide in 2021, the most recent number for which numbers are available. Though the latest figure is a slight decrease from the previous year’s 582 suicides, the overall number has still been trending upward.

    “We will review those closely,” said Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder of the latest recommendations. “I don’t have anything to announce today in terms of what steps we may take, but again this is a very important topic to the Secretary and to the entire Department of Defense.”

    However, Dr. Rajeev Ramchand, an epidemiologist with the RAND corporation and another member of the SPRIRC, told reporters on Friday that service members the committee spoke with said they felt the Defense Department’s “current approach … was more of a check-the-block approach” and that suicide prevention was “not discussed frequently.”

    Ramchand gave an example of a series of required suicide prevention trainings that took place over a course of several days, saying service members sat in a dark auditorium where many of them fell asleep or “were on their phones.”

    “It’s hard to think this is having an effect,” Ramchand said.

    In addition to gun safety regulations, the committee also urged the Defense Department to address the lack of mental health services available for service members, including hiring psychologists and other mental health specialists quickly.

    “When service members were getting into care, they might not be seen for their second visit for about 6 weeks,” said Rebecca Blais, a sexual assault and suicide expert who is on the committee.

    Often, when job openings in mental health services were posted, the hiring process could drag out over a year, at which point the psychologist or other professional was no longer available, Blais said.

    In cases where mental health services were not available or already booked, the committee urged the Defense Department to increase insurance payments so service members could seek mental health experts outside of the military’s healthcare system.

    Editor’s Note: If you or a loved one have contemplated suicide, call The National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-TALK (8255) to connect with a trained counselor.

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  • Man hangs self in Bulawayo CBD – Medical Marijuana Program Connection

    Man hangs self in Bulawayo CBD – Medical Marijuana Program Connection

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    News / National by Staff reporter 11 hrs ago | Views A man believed to be in his early 20s … Read More

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  • Links Found That Tie Encephalitis to Potential Suicide Risks

    Links Found That Tie Encephalitis to Potential Suicide Risks

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    Feb. 23, 2023 – In 2017, during a year of study abroad in Paris, Michelle Cano Bravo began to have hallucinations, insomnia, and paranoia. She also had problems with her thinking skills – she would get lost frequently, even in places she knew. 

    “I had no idea what was happening,” the 25-year-old says. “I was like a dying dog under a house and just looked for solitude.” 

    During that period, Bravo, who today is a law student based in New York, tried to take her life twice. 

    After she returned to the U.S. in early 2018, she began to have more disturbing symptoms. Once, when visiting Times Square, “I thought the people on the big screens were talking to me,” she says.

    She panicked and couldn’t find her way to the subway. She doesn’t remember how she got home. But when she did, she collapsed, screaming that she was dying. She was rushed to the hospital, where she was admitted to the psychiatric unit.

    Days later, she was getting worse. She became unresponsive and comatose. Finally, she was diagnosed with encephalitis and multi-organ system failure. 

    Unfortunately, people with Bravo’s symptoms often are regarded as having a psychiatric illness rather than encephalitis, says Jesús Ramirez-Bermúdez, MD, PhD, of the National Institute of Neurology and Neurosurgery in Mexico City.

    Caring for patients with encephalitis, he says, is “challenging,” because the patients can have sudden and severe mental health disturbances. 

    “They are often misdiagnosed as having a primary psychiatric disorder, for instance schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, but they do not improve with the use of psychiatric medication or psychotherapy,” Ramirez-Bermudez says. Rather, the disease requires “specific treatments,” such as antiviral medications or immunotherapy. 

    What Is Encephalitis?

    Encephalitis is an inflammation of the brain caused either by an infection invading the brain (infectious encephalitis) or through the immune system attacking the brain in error (post-infectious or autoimmune encephalitis). 

    The disease can strike anyone at any age, and more than 250,000 people in the U.S. were diagnosed with it during the past decade. Worldwide, 500,000 people are affected by it annually.

    Unfortunately, about 77% of people don’t know what encephalitis is, and even some health care professionals don’t recognize that psychiatric symptoms can be signs of acute illness in encephalitis.

    Along with psychiatric symptoms, encephalitis can also include flu-like symptoms, fever, headache, sensitivity to light and/or sound, neck stiffness, weakness or partial paralysis in the limbs, double vision, and impaired speech or hearing.

    Suicidality in People With Encephalitis

    Between 2014 and 2021, Ramirez-Bermúdez and his colleagues studied 120 patients hospitalized in a neurologic treatment center in Mexico with anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis – a condition in which the antibodies produced by the person’s own body attack a receptor in the brain.

    This receptor is particularly important as part of the way the body signals itself and is required in several processes that lead to complex behaviors, he explains. Dysfunction in this receptor may lead to times when these processes are disturbed, which may result in psychosis.

    “In the last years, we observed that some patients with autoimmune encephalitis … had suicidal behavior, and a previous study conducted in China suggested that the problem of suicidal behavior is not infrequent in this population,” he says. 

    Ramirez-Bermúdez and his colleagues wanted to investigate how often patients have suicidal thoughts and behaviors, what neurological and psychiatric features might have to be related to suicidality, and what the outcome would be after receiving treatment for the encephalitis.

    All of the patients had brain imaging with an MRI, a lumbar puncture (spinal tap) to check for signs of infection in the brain or spinal cord, an electroencephalogram (EEG) to detect possible seizures or abnormal electrical brain activity, as well as interviews with the patient and family members to look at mental skills, mood, and suicidal thoughts. 

    Of the 120 patients, 15 had suicidal thoughts and/or behaviors. These patients had symptoms including delusions (for example, of being persecuted or of grandiosity), hallucinations, delirium, and being catatonic.

    After medical treatment that included immunotherapy, neurologic and psychiatric medications, rehabilitation, and psychotherapy, 14 of the 15 patients had remission from suicidal thoughts and behaviors. 

    Patients were followed after discharge from the hospital between 1 year and almost 9 years, and remained free of suicidality.

    “The good news is that, in most cases, the suicidal thoughts and behaviors, as well as the features of psychotic depression, improve significantly with the specific immunological therapy,” Ramirez-Bermúdez says. .

    Fighting Stigma, Breaking the Taboo

    Study co-author Ava Easton, PhD, chief executive of the Encephalitis Society, says that encephalitis-related mental health issues, thoughts of self-injury, and suicidal behaviors “may occur for a number of reasons. And stigma around talking about mental health can be a real barrier to speaking up about symptoms – but it is an important barrier to overcome.”

    Easton, an honorary fellow at the University of Liverpool in the United Kingdom, says their study “provides a platform on which to break the taboo, show tangible links which are based on data between suicide and encephalitis, and call for more awareness of the risk of mental health issues during and after encephalitis.”

    Ramirez-Bermúdez agrees. There are “many cultural problems in the conventional approach to mental health problems, including prejudices, fear, myths, stigma, and discrimination,” he says. “This is present in popular culture but also within the culture of medicine and psychology.”

    Bravo, the law student who dealt with encephalitis and its mental effects, told no one about her thoughts of suicide.

     “It was cultural,” she says. 

    Even though her mother is a doctor, she was afraid to share her suicidality with her. In her South American family, “the subject of mental illness isn’t a fun topic to talk about. And the message is, ‘if you’re thinking about killing yourself, you’ll end up in an asylum.’”

    Unfortunately, these attitudes add to a “delay in the recognition” of the diagnosis, Ramirez-Bermúdez says.  

    After treatment and as the acute disease lifted, Bravo slowly regained day-to-day function. But even now, more than 5 years later, she continues to struggle with some symptoms related to her mental skills, as well as depression – although she’s in law school and managing to keep up with her assignments. She’s not actively suicidal but continues to have fleeting moments of feeling it would be preferable not to live anymore. 

    On the other hand, Bravo sees a psychotherapist and finds therapy to be helpful, because “therapy refocuses and recontextualizes everything.” Her therapist reminds her that things could be a lot worse. “And she reminds me that just my being here is a testament to the will to live.” 

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  • New Jersey school under fire after student dies by suicide

    New Jersey school under fire after student dies by suicide

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    New Jersey school under fire after student dies by suicide – CBS News


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    Students and parents clashed with school officials in Ocean County, New Jersey, after the suicide of a 14-year-old girl who was bullied. Current and former students said administrators have ignored decades of bullying and abuse within the school. Lilia Luciano reports.

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  • Students denounce bullying in New Jersey school district where teenager died by suicide | CNN

    Students denounce bullying in New Jersey school district where teenager died by suicide | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    At the first school board meeting in Bayville, New Jersey, since a 14-year-old student died by suicide days after being attacked by four classmates, administrators heard powerful commentary from current and former students who said they’ve been bullied without recourse from school district officials.

    Several current and former students approached the microphone at a Central Regional School Board of Education meeting Thursday, sharing their struggles with bullying at Central Regional High School in Berkeley Township.

    Some said they had experienced thoughts of suicide.

    “We’re scared to walk in the hallway,” one freshman told the school board. Another student said she has been called names she can’t repeat out loud.

    One student said she returns home from school feeling threatened.

    “My name is Danielle. I am also so many other names that people have called me over the years and you guys have done nothing,” that student said.

    Adriana Kuch, 14, was found dead in her Bayville home February 3, her father told CNN. Two days before her death, a TikTok video showed the freshman student being assaulted in a school hallway by a group of teenagers, prosecutors say. Michael Kuch believes his daughter died late at night on February 2, shortly after she sent her last text message at 10:46 p.m., he said.

    In the wake of Kuch’s death, four students at the high school were charged in connection with the attack, Ocean County Prosecutor Bradley D. Billhimer said in a statement to CNN. The former superintendent of the school district, Triantafillos Parlapanides, resigned from his post Saturday, effective immediately, the district said in a statement on its website.

    The incident has sparked outrage among students and parents who say it reflects a culture of bullying in the district. The community is calling on school district officials to improve how it handles allegations of bullying.

    One student’s allegations of bullying at the high school were detailed in a lawsuit filed in October, CNN previously reported. The lawsuit claims a different 14-year-old girl was physically assaulted by two teenagers, one of whom had allegedly sent her threatening text messages in December 2021.

    The school district said in a statement days after Kuch’s death that it is “evaluating all current and past allegations of bullying” and will “undergo an independent assessment of the District’s anti-bullying policies and ensure every necessary safeguard is in place to protect our students and staff.”

    The attack on Adriana Kuch, who was walking with her boyfriend in the hallway at the time, was recorded on video and posted later that same day on social media platforms, including TikTok, which prompted a slew of hateful comments and online bullying that Michael Kuch said drove his daughter to take her own life.

    The video, obtained and reviewed by CNN, shows the freshman student being hit in the face with a water bottle several times. The footage shows Adriana was punched, kicked and her hair was pulled. Kuch says his daughter suffered bruising and blacked out for a short time as a result of the attack.

    Kuch has accused the school district of mishandling the attack. He says police should have been notified immediately and that his daughter should have been taken to the hospital.

    “I want this to stop happening to other kids,” Kuch previously told CNN. “This isn’t just my daughter. A lot of kids are facing this at school.”

    Hundreds of people were in attendance Thursday, including family members and parents, when School Board of Education President Denise Pavone-Wilson started the meeting, saying she wanted to begin the process of healing at school.

    The school board president said the board offered their “most sincere deepest sympathies to the family of our student, Adriana Kuch.”

    During the meeting, one student said their classmates have tried to “jump” them because of their sexual orientation and that photographs taken of them in school have been posted on social media.

    This student said they were suicidal and self-harmed in the past because of “things that happened to me in this school.”

    Kuch was remembered warmly by another student who described her as a “very sweet and kind girl” who helped her on her first day of school when she didn’t know anyone yet.

    Parents and family members also shared their emotional testimony at the meeting.

    One parent said food had been thrown at her daughter in a school cafeteria. Another woman, who said her niece was severely bullied at a high school in the district, asked why a student had to die by suicide for “us to hit rock bottom.”

    “It should have never gone there,” that woman said. “Rock bottom should have been the first time a student was bullied, and it should have been taken care of from that point on.”

    When Pavone-Wilson told attendees at the meeting that faculty and staff always had the “best interest of the students and their education at the forefront,” one person in the audience yelled out “not true” and applause followed.

    Then, amid jeering from the crowd, the board moved to officially appoint Dr. Douglas Corbett as the district’s acting superintendent following Parlapanides’s resignation. Some members of the audience shouted “resign” and “leave” as the motion to appoint Corbett passed.

    Shortly before the meeting began, Corbett said the circumstances of Kuch’s death “were disturbing and we share in the community’s shock.”

    New school district leadership is looking into a handful of initiatives, including retaining an outside party to examine the district’s policies and response to crises and creating a focus group of teachers and parents to handle the issues, according to Corbett.

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  • Finding Comfort and Meaning After a Child’s Suicide

    Finding Comfort and Meaning After a Child’s Suicide

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    Feb. 16, 2023 – Janet Shedd lost her youngest son to suicide 7 years ago.

    “Tom had suffered from depression for about 9 months. We had gotten counseling for him, and he had been taking medication. We thought things were starting to turn around,” says Shedd, who lives in Kentucky. 

    But as soon as he turned 18 and was legally allowed to buy a gun, he died by suicide. Shedd’s life was shattered. “After his death, I became the walking wounded. It was hard to function,” she says. “I spent days crying and not getting out of bed.”

    She calls the loss “devastating because, as a parent, one of your major functions is to keep your child safe. When you’re not able to do that – usually through no fault of your own – you go through a lot of guilt.” 

    Shedd is far from alone. In 2020, suicide was the second leading cause of death in youngsters and young adults (ages 10 to 34) and the 12th leading cause of death in the U.S..

    And more young people are apparently considering taking their own lives. 

    Just this week, the CDC released a study showing a crisis in mental health among teen girls. The report found girls are experiencing record high levels of sexual violence, and nearly 3 in 5 girls report feeling persistently sad or hopeless.

    Nearly one-third of girls (30%) reported seriously considering suicide, up from 19% in 2011. In teenage boys, serious thoughts of suicide increased from 13% to 14% from 2011 to 2021. The percentage of teenage girls who had attempted suicide in 2021 was 13%, nearly twice that of teenage boys (7%).

    All these hurting children, and all those lost lives, have left a significant number of bereaved parents.

    No Universal Pattern

    William Feigelman, PhD, a professor emeritus of sociology at Nassau Community College in Garden City, NY, lost a son to suicide 20 years ago. 

    “He had a lot of winning characteristics, was engaged to be married, and was getting ahead in the film industry,” Feigelman says. “We were shocked and stunned, and it was the worst experience of our lives.”

    It turned out that their son had been “coming off a drug high in an industry where drugs are commonplace and was depressed and self-punishing at the time.” 

    The decision to die by suicide is complex and shouldn’t be reduced to single issues, Feigelman says. 

    “Drugs are common and played a role in my son’s suicide. But people take their lives for a variety of reasons. Maybe something went wrong. They were jilted by a girlfriend or boyfriend or lost their job. They feel dishonored and humiliated and can’t face other people. Maybe they feel they’ve let their families down. They’re in deep psychic pain and see suicide as the only way out.”

    Traditional bullying and cyberbullying have played a role in suicides of youngsters. Last week, a 14-year-old girl in New Jersey died by suicide. She had been beaten up in school, with a video of the assault posted online afterward. Unfortunately, many parents aren’t aware if their child is being bullied. The girl’s father says the school and the school district have not done enough to respond. 

    Just being aware of a child’s mental health problems doesn’t guarantee they’ll be resolved, Feigelman says. Many parents have struggled, “going from one clinic to another, one medication to another, and never successfully getting the right kind of help for their child who was in pain.” 

    On the other hand, some parents have seemingly successful, high-functioning children “who suddenly have one mishap – such as a bad math test – which pushes them over the edge into suicide, and they feel they can’t go home and tell their parents about it.”

    The point, according to Feigelman, is that “the reasons for suicide vary from case to case, with no universal pattern.” 

    A Combination of Events

    Erin Hawley and Angela Wiese agree. They are sisters in Lexington, KY, who lost children to suicide. 

    Wiese’s oldest son, Mason, died by suicide when he was 19 years old. 

    “He had just graduated from high school and was going through a transitional time,” she says. 

    Her son wasn’t sure he wanted to go to college. He enlisted in the Navy Reserves instead. “Maybe the stress of his schooling was getting to him, or maybe he was feeling overwhelmed,” Wiese says. “Maybe he just didn’t want to share things with us because he thought we’d be upset. He was a quiet kid but also fun and outgoing and athletic, with a lot of friends. We don’t know why he chose to kill himself.”

    Then, 23 months later, Wiese’s 18-year-old son, Ethan, also took his life. “We didn’t realize at the time how much at risk Ethan was after Mason’s suicide. We now believe he was struggling and just didn’t know how to cope with that loss,” she says.

    Hawley, whose 13-year-old daughter, Myra, also died by suicide, says her daughter’s death was particularly shocking and “came out of the blue” because she “came from a family who already had two children – her first cousins – die by suicide, and we talked about it all the time in our house.”

    For Hawley, the “hardest part was her choosing not to tell us that she was struggling or having these thoughts and that she wanted to kill herself. I never imagined we would lose another child to suicide in our family.”

    Some research suggests that the risk of suicide is higher in those who have been bereaved by another family member or close friend’s suicide. But Feigelman says that multiple suicides in the same family are “relatively rare.”

    And Hawley has learned that the motives for suicide are “unique to every situation, and it’s usually a ‘perfect storm’ of several events, some of which may be common, everyday things that parents may think they understand and can connect to.” 

    At the end of the day, “our children were the only people who knew the reasons, and we don’t want to speculate,” Hawley says.

    Get the Best Support

    After her older son’s death, Wiese and her husband “reached out to resources and therapists and whatnot, but they didn’t have experience with suicide grief and the understanding that Ethan felt the stigma and was mourning the loss of his brother,” she says.

    Wiese recommends that parents seeking help after a child’s suicide – for themselves or their other children – should “find professionals and support systems that deal specifically with suicide bereavement.”

    Shedd agrees. “My advice to other parents is to know you’re not alone. One of the best things I did was to hook up with someone else who had gone through the experience of losing a child to suicide, which was a touchstone during the early days,” she says. “Having someone to talk to who had been through it and was standing upright and functioning in the world was incredibly helpful to me.”

    Feigelman and his wife, Beverly Feigelman, a licensed social worker, joined support groups for people who lost loved ones to suicide. Eventually, they founded a support group of their own – Long Island Survivors of Suicide.

    “The group is still flourishing, and we’ve been running it for the last 15 years,” Feigelman says. “It’s important to be with people who have sustained a similar loss because we have unique issues that don’t affect people bereaved by other losses – we’re racked by guilt, shame, and anger toward the loved one who died by suicide, and we’re shaken and mystified that our children, whom we loved and even thought we knew well, could take their own life.” 

    Turning Pain Into Purpose

    “I’m definitely in a better place than I was immediately after Tom’s death,” Shedd says. “Time helps, and you move slowly forward. But even 7 years later, it’s still very fresh, and little things can tick off the memories – if I see someone who looks like him walking down the street, for example. And of course, you miss your child forever.”

    Nevertheless, “Helping other people who have gone through this type of loss and working to change things has been very helpful.”

    Shedd became involved in advocating for changes in gun laws. “If I can save someone else from going through a similar tragedy, this honors Tom, and that’s a comfort,” she says.

    After the death of her second son, Wiese founded Brothers’ Run, a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising money for suicide prevention efforts within schools and communities. The money also supports critical services and mental health professionals who care for suicide-bereaved families. 

    “Since losing my sweet boys, I’ve found that pain can be turned into purpose,” says Wiese.

    Beyond running the support group, Feigelman and his wife joined forces with two psychologists to conduct a large study of people bereaved by suicide, including 462 parents. And together, they also wrote Devastating Losses, a book for health care professionals working with suicide-bereaved family members.

    Some parents may not be drawn to involvement in volunteer work, advocacy, or similar activities. But there are still many healing approaches, including spiritual practice, yoga, mindfulness, art, and physical exercise. 

    “But I think the most helpful thing is working with a good, trained clinician and getting the support of other parents,” Feigelman says. “Engaging with other bereaved parents contributes to posttraumatic growth.”

    Shedd says her posttraumatic growth led to a deepening of empathy and compassion. 

    “I hesitate to say this because some people might regard it as a punch in the face, but a mentor told me, ‘You’re going to get gifts from this experience.’ I didn’t want any ‘gifts.’ I just wanted my child back. But I have to admit that – although I would never have chosen to pay the price for these ‘gifts’ – what happened has indeed changed me into a better person.”

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  • What’s Behind Rise in Girls’ Report of Sadness, Sexual Violence?

    What’s Behind Rise in Girls’ Report of Sadness, Sexual Violence?

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    Feb. 14, 2023 – The recent discovery of a dramatic spike in the number of teen girls saying they’ve been victims of sexual assault could have a now-familiar cause: the COVID-19 pandemic. 

    The CDC reported Monday that teenage girls are experiencing record high levels of sexual violence, and nearly 3 in 5 girls report feeling persistently sad or hopeless. 

    The numbers were even worse for students who identify as LGBTQ+, nearly 70% of whom report experiencing feelings of persistent sadness and hopeless, and nearly 1 in 4 (22%) LGBTQ+ teens had attempted suicide in 2021, according to the report. 

    Protective factors, such as being in school and participating in various activities, were largely nonexistent for many teens during the pandemic, which could explain the spike in sexual violence cases, says Carlos A. Cuevas, PhD, clinical psychologist and Center on Crime Race and Injustice co-director at Northeastern University in Boston.

    That — on top of other mental, emotional, and physical stressors amid the COVID-19 crisis — created an unsafe and unhealthy environment for some girls.

    “Once people started to kind of come out of the pandemic and we started to see the mental health impact of the pandemic, there were waiting lists everywhere. So being able to access those resources became more difficult because we just had a boom in demand for a need for mental health services,” says Cuevas.

    Teen girls are also more likely to be victims of sexual assault than teen boys, which could explain the why they are overrepresented in the data, Cuevas says. 

    If your child experiences sexual assault, there are a few things parents should keep in mind. For one, it’s important that your child knows that they are the victims in the situation, Cuevas says.

    “I think sometimes you still get kind of a victim blaming sort of attitude, even unintentionally,” he says. “Really be clear about the message that it’s not their fault and they are not responsible in any way.”

    Parents should also look out for resources their child might need to work through any trauma they may have experienced. For some, that could be medical attention due to a physical act of assault. For others, it could be mental health services or even legal remedies, such as pressing charges.

    “You want to give those options but the person who was the victim really is the one who determines when and how those things happen,” Cuevas says. “So really to be able to be there and ask them what they need and try to facilitate that for them.”

    One more thing: Your teen sharing their sexual assault experiences on social media could result in several outcomes. 

    “Some teens will talk about this [sexual assault] and post on TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram, and that means that they may get people giving feedback that’s supportive or giving feedback that’s hurtful,” says Cuevas. “Remember that we’re talking about kids; they’re not sort of developmentally able to plan and think, ‘Oh, I may not get all the support that I think I’m going to get when I post this.’”

    Goldie Taylor, an Atlanta-based journalist, political analyst and human rights activist, has her own history with sexual assault as a young girl. She experienced it as a 11-year-old, a story she shares in her memoir, The Love You Save. 

    When Taylor saw the news of the CDC study, she hurried to read it herself. She, too, see signs of the pandemic’s work in the report. 

    “While notably mental health continues to be a post-pandemic story given the issues surrounding quarantine, I also believe it fueled a renewed interest in seeking care— and measuring impacts on children,” Taylor says. “What was most startling, even for me, were the statistics around sexual violence involving young girls. We know from other studies that the vast majority of pregnancies among girls as young as 11 involve late teen and adult males.”

    Unfortunately, Taylor says little has changed since her own traumatic experience as a child. There was little support available then. And now, she says, “there are far too few providers in this country to deal effectively with what can only be called a pandemic of sexual violence.”

    The study’s findings are indeed a stark reminder of the needs of our children, says Debra Houry, MD, MPH, the CDC’s acting principal deputy director, in a press release about the findings.

    “High school should be a time for trailblazing, not trauma. These data show our kids need far more support to cope, hope, and thrive,” she says. 

    The new analysis looked at data from 2011 to 2021 from the CDC’s Youth Risk and Behavior Survey, a semiannual analysis of the health behaviors of students in grades 9-12. The 2021 survey is the first conducted since the COVID-19 pandemic began and included 17,232 respondents.  

    Although the researchers saw signs of improvement in risky sexual behaviors and substance abuse, as well as fewer experiences of bullying, the analysis found youth mental health worsened over the past 10 years. This trend was particularly troubling for teenage girls: 57% said they felt persistently sad or hopeless in 2021, a 60% increase from a decade ago. By comparison, 29% of teenage boys reported feeling persistently sad or hopeless, compared to 21% in 2011. 

    Nearly one-third of girls (30%) reported seriously considering suicide, up from 19% in 2011. In teenage boys, serious thoughts of suicide increased from 13% to 14% from 2011 to 2021. The percentage of teenage girls who had attempted suicide in 2021 was 13%, nearly twice that of teenage boys (7%). 

    More than half of students with a same-sex partner (58%) reported seriously considering suicide, and 45% of LGBTQ+ teens reported the same thoughts. One-third of students with a same-sex partner reported attempting suicide in the past year. 

    The report did not have trend data on LGBTQ+ students because of changes in survey methods. The 2021 survey did not have a question about gender identity, but this will be incorporated into future surveys, researchers say. 

    Hispanic and multiracial students were more likely to experience persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness compared with their peers, with 46% and 49%, respectively, reporting these feelings. From 2011 to 2021, the percentage of students reporting feelings of hopelessness increased in each racial and ethnic group. The percentage of Black, Hispanic, and white teens who seriously considered suicide also increased over the decade. (A different CDC report released last week found that the rate of suicide among Black people in the United States aged 10-24 jumped 36.6% between 2018 and 2021, the largest increase for any racial or ethnic group.)

    The survey also found an alarming spike in sexual violence toward teenage girls. Nearly 1 in 5 females (18%) experienced sexual violence in the past year, a 20% increase from 2017. More than 1 in 10 teen girls (14%) said they had been forced to have sex, according to the researchers.

    Rates of sexual violence was even higher in lesbian, bisexual, gay, or questioning teens. Nearly 2 in 5 teens with a partner of the same sex (39%) experienced sexual violence, and 37% reported being sexually assaulted. More than 1 in 5 LGBTQ+ teens (22%) had experienced sexual violence, and 20% said they had been forced to have sex, the report found.

    Among racial and ethnic groups, American Indian and Alaskan Native and multiracial students were more likely to experience sexual violence. The percentage of white students reporting sexual violence increased from 2017 to 2021, but that trend was not observed in other racial and ethnic groups. 

    Delaney Ruston, MD, an internal medicine specialist in Seattle and creator of Screenagers, a 2016 documentary about how technology affects youth, says excessive exposure to social media can compound feelings of depression in teens — particularly, but not only, girls. 

    “They can scroll and consume media for hours, and rather than do activities and have interactions that would help heal from depression symptoms, they stay stuck,” Ruston says in an interview. “As a primary care physician working with teens, this is an extremely common problem I see in my clinic.”

    One approach that can help, Ruston says, is behavioral activation. “This is a strategy where you get them, usually with the support of other people, to do small activities that help to reset brain reward pathways so they start to experience doses of well-being and hope that eventually reverses the depression. Being stuck on screens prevents these healing actions from happening.” 

    The report also emphasized the importance of school-based services to support students and combat these troubling trends in worsening mental health. “Schools are the gateway to needed services for many young people,” the report says. “Schools can provide health, behavioral, and mental health services directly or establish referral systems to connect to community sources of care.”

    “Young people are experiencing a level of distress that calls on us to act with urgency and compassion,” Kathleen Ethier, PhD, director of the CDC’s Division of Adolescent and School Health, says in a statement. “With the right programs and services in place, schools have the unique ability to help our youth flourish.”

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  • 2/13: CBS News Prime Time

    2/13: CBS News Prime Time

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    2/13: CBS News Prime Time – CBS News


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    John Dickerson reports on the investigation into objects shot down by the U.S. military, a CDC survey on sadness and suicidal thoughts among teen girls, and why thousands are protesting in Israel.

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  • Pandemic youth mental health toll unprecedented, data show

    Pandemic youth mental health toll unprecedented, data show

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    The pandemic took a harsh toll on U.S. teen girls’ mental health, with almost 60% reporting feelings of persistent sadness or hopelessness, according to a government survey released Monday that bolsters earlier data.

    Sexual violence, suicidal thoughts, suicidal behavior and other mental health woes affected many teens regardless of race or ethnicity, but girls and LGBTQ youth fared the worst on most measures, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report. More than 17,000 U.S. high school students were surveyed in class in the fall of 2021.

    In 30 years of collecting similar data, “we’ve never seen this kind of devastating, consistent findings,” said Kathleen Ethier, director of CDC’s adolescent and school health division. “There’s no question young people are telling us they are in crisis. The data really call on us to act.”

    The research found:

    — Among girls, 30% said they seriously considered attempting suicide, double the rate among boys and up almost 60% from a decade ago.

    — Almost 20% of girls reported experiencing rape or other sexual violence in the previous year, also an increase over previous years.

    — Almost half of LGBTQ students said they had seriously considered a suicide attempt.

    — More than a quarter of American Indians and Alaska Natives said they had seriously considered a suicide attempt — higher than other races and ethnicities.

    — Feelings of persistent sadness and hopelessness affected more than one-third of kids of all races and ethnicities and increased over previous years.

    — Recent poor mental health was reported by half of LGBTQ kids and almost one-third of American Indian and Alaska Native youth.

    The results echo previous surveys and reports and many of the trends began before the pandemic. But isolation, online schooling and increased reliance on social media during the pandemic made things worse for many kids, mental health experts say.

    The results “reflect so many decades of neglect towards mental health, for kids in particular,” said Mitch Prinstein, the American Psychological Association’s chief science officer. “Suicide has been the second- or third-leading cause of death for young people between 10 and 24 years for decades now,” and attempts are typically more common in girls, he said.

    Prinstein noted that anxiety and depression tend to be more common in teen girls than boys, and pandemic isolation may have exacerbated that.

    Comprehensive reform in how society manages mental health is needed, Prinstein said. In schools, kids should be taught ways to manage stress and strife, just as they are taught about exercise for physical disease prevention, he said.

    In low-income areas, where adverse childhood experiences were high before the pandemic, the crisis has been compounded by a shortage of school staff and mental health professionals, experts say.

    School districts around the country have used federal pandemic money to hire more mental health specialists, if they can find them, but say they are stretched thin and that students who need expert care outside of school often can’t get it because therapists are overburdened and have long waitlists.

    ___

    AP writer Jocelyn Gecker contributed in San Francisco contributed to this report.

    ___

    Follow AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner at @LindseyTanner.

    ___

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Four teens charged in attack of 14-year-old who died of suicide after beating video was posted online

    Four teens charged in attack of 14-year-old who died of suicide after beating video was posted online

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    Dad says daughter took her own life after being bullied at NJ school


    Dad says daughter took her own life after being bullied at NJ school

    02:33

    Four New Jersey teenagers have been charged in connection with the attack of a 14-year-old girl who later took her own life after video of the incident was posted on social media.

    One juvenile is charged with aggravated assault, two juveniles are charged with conspiracy to commit aggravated assault and one juvenile is charged with harassment, Ocean County prosecutor Bradley D. Billhimer told CBS News in an email.

    Adriana Kuch, 14, was found dead in her Bayville home on February 3, two days after the disturbing video of the attack at Central Regional High School was posted online. The video showed girls throwing a drink at the teen, then kicking and dragging her down school hallways. They pushed Adriana into red lockers lining the school hallways and one of the girls in a pink shirt punched Kuch repeatedly. 

    Another girl outside of the video frame laughed as she recorded the scene. Two adults came in to break up the attack, with one adult pulling the teens apart. Adriana lay hurt and bruised on the hallway floor as the adult tried to help her up. 

    One of the girls said, “That’s what you get.”

    “She loved life. She was the happiest kid. Everybody loved her,” her father, Michael Kuch, told CBS New York on Thursday, adding that he’s angry and wants everyone to see the video and what the teens did to his daughter.

    A picture of 14-year-old Adriana Kuch
    14-year-old Adriana Kuch died of suicide after a disturbing video of her being attacked at school was posted online.

    CBS2


    Kuch said police should have been called immediately because the students, who he said his daughter had been having problems with, smashed her face with a 20-ounce bottle.

    “If they called the police and did an investigation, those girls would not have posted videos from school,” Kuch said.

    He also said his daughter, who had bruises on her body, should’ve been taken to the hospital.

    “We always address every issue of bullying and on the day of the incident four students were suspended,” Dr. Triantafillos Parlapanides, superintendent of schools, told CBS New York.

    School officials told CBS New York that they notified the family and called Adriana’s death horrible.

    Each teenager and their guardian was served with a copy of their complaint and were released pending future court appearances, the prosecutor told CBS News. 

    Students at the school staged a walkout Wednesday in support of Adriana’s family.

                                                                                      *************

    If you or someone you know is in emotional distress or a suicidal crisis, you can reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988. You can also chat with the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline here.

    For more information about mental health care resources and support, The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) HelpLine can be reached Monday through Friday, 10 a.m.–10 p.m. ET, at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264) or email info@nami.org.

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  • Student Mental Health Week Focuses on Rates of Stress, Anxiety

    Student Mental Health Week Focuses on Rates of Stress, Anxiety

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    Feb. 8, 2023 — As mental health issues rise among teens and college students, this week’s first-ever global Student Mental Health Week couldn’t be better timed.

    The urgency is quite apparent. A recent study showed that nearly one-third of students worldwide said their mental health has worsened since returning to campus following the COVID-19 lockdowns. 

    With suicide rates on the rise, this campaign, established by five youth-focused nonprofits including Born This Way Foundation launched by Lady Gaga, the Inspiring Children Foundation co-chaired by singer-songwriter Jewel, the Jed Foundation, and Chegg, an education-technology, wants to draw attention to the issue.

    “Even before the pandemic, we’ve seen increased rates of depression, anxiety, and suicide deaths among students,” says Laura Erickson-Schroth, MD, chief medical officer at the Jed Foundation, which protects emotional health and works to prevent suicide among teens and young adults. “Young people are exposed constantly to wars around the world, the social and political unrest in our country and the climate crisis — things that adults never were when they were teenagers. I don’t think we recognize how much they’re dealing with.”

    All week, social media live events will aim to help educate policymakers, educational institutions, and communities on the mental health challenges students are facing. Another goal is to urge students around the world to develop call-to-action plans with their legislators, all with the goal of boosting mental health support.

    “The previous generation overlooked mental health issues, which created a culture where there was so much shame around not feeling comfortable in your own head,” says Matine Khalighi, a sophomore at Harvard University and executive director and founder of EEqual, a for-youth-by-youth nonprofit focused on overcoming student homelessness. “There’s now a new wave of being open about mental health challenges. Creating a space where we can talk about this makes us feel less alone.”

    Cherrial Odell, a Stanford University sophomore who survived suicide and an adverse childhood, serves on the boards of both the Born This Way Foundation and the Inspiring Children Foundation. For Odell, this week is critically important.

    “We all have mental health concerns,” says Odell, who this week, as president of the student-run Stanford Mental Health Outreach group, is hosting daily events on the Stanford campus. “The beauty of our generation is that we’re a lot more open about talking about these issues. That’s a beautiful thing. After all, opening up and sharing your story is a strength, not a weakness. It shows you have the courage to share what you’re going through.”

    Ultimately, Erickson-Schroth hopes that the week informs adults, too.

    “It’s so important for the adults in young peoples’ lives to recognize the signs that a young person is going through something that is causing stress and anxiety,” she says. “It’s also important for parents to feel like they have the resources to provide that help.”

    Neal Horen, PhD, director of the early childhood division at the Center for Child and Human Development and the director of the HOYA clinic in the Department of Psychiatry at Georgetown University, hopes this week helps focus more attention on the potential pitfalls students may face at this major developmental phase of their lives.

    “Going to college can be amazing or it can be an arduous trek if we’re not paying attention,” he says. “This is a major time of identify formation with kids asking themselves ‘who am I,’ ‘where do I fit in.’ That plus the immediate independence they may experience living away from home is a big demand to put on someone and can lead to mental health challenges we have to pay attention to.”

    For more information, visit the Student Mental Health Week page.

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  • What Ally Kostial Didn’t Know

    What Ally Kostial Didn’t Know

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    What Ally Kostial Didn’t Know – CBS News


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    A college student’s troubling text messages lead investigators to her killer. “48 Hours” contributor Michelle Miller reports.

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