It’s time. People need to speak up about depression and suicide and make it normal to talk about it. Right now, teenage depression is a serious problem facing our country. It cannot be taken lightly. Rapper Logic has taken a major step forward with his song “1-800-273-8255,” which is the number for the suicide hotline. The song’s music video is about a gay teen who is not accepted by his peers and is debating suicide. The lyrics mention things like “I just wanna die” and “it feels like my life ain’t mine, who can relate?” Whether they are gay or not, plenty of teens have suicidal thoughts, but those who are not affected rarely give it a thought. Other artists need to follow Logic’s example and make this topic easier to talk about.

“I just want to take a moment right now and thank you for giving me a platform to talk about something that mainstream media doesn’t want to talk about: mental health, anxiety, suicide, depression and so much more that I talk about on this album,”  Logic said during his 2017 VMA performance.

According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States. On average, there are 121 suicides per day. Having someone who possesses as large of  platform as Logic does, talking about something this serious gives others hope. One listener left a comment on the Youtube video saying, “Thank you so much… I don’t know what else to say but thank you so much. This song helped me and you do wonders. Keep it up man. You helped me and so many others.”

The song is also helping people have the guts to call the suicide hotline. According to John Draper, the director of the National Suicide Prevention hotline, the day that the song was released was also their “second-highest call volume.” The suicide hotline is something that did not get nearly this much attention and credit before Logic released the song titled after it. And the best part of all of this was that the day that the song dropped they knew how busy they were going to be. But they didn’t shy away from it all and get afraid. Instead, they alerted all of the centers that the song was coming out ahead of time so that they could bring in more people or prepare in whatever way they saw fit.

Suicide is a serious topic and also one that is slowly becoming easier and easier to talk about. Between this song, Chester Bennington and Chris Cornell’s suicides this year and the Netflix original show “13 Reasons Why” (based off of the book “13 Reasons Why” by Jay Asher), the conversation about suicide is working its way into everyday life by brave people like Jay Asher, Logic and Selena Gomez forcing it to be. This is something that needs to be talked about because of how many people go through losing someone to suicide or have suicidal thoughts themselves.

If you or anyone you know is thinking of committing suicide or shows any of the warning signs, do not be afraid to reach out and talk to people. Contact your friends, talk to your family, call the lifeline. Please don’t hold this in. Please don’t give in. The world needs you here. We all need you.