"All suicide threats should be taken seriously--but equally seriously. Whether someone's life is perfect or whether they're going through an especially tough event, everyone needs to be taken seriously. Following the suicide of a fellow student, conversations can turn to victim-shaming. They talk about how much the event has hurt the community; they say that the responsibility was on the shoulders of the afflicted person to get help. They can lead us to witch hunts, looking for people who appear to be 'unwell' and cornering them into talking to authority. And a lot of this comes from hearing about mental illness from people who haven't actually experienced it--people who are on the outside.
"That's something that's important to me: to listen to people tell their own stories, and talk about their own experiences, so you know you're not alone. I had difficulty getting help for my bipolar disorder because I was surrounded by people who thought I was just looking for attention, rather than actually suffering. It wasn't until my senior year of high school in my AP psychology course that I realized I wasn't just an attention-seeker. We read through chapters on mental illness, and I said, 'Wait...most people don't feel like this?' An event like that is why we need to hear from people's own experiences and fight the stigma: so that you know you're not alone. So you know that other people have similar issues, are fighting similar battles, and are still leading fulfilling lives."