A year ago this month, Nate Moller, 18, of Shoreview, was shocked to learn that a longtime friend had killed himself.
“The whole school talked about it the next day,” he said. “It didn’t really seem real. I wish I could have known what he was going through.”
After the shock wore off, he felt those other emotions of grief — confusion over why his friend had done it, intense sadness and anger. It was the anger that motivated him to speak out about suicide and mental illness.
On Sunday, May 5, he and friend Amelia Podolny, 17, both seniors at Mounds View High School, will host a 5k walk at Long Lake Regional Park in New Brighton to raise awareness and funds for education programs about suicide prevention.
The walk is sponsored through the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Half of the funds raised will stay in Minnesota. The other half will go toward research and prevention, said Cassandra Linkenmeyer, the Minnesota area director for AFSP.
The teens have raised over $9,000 and hope to reach $15,000 on the event day.
The organization’s efforts are three-pronged: prevention (keeping suicide from happening), intervention (how to help someone in crisis) and postvention (healing for those affected by suicide). AFSP provides a toolkit for people who want to host a walk, as well as banners and fliers, similar to the ones seen at a community walk held at Como Park last September.
“It’s something that should be discussed,” Moller said. “It affects a lot of people. I want people to know that you might feel alone in your struggles. But you are not alone.”
Suicide is the tenth leading cause of death in the U.S., according to AFSP. It’s the second leading cause of death in Minnesota for ages 15 to 34. In 2018, 745 people died by their own hand.
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Moller and Podolny will start off the event at 11:30 a.m. by speaking about their own experiences. Moller will talk about his friend, and Podolny will talk about her own struggle with anxiety, panic and obsessive-compulsive disorders.
“I’ve been affected by mental health issues my whole life,” she said. “The hardest part for me after my friend took his life was knowing he couldn’t talk about it to anyone. It’s been really hard for me to open up about what I’ve been through. I felt so bad that he felt alone. I just wanted to be involved to let people know there are people there for you.”
Mental health is difficult to talk about publicly. For this reason, the walk will feature colored bead necklaces that people can wear to signal their reason for supporting the event.
Moller and Podolny will both be wearing purple beads to signify the death of a friend. White beads mean the death of a child, orange the loss of a sibling, red means the loss of a spouse. Green beads signify a personal attempt at suicide, or a struggle with suicidal thoughts.
After Moller’s friend died, he volunteered at other walks for suicide prevention and was surprised at the many people he saw wearing green beads.
“It’s more common than you would think,” Podolny said. “If you struggle with mental illness or suicidal thoughts, it’s not something that should be kept in the closet. Being there and being supportive for each other is important. It’s a real issue that can be improved and hopefully one day resolved.”