This week is mental health awareness week at LZHS. The club Lifeline has dedicated each day of the week to a certain mental illness, and Lifeline would like students to wear the certain color dedicated to the disorder to create awareness and show support.

Starting the week off with purple for eating disorder awareness, the mental disorders

acknowledge this week are the most common mental disorders among teenagers; Tuesday is green for depression, Wednesday is yellow for suicide awareness, Thursday is for anxiety, and Friday is orange for self-injury.

“Creating awareness is important because not many people are educated on the different types of mental illnesses and don’t know how to get help,” Ali Young, junior said. “Once people realize many other students are dealing with the same issues, they will not feel so alone.”

And having more information is better. Knowing the symptoms of mental illnesses and being educated on what to do can help yourself or a friend.

Eating disorders are a serious and potentially life-threatening disease if not treated.  Eating disorders affects a person’s emotional and physical health, and have compulsiveness habit associated with food. In the United States, 20 million women and 10 million men suffer from a clinical eating disorder sometime in their life, according to the National Eating Disorder Website. Eating disorders not only affect women, but also affect men.

11 percent of adolescents have a form of depression by the age of 18 according to National Comorbidity Survey-Adolescent Supplement (NCS-A). Depression is a common illness that affects a person’s daily life; depression is not just having the blues or a few sad days. Someone can develop depression from multiple factors such as genetic, biological, environmental and psychological.

Suicide is the third leading cause of death for people between the ages 15 to 24 according to the Centers for Disease.  Warning signs before an attempt of suicide is very common. Some warning signs are: disinterest in favorite activities, giving away variables, and decline in school work.

Anxiety can be a phase. However, anxiety can turn into a disorder. People who suffer from an anxiety disorder are constantly or show fear, nervousness, shyness, and avoid certain places or people; it takes more than relaxation and comfort to make the anxiety go away.

Self-injury is an act of purposely destroy body tissue in hopes of “numbing” feelings or as a coping method, and is becoming more popular among teenagers. This is not just something someone who is depressed does, but self-injury can affect anyone who has too much to cope with.  Many factors can contribute to someone to result to self-injury.

None of these disorders are an act for attention and need to be taken seriously. If someone shows sign of any of these disorders, speak up and get them help. Show the fellow student body who suffer from mental disorders love and support by wearing the colors.

“Keep loving yourself through any mental illness you might have,” Young said. “And know you are more than your illness.”