"Best, Brightest — and Saddest?"

"Between May 2009 and January 2010, five Palo Alto teenagers ended their lives by stepping in front of trains. And since October of last year, another three Palo Alto teenagers have killed themselves that way, prompting longer hours by more sentries along the tracks. The Palo Alto Weekly refers to the deaths as a “suicide contagion.”...
Children here grow up in the shadow of Stanford University, which established a new precedent for exclusivity during the recent admissions season, accepting just 5 percent of its applicants.


They grow up with parents who have scaled the pinnacles of their professions or are determined to have their offspring do precisely that. They grow up with advanced-placement classes galore, convinced that their futures hinge on perfect SAT scores and preternatural grade-point averages. Experts on sleep are in keen demand. The kids here don’t get enough of it....

“There’s something about childhood itself in Palo Alto and in communities like Palo Alto that undermines the mental health and wellness of our children,” Julie Lythcott-Haims told me."
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/12/opinion/sunday/frank-bruni-best-brightest-and-saddest.html

The comment I left on the article (which, also - reading the comments was such an unusual experience. It's like, all these strangers identifying all the sources of all my neuroticisms):

I graduated from Palo Alto High School in May 2009, and I can't tell you how exciting it is to finally see real attention coming to this issue - which has been the status quo in the area for so long that it's hard to start momentum. Middle and high school students have been talking to each other about this for at least a decade, and there are some great parents and teachers and community members who have been concerned, but I still haven't seen any real, impactful response. 

My friends and classmates from Palo Alto are some of the most wonderful, interesting, bright and motivated people I know - and this is partially because Palo Alto is an amazing place to grow up. But it can also be incredibly toxic, and so many of us carry these assaults to our mental health into our college lives and beyond.

I used to be concerned with identifying the source of the problem (parents? teachers? school policies?), but with more perspective I am now struck but the incredible resources that we have at our disposal in Palo Alto and the tremendous opportunities to use them to comprehensively address mental health. I am seeing energy build in Palo Alto and the Palo Alto alumni community, and am hopeful that we will see much needed change.