Why Are More Black Kids Suicidal? A Search for Answers.

It reads:

Part of me is Carolina Blue,
Full of Flavor and Excitement,
Like a Wild Rollercoaster
On the Loose.

But, At times,
I’m mean, dark, lonely,
Black, mad at the world,
Like a lost dog in the desert,

Yet, they are both true,
And they are both me.

“Wow, this is the way my child was feeling,” she recalled thinking at the time.

“I saw him angry at times and couldn’t figure out why,” she said of her son, who was 15 when he died. “I believe Torian was depressed and we didn’t know it.”

To help remove the stigma associated with therapy, Dr. Lindsey has developed a pilot program at five New York City public middle and high schools that recruits Black youths who are experiencing symptoms of depression and enrolls them in therapy with a clinician at a school-based mental health clinic.

When parents are informed that their children have mental health challenges, they often feel as if they did something wrong, Dr. Lindsey said.

“The first thing we tell them is this is not your fault, this is not the result of bad parenting,” he added.

As for Joe, who had been struggling with depression in Boston, he did eventually find a therapist with the help of his mother and his primary care doctor, and started therapy at the beginning of 12th grade.

“Talking to someone every Wednesday for one hour, it just did something,” he said. “It made me feel like a person, like I was wanted.”