September is Suicide Prevention Month.

For students, September is also the time of year that everything starts picking back up again; schoolwork starts piling up, extracurriculars start and stress levels start to increase as well.

For me, this month is very important, as mental health is something that I have struggled with since seventh grade.

More than 720,000 people die from suicide every year worldwide. Suicide is also the third leading cause of death for people in the age range of 15-29 years old, according to the World Health Organization.

In my case, I was always the girl in school that always had a smile on her face and was one of the happiest people at the school, but nobody truly knew the battle I was going through in my head.

Over 49,000 people died from suicide in 2022  in the U.S., according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

That is one death every 11 minutes.

Moving from Nebraska to South Carolina in the middle of my eighth grade year, I felt like I could never fit in with any of my classmates.

The first school I went to in South Carolina was a tiny private school, and the class of 2021 had a whopping total of 40 students. These same 40 students were my classmates during my freshman year of high school, and through the entire year, I still felt like I didn’t fit in with anyone.

Nobody could tell I was truly depressed. I felt lonely, my friends at the school weren’t really my friends, and I didn’t want to be at that school anymore. I dealt with my depression alone, but that was my choice. I didn’t want to be considered as “weak” or “soft” for being sad, and I thought I could keep this facade of being perfectly fine.

I couldn’t.

My parents started seeing a change in my behavior. I wouldn’t try to leave the house, I would stay in my room for most of the day and I would never talk about my feelings truthfully. Even my friends back in Nebraska heard me lose the spark in my voice.

There are many adults who have thought about and/or attempted suicide, as 13.2 million people seriously thought about suicide and 1.6 million tried to take their own life in the U.S., according to the CDC.

Everyone has probably crossed paths with at least one person that has contemplated suicide. If you’re going to say you haven’t, you now know someone who has contemplated suicide in their lifetime.

I have contemplated taking my own life more than once. There were times in my life when I didn’t feel like living anymore, almost like I didn’t have a purpose.

During my sophomore year of high school, at a different school, my grandfather died due to a long and difficult battle with Alzheimer’s and dementia. At that point in time, I was already going through a lot mentally, and his death hurt a lot. I was extremely depressed, and I started falling back into the same place I was during my freshman year of high school, but this time was worse.

I just felt like blah. Like mush.

I lost someone that had such a positive impact on my life, who I knew loved me to the moon and back and was one of my best friends all in one. Again, I kept my true feelings to myself and plastered a fake smile on my face.

At that point in time, I thought it’d be easier to bury everything I was feeling under a rug than to face my emotions head on. I hid my emotions for a couple of months until it got to the point where I couldn’t.

As soon as I started talking out my emotions to my family and friends, it felt like there was a weight lifted off my chest.

When I started telling my parents how sad I was, they understood, and they knew it was hard for me to tell them how I was feeling.

I was someone who never liked showing emotion, especially negative ones, so building up the mental strength to tell my parents how I was feeling was so difficult.

The biggest fear I had was that my parents would think less of me.

I didn’t want to open up to my parents for them to tell me I’m overreacting about everything. But at the end of my day, all my parents want are to see their kids happy.

Slowly but surely, I got to the point where I could tell my parents exactly how I was feeling about everything going on in my mind.

I felt seen, loved and cared for, and it’s not because of the people around me asking.

It was because I built up the courage to let my guard down and tell them.

The people who are closest to you can start to feel down and want to end it all. Checking in on people to see how they’re feeling is extremely important, especially at a time when schoolwork starts to become a handful for some people.

To anyone who has or is feeling suicidal thoughts, your feelings are valid.

You are not “weak” or “soft” for being sad and talking out your emotions. You are strong and courageous for talking about your emotions.

If you know anyone who is struggling with mental health related issues or suicidal thoughts, contact the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.

It’s ok to not be ok.

Zaria Flippin can be reached at 581-2812 or zhflippin@eiu.edu.