Suicide among teens ages 15 to 24 is the second leading cause of death.

It's something that we're recognizing is an epidemic.

It also, in terms of suicide rates, has increased 57% between 2007 and 2018.

People can feel uncomfortable asking the direct question, like, are you suicidal at this moment?

Do you need help at this moment?

Do you feel safe?

But sometimes those are important questions we need to ask.

We've made it less taboo to talk about communicating to the students that it's okay to tell us that it's okay to reach out for help.

Other people will say, Well, you can't ask about suicide because that will put the thought into their mind.

And research has proven that that's absolutely not the case.

So this covers up my scar from that night.

It's the title to a song Before You Go By Lewis Capaldi.

Not many people know that song is about suicide awareness.

I grew up in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

I have two moms, Beth in one day and an older brother, Alex.

It started with everybody's body, started changing.

And I was a overweight kid.

And so I developed quickly anorexia.

And that slowly led him to becoming depressed and just falling out of love with myself and my body.

I always had this feeling that I wasn't enough.

I kind of kept it to myself and kept it, kept all my feelings to myself.

I felt like I was a burden if I talked about it.

I felt like I was weird if I talked about it.

I had a set of razor blades and I have now a scar on my wrist from where I chose to cut myself.

I was in the middle of doing it and I stopped and I thought about.

I went downstairs and I said I needed help.

My team definitely knows that I struggle.

I've had a lot of people on my team come up to me and say, I've been struggling too and asked me for advice and I offer what?

Help me.

I go to therapy.

I see a doctor for medications.

I see a psychiatrist.

This is the first summer in probably two, three years where I haven't been in the hospital for suicide ideation.

I am very proud of all the progress I've made.

It's been a lot of hard work, but I'm very proud of it.

I've come to realize how important it is to talk about it.

Not only for me, but for other people.

We asked the entire student body in our middle school right here.

Do you have an adult that you feel safe going and talking to?

And we want them to be able to identify that core adult, that safe adult, somebody that they can go to if they have an issue.

Let's just be honest.

For some of our students, the parent isn't the trusted adult.

Who is it?

If they can't identify one, go to your school counselor, your school counselor, or have resources for that.

In that mindset, are in that space.

Sometimes it's really hard to get outside that darkness.

So if we have something we can turn to, whether it's a list that we keep with us of, okay, there are these people in my life that I know I can reach out to that care about me.

I can bring that with me in that time.

Your hospitals are always open and available to you as well as the new National nine eight line.

Pennsylvania has the safe to say hotline.

You can do it online.

You can do it on a mobile app.

And that's just another way to let somebody know, let an adult know that that somebody is reaching out for help and is looking for that connection.

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