This trio of Dallas mental health advocates has heard so many recent stories of young lives lost to suicide that they hardly knew which to share with me first:
The death of the brilliant Collin County daughter who was well into her medical studies.
“She put a lot of pressure on herself to succeed, but she’d not had any failures,” said Vanita Halliburton, co-founder of the Grant Halliburton Foundation. “Every single thing looked perfect until that day.”
The death of the popular Dallas 19-year-old who was doing well despite previous struggles with anxiety.
“Nobody could believe this young man had a care in the world. But his troubles, apparently exacerbated by the pandemic, led him to take his own life,” said Vanita, who saw many similarities between this teen and her own son, Grant, who also died by suicide at age 19.
The death of the eighth-grader who had made many friends and gotten very involved in extracurriculars after his family moved last year into a new school district north of Dallas. When classes broke for Christmas break, he went home and killed himself.
His parents at first didn’t want to share any details. Then his mother said that everyone needed to know because “she didn’t want this to happen to anyone else,” Halliburton staffer Amy Pool recalled.
Those are just a handful of the tragedies happening across North Texas and the nation — the faces behind the Surgeon General’s December advisory calling out the urgent need to address the nation’s youth mental health crisis.
“It would be a tragedy if we beat back one public health crisis only to allow another to grow in its place,” U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said as the report was released. It details how the mental well-being of children and teens — two groups already facing increasing mental health challenges before we ever heard of COVID-19 — has been further eroded by the pandemic.
Murthy’s analysis followed one by a coalition of pediatric groups that, based on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics, labeled youth mental health problems a national emergency. The warning cited dramatic increases in emergency room visits for all mental health emergencies, including a more than 50% increase for girls ages 12 to 17.
None of the statistics surprises the staff of the Grant Halliburton Foundation, a leader in North Texas suicide prevention and mental health since Vanita co-founded it in 2006.
The Halliburton team, which works extensively with young people and the adults who interact regularly with them, has seen firsthand how the past two years have thrust young people into new traumas and tested their not-yet-hardened grit.
“Kids are resilient, but this is unprecedented,” Vanita told me. “This has been such a large percentage of their lives.”
That’s why, even at times when we sense we are winning the COVID-19 fight, parents must not succumb to any wishful thinking that they can simply move on. The pandemic’s real toll on young people won’t be known for a long time.
Sonya Parker Goode, the foundation’s director of outreach and education, said she hears the same concerns from teens and even tweens: young voices expressing uncertainty, unsteadiness and anxiety about the future and where they fit into it.
“In this crazy time, they are having to try to figure out who they are and what direction they are headed in,” while dealing with more stress at home and anxieties at school than ever, Sonya said.
Being a teen in a normal year is tough enough with academic and peer pressures, economic worries and the angst wrought by social media. Then came COVID’s piling on of isolation, grief, school interruptions, caregiving needs and even more financial strain.
Amy, who oversees the foundation’s “Thrive” mental health education strategy, recounted a recent small-group session she moderated with third- through sixth-graders.
After she explained anti-stress tools that the kids could use to take care of their brains and bodies, a fourth-grader raised his hand and asked, “What if you do those things and it doesn’t help?”
That boy’s question is what Amy hears when young people feel they can really be honest. “They are anxious and nervous and teetering on those ‘what ifs’ a lot,” she said.
Especially among the teens, Sonya said, the pandemic is compounded by other heavy topics — racial injustice, equity issues and the emotional well-being of other family members.
“Kids are just so smart these days,” she said. “They pick up on things I never even thought about at their age.”
Vanita emphasized that parents and other adults can’t forget that the very foundation of many young people’s lives has broken apart in the past few years. At their core, teens and children crave a sense of security, yet consistency and normalcy have been missing since early 2020.
At a time when the human side of students especially needs attending to, they go to school and their teacher — or any teacher — may or may not be standing at the front of the class.
Given the patchwork way that learning has taken place for two years, many students can’t keep up. Others are anxious about being in classrooms or in the school cafeteria.
It’s tempting to want to pretend that young people are OK. Nothing makes parents more uncomfortable and scared than when our kids experience something bad.
But Sonya believes there’s a considerable cover-up at work: “To survive in this teen world, you have to maintain a certain posture, a certain attitude.”
Young people also are skilled at keeping things from parents that they fear will upset them. “If Mom is going to freak out over my showing anxiety, better to retreat into silence,” Vanita said.
But some adolescents reach “this hard place in their life and they don’t know where to go with that,” Amy said.
That’s when tragedies can occur — which is why parents need to stay tuned in.
Research into the factors involved in death by suicide is hardly settled. Mental illness can be a factor; so can resilience.
Vanita is a mental health advocate, not a medical professional. But her more than 15 years of experience tells her death by suicide is caused by a stew of genetics and circumstances.
“Our personalities don’t fit into neat columns,” she said. “It’s not ‘they didn’t have enough resilience’ or ‘they did have mental illness.’ Everything contributes.”
The Grant Halliburton Foundation believes developing the muscle that helps a person handle hard things is important for us all. Allowing kids to struggle a little bit while parents are there to boost them along isn’t a bad thing. Neither is resilience an impenetrable firewall.
The pandemic has brought home to many parents the importance of stepping up in regard to their children’s mental health. In 2021, the Halliburton team presented its strategies and tools to almost 30,000 adults and young people during in-person and online sessions.
“We will present to anyone who is willing to listen,” Sonya said.
Even when we round that too-far-to-yet-see corner of this pandemic, parents will need to keep walking patiently alongside their kids.
When we get to whatever the new normal is, we all will have a lot of emotional baggage to unpack — fears and concerns that we’ve tamped down for more than two years.
That may be hardest on our children, many of whom have missed out on so much — both life events and their own development — and who scarcely remember a pandemic-free world.
“We are going to all have to be vigilant about helping them get strong again,” Vanita said.
That means having those hard conversations, talking about tools for mindfulness and resilience, and not being afraid to ask for help. (See accompanying information on tips and resources.)
“We want people to understand that even in the midst of all the problems that are going on, there is always hope,” Vanita said. “We are here to connect people with both hope and health.”
Lifelines of support
Here For Texas Mental Health Navigation Line: Grant Halliburton Foundation initiative that connects North Texans with mental-health resources customized to each caller at 972-525-8181, or go to HereForTexas.com.
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 24-hour crisis hotline at 1-800-273-8255. Confidential online chat is available at suicidepreventionlifeline.org.
Crisis Text Line: 24-hour support by texting HOME to 741741. More information at crisistextline.org.
North Texas Behavioral Health Authority: 24-hour crisis hotline at 1-866-260-8000 or go to ntbha.org.
Suicide and Crisis Center of North Texas: Speak to a trained counselor on the 24-hour hotline at 214-828-1000 or 800-273-8255 or go to sccenter.org.
Dallas Metrocare Services: For help, call 1-877-283-2121 or go to metrocareservices.org.
Building resilience
— Find joy: Make time for things that give you joy and positive emotions.
— Experience your emotions: Rather than bottle up or ignore feelings, notice, name and reflect on your emotions.
— Foster positive relationships: It’s also OK to lean on others and ask for help.
— Hug a friend or loved one: This releases “feel-good” hormones, like oxytocin, in your brain.
— Give back: Simple acts of kindness not only positively impact another person; they empower us too.
— Practice mindfulness consistently: Slow your breathing and focus your attention on one thing. Try a grounding exercise like noticing 5 things you can see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, and 1 thing you can taste.
— Create space to explore your priorities and goals: Journaling is great for this.
— Fuel yourself: Drink plenty of water and eat nutritious food.
— Get regular exercise: Anything else that gets your body moving.
— Practice self-care: Prioritize moments to listen to music, create something new, play with your pet, etc.
SOURCE: Grant Halliburton Foundation
