It’s hard to blame anyone. It’s difficult, heart-wrenching, real. So when we point the finger at schools for not doing enough for their students, we need to realize that it’s not easy for them either. They spend nearly seven hours a day with the student body. There has to be some sort of connection.

  In high school, or school in general, we know that there are safe places for the kids to go and receive support. In other words, the counseling departments. But what has to get through to the kids is that they have to be vulnerable enough to share their deepest darkest secrets in order to obtain help.

  Once you bring it into the light and you share it, depression no longer has the power over you that it does when hidden in the dark. And despite this fact, according to CPR, the suicide rate overall in Colorado is among the highest in the nation. This has raised more and more questions about the increasing problem and the matters behind it.

  The thing is, according to Medical News Today, people with depression feel alone and misunderstood. They can be surrounded by thousands of people and still feel isolated. Nevertheless, with over three million cases of depression per year, according to Mayo Clinic, depression and suicide are more common than one may first think.

  Of course, this statistic doesn’t make the pain any less relevant, but it does prove that prevention programs should be implemented in schools all over the country. And it doesn’t have to be a meeting with a psychologist in your health class or a talk with your counselor, it could manifest itself as a lesson or through a speech.

  My point is, schools should be required to one, have a speaker, and two, require a relationships course as a core class.

  I have taken a relationships class, and through it I’ve learned about communicating, sharing, healthy and unhealthy relationships, and mental illness. All of these topics would shed light on things that people with depression and suicidal thoughts struggle with. The feelings of isolation, the worries of not being good enough, the emptiness. It would explain logically how one is feeling.

  But I know many people who aren’t always “logical” and are instead “intuitive”. So that’s when the speaker comes in.

  I digress, people with depression have a difficult time staying motivated. It’s not laziness, no, but the inability to stick to something and have the willpower to get it completed and done well. So with a motivational speaker, people with (and without) depression would hear the story of someone else who was and may still be struggling. Let them be told right to their face that they aren’t alone and what they’ve done to keep walking forward.

  I understand for all those out there with depression that they feel they are walking alone. That there is no place to keep going and that their families, their friends, and their teachers don’t care. But they can only take you so far. Omoakhuana Anthonia said, “The more confident and appreciative of who you are, the less hold depression has over you.” So don’t stop fighting.

Danielle Black, Staff Reporter