Mental Illness and School Shootings — Far More Deadly Than You Know
My heart goes out to the families of the 17 victims in yesterday’s tragic shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. It also goes out to the families of the 16 (on average) 10–24 year olds who died by suicide yesterday. And the 16 dying today. And the 16 who will die tomorrow.
There’s something I want to tell you that may forever change your understanding of mental illness and its deadly effects in our schools, communities, and nation as a whole. It’s the reason why the tragedy of the 17 innocent people gunned down is only the tip of the iceberg.
So, let’s talk about redheads.
Compared to other hair colors, red is relatively uncommon at only 1–2% of the population. Still, with 3 to 6 million redheads in the US, it’s hardly rare. If I asked you to write down the names of ten people you knew who had red hair, I’ll bet you could. If you had time to think through friends, family, actors, athletes, world leaders, and all of the other people who you know or know of, it should be pretty easy. Watch, Prince Harry, Molly Ringwald, and the Weasleys. Done.
I’m sure it’s not always easy to be a redhead. “Weirder than a me-headed step child” and being on the receiving end of Kick a Ginger Day, probably really sucks. ( National Kick a Ginger Kicker Day? )
Still, most redheads seem very comfortable showing their hair wherever they go. Dipshits who kick people notwithstanding, as a society we are very accepting of redheads. Sure we know of terrible people who have red hair, but we obviously don’t think it’s because of their hair color. For every mugshot, we have a hundred images of good people with red hair.
Imagine something changed. Imagine red hair suddenly became a dark and shameful thing. So much so that every person with red hair started wearing hats to cover it up. They wore them at home, at work, in bed at night, in fact the only people who took them off were mass shooters and only for mug shots. Imagine if we started seeing headlines like: “Florida Governor: how do we make sure that gingers do not touch a gun?” and “President Trump: Red hair is the reason why teen shot up school.” What if that kind of news made every redhead feel a little more afraid and ashamed, causing them to double check their hat was always completely covering their hair.
Now, imagine all of those hats were made from a fabric manufactured using a hazardous substance. I mean really hazardous. 15 out of every 100 people wearing the hats died, and as a whole, wearing them reduced life expectancy by 10 to 20 years. The good news for redheads — there is a 90% chance if they stopped wearing the hat and went to see a doctor, they’d make a full recovery. The bad news — if they took off their hat they may alienate their friends and family, lose their job, and be added to government list of potentially dangerous people. Would it surprise you if most of them kept their hat on until they collapsed or died?
You’ve probably caught on by now, I’m not talking about redheads. I’m talking about mental illness, specifically bipolar. Like red hair, bipolar is also not a rare condition. For every 10 people with red hair, there are 15 to 25 with bipolar. 15% of us die as a result of the condition, which is part of why we live 10–20 years less than average as a whole. We have treatments with 80% success rates. And other treatments with 80% success rates for the 20% who didn’t get better from the first.
Which means suicides are nearly always preventable with the right treatment. The fact that 16 young people (10–24) still die by suicide every day is perhaps the greatest tragedy of our times. They don’t die because of a mass shooter. They don’t die from an incurable disease. The truth is many of them die because death is preferable to the shame and fear of admitting they, like all the shooters on the news, have a mental illness. They are scared to death.
It is tragic that 239 shooters killed 138 innocent people in schools over the last 6 years. It is also tragic that 5,900 young people died by suicide in 2014 alone.
What might happen if the same level of exhaustive news coverage and laser focus was directed towards some of the millions of people with bipolar who are doing great things for society and live lives filled with love and compassion? Would those role models taking off their hats be enough to inspire courage for others to do the same and seek out help?
Alright, if you had a tough time coming up with a list of redheads, I’ll give you another chance with something a little easier. There’s at least a million more people with bipolar than red hair, so this should be a snap.
If I asked you to write down the names of ten people you know or know of who have bipolar, could you?
If so, hats off to you.
If not, let me give you a hand:
Hats of to all the wonderful people with a mental illness.
As always, would love to hear your thoughts! If this resonates with you, please share and expand the conversation; if not, please share and expand the conversation. :-)
Learn more about Open Labs and the Open Movement at openlabs.world!
If you need help or someone to talk to who understands call 800–273–8255 or go to https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
