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Published at 2:23 pm, November 4, 2024
| Updated at 2:25 pm, November 4, 2024
Pooja Mehta, a mental health advocate, with her younger brother, Raj, who died by suicide in March 2020. Raj’s death came in the midst of decades of unsuccessful attempts to lower suicide rates nationwide. “We’ve done a really good job at developing solutions for a part of the problem,” Mehta says. “But we really don’t know enough.” | Courtesy Portia Eastman
Cheryl Platzman Weinstock, KFF Health News
Pooja Mehta, a mental health advocate, with her younger brother, Raj, who died by suicide in March 2020. Raj’s death came in the midst of decades of unsuccessful attempts to lower suicide rates nationwide. “We’ve done a really good job at developing solutions for a part of the problem,” Mehta says. “But we really don’t know enough.” | Courtesy Portia Eastman
ARLINGTON, Virginia (KFF Health News) — When Pooja Mehta’s younger brother, Raj, died by suicide at 19 in March 2020, she felt “blindsided.”
Raj’s last text message was to his college lab partner about how to divide homework questions.
“You don’t say you’re going to take questions 1 through 15 if you’re planning to be dead one hour later,” said Mehta, 29, a mental health and suicide prevention advocate in Arlington, Virginia. She had been trained in Mental Health First Aid — a nationwide program that teaches how to identify, understand, and respond to signs of mental illness — yet she said her brother showed no signs of trouble.
Source:
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