Three things happened on Friday that I can’t get out of my head. On the surface, they’re unrelated. But in my head, they’re intricately woven and the direct result of what happens when we continue to stigmatize mental illness, cut mental health services, and look the other way when people are desperately struggling.

First, I read a story on ABC7Chicago’s website about a woman named Carol Coronado from Torrance, California who murdered her three daughters. Ms. Coronado is 30, married, and was the mother of three girls, ages 2 years, 16 months, and 2 months. According to the story, she stabbed the children to death as her husband was doing work directly outside their home and then laid them out neat and orderly on a bed. She also stabbed herself. Shortly after murdering her daughters, her mother arrived for a visit, found the children,  and ran out of the house screaming with one of the bloody knives in her hand. Allegedly, Ms. Coronado called her mother to come over saying she was “going crazy.”

In the days since I first read about this horrific crime, none of the articles I’ve read have made any statements about Ms. Coronado’s mental health, but my first thought was “with three girls that young and having just given birth two months ago, she’s probably got untreated postpartum depression or postpartum psychosis.” Just like with other forms of mental illness, we don’t talk about postpartum depression. Women are supposed to be happy about having babies and often feel ashamed of the other, more negative, emotions they’re feeling. That can stop them from getting the help they need. That and not having access to help.

A few minutes later, I read the New York Times article, Depressed, but not ashamed, by Madeline Halpert and Eva Rosenfeld, two high school students who are co-editors of their school paper in Ann Arbor, Michigan. They discovered that they were both taking Prozac for depression when they shared a hotel room at a journalism conference. As they discussed their personal struggles with mental illness, they realized that they weren’t alone and they wanted to end the stigma against depression and mental illness by devoting an entire edition of their paper to the topic.

They would share their personal stories, along with the stories of their classmates using real names (with written permission of their classmates and their parents). The staff of the paper interviewed students and prepared stories about depression, eating disorders, homelessness, insomnia, and anxiety. At the last minute, as they were assembling the edition of the newspaper, the administration told the editors that they could not publish the issue with the students’ names because, after consulting with a mental health professional, the administration decided that reading their names in the paper associated with their mental illness stories could trigger some students to relapse, could open them up to bullying, and the students might regret their decision to open up later in life.

Could and might. Nothing absolute. Just could and might.

On one level, I understand the concerns of the administration. Honestly, I really do. I understand that it’s their job to look out for what they believe to be the best interests of the students. On another, more deeper level, I know that aloneness and shame creates and reinforces stigma and discrimination that exists around mental illness. I wish the administration had done more to figure out how to address this important topic in a personal way that supported the students and created a safe environment for them to discuss mental illness. I have no doubt that the administration would have allowed stories identifying a student with cancer (assuming of course permissions was given by the student and his/her parents) and have to wonder if their own fears got in the way of the mental illness edition of the paper.

Finally, Friday night, an obviously disturbed young man shot and killed six people and injured 13 more, before killing himself, on the campus of University of California at Santa Barbara, allegedly because he felt so isolated and rejected by women. He left a 140-page manifesto and many YouTube videos detailing his struggles to fit in and obtain affection from women. His parents tried to intervene and get him the additional help he needed on at least two occasions. The police came to his apartment for a well-being check, but found nothing so out of the ordinary that would allow them to forcibly get him help. Evidently, he was seeing at least one counselor.

So here we have three completely separate incidents in different parts of the country, yet they all have one thing in common: mental illness.

Two stories of people not getting the mental health help they clearly desperately needed and becoming unfathomably violent and one story attempting to bring mental illness out of the shadows. I have no illusion that the editors of the student newspaper in Ann Arbor were thinking that their issue focused on mental illness could help prevent violence in the long term. They were simply focused on the stigma and the isolation that so many people with mental illness feel that often prevents them from getting help today. But their issue could have saved lives. And that would have made it worth the risks.

It breaks my heart that these three stories have been in the news lately. I desperately want to live in a world where people with mental illness aren’t so marginalized.

I imagine a future in which the students from Ann Arbor had been permitted to publish the mental health edition of their paper. Students learn empathy towards one another and those who are different from them. They have discussions about mental illness at their dinner tables and in their classrooms with their other students, teachers, and families, spreading the reach and impact of the newspaper. Students who are struggling, but currently too ashamed to get help, reach out. People learn how to recognize signs of despair and suffering that aren’t always obvious. People help one another. Those with mental illness learn better coping skills and feel accepted for who they are, not alienated for who they aren’t. Years from now, women who feel the “baby blues” recognize it as a legitimate and treatable illness rather than a personal failing and get help. Lives are saved.

Lives are saved.

Lives are saved.

That’s the world I want to live in. I believe we can live in that world, but it takes education and some risk taking. I applaud the editors of the student newspaper and the students and parents who gave their permission to participate using their own names. Their actions took courage. Yes, stepping out of the mental illness shadows and fully owning who we are is scary. From my own experience with my mom and sharing what I have of my own personal struggles, it’s also liberating and strength building.

We can end, or at least significantly reduce, the lives lost to mental illness. We owe it to each other.

Read my other posts about mental illness: 10 Things I Know About Mental Illness and 17 Ways to Help Yourself When You Have Mental Illness.

Like Little Merry Sunshine on Facebook, follow me on Twitter and Pinterest, and see my pictures on Instagram to keep up with the latest goings on.

You can also receive immediate notification of each blog post by typing your email address in the box below and clicking the “create subscription” button. My list is completely spam free, and you can opt out at any time.