Suicide has been on the increase in the U.S. for two decades, long before the coronavirus showed up, although isolation and stress these days may be raising the risk. Suicide is the second-leading cause of death among young people aged 10 to 34. We hear from Dr. Carmen Lopez-Arvizu, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Kennedy Krieger Institute who describes warning signs that parents can watch for in children. And we talk to Dan Hale, director of Johns Hopkins Healthy Community Partnership, about how depression distorts our sense of self-worth, and how it led to his adult daughter’s suicide. He talks about it in his book, Depression: Out of the Darkness and Into the Light.
The National Suicide Prevention Hotline number is 800-273-8255, in Spanish and English, available 24 hours/7 days a week.
