myth: Talk about suicide is an idle threat that need not be taken seriously.
fact: Suicide is the third leading cause of death among high school students and the second leading in college students. Talk about suicide should always be taken seriously.
myth: Childhood mental health problems are the result of poor parenting
fact: If someone in your family has a mental illness, then you may have a greater chance of developing the illness, but mental illness generally has little or nothing to do with parenting.
myth: We're good people. Mental illness doesn't happen in our family.
fact: One in four families is affected by a mental health problem.
- National Alliance for the Mentally Ill.
myth: Eating disorders only affect celebrities and models.
fact: 3 to 5 percent of teenage girls have a diagnosable eating disorder. The age of the youngest childrent to be diganosed ahs slipped to 9 years of age. Anorexia affects 2.5 million Americans and has the hightest mortality rate of any mental illness. Boys now account for 4 to 10 percent of the patients with eating disorders.
myth: Children are too young to get depressed, it must be something else.
fact: More than two million children suffer from depression in the United States and more than half of them go untreated.
- US Center for Mental Health Services
myth: People who abuse drugs aren't sick, they're just weak.
fact: Over 66% of young people with a substance use disorder have a co-occurring mental health problem which complicates treatment.
- Surgeon General's Report on Mental Health
myth: Troubled youth just need more discipline.
fact: Almost 20% of youths in juvenile justice facilities have a serious emotional disturbance and most have a diagnosable mental disorder.
- US Department of Justice
myth: Teenagers don't suffer from "real" mental illnesses - they are just moody.
fact: One in five teens has some type of mental health problem in a given year. Ten million children and adolescents suffer from a diagnosable psychiatric disorder.
National Institue of Mental Health/Harvard University Study June 2005