One thousand, one hundred.
It’s a big number, especially when referring to something as painful as suicide.
Every year 1,100 college students commit suicide.
That’s why non-profit organization Active Minds came to Penn State on Wednesday, where volunteers set up 1,100 backpacks as a poignant visual reminder of the impact of suicide and the stigma that surrounds depression and other mental illnesses. The display, known as “Send Silence Packing,” travels the country, stopping at hundreds of college campuses in an effort to bring that 1,100 down to zero.
Many of the backpacks were donated by families that have lost someone to suicide. Attached to some of the backpacks were deeply moving tributes to loved ones now lost. “He loved us so much he tried to hide his pain instead of sharing it with us because he thought that he was sparing us,” read one such tribute from a set of grieving parents. “Our son did NOT spare us.”
Penn State senior Sam Bukowski helped bring the touring exhibit to Penn State as a way to “humanize this important issue, so it becomes more than just a number or a statistic.” Having struggled with depression herself, she knows how it important it is to help people understand mental illness and why it can be hard for people reach out to their loved ones for help.
“When I was struggling with depression, there was a point where I don’t know what was happening or what I was feeling,” Bukowski says. “It took friends and family coming to me, asking what was wrong, telling me that I hadn’t been myself for me to realize what I was going through.”
Penn State senior Leslie Clausen thinks it’s incredibly vital for friends and family members to look out for each other, and to engage in meaningful conversations about their troubles to help catch early warning signs of depression. As Clausen looked on the rows of backpacks stretching before her, her eyes filled with tears as she thought about her best friend who took her own life three years ago.
“It’s hard. It’s painful. It’s strange, to have someone there one day and then gone the next,” Clausen says. “Once you lose someone like that, you never want to lose anyone ever again.”
Penn State junior Carl Pietrusinski admits he visited the exhibit for a class assignment, but says he was deeply moved by the stark scene. Only two days earlier, one of his classmates from high school committed suicide.
Pietrusinski says it’s very difficult for people to have honest conversations about suicide and depression, but that’s exactly why those conversations are so important. If people are more comfortable talking about it, then maybe people struggling will be more comfortable coming forward.
“I’d sit and talk with anyone if it would help change their life,” Pietrusinski says. “And I think most people would do the same.”
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