Alive To 25

May is Mental Health Month.

In one sense, that is amazing. We now have a whole month dedicated to conversations about how people are surviving mentally and emotionally.

In another sense, it’s hard not to think: seriously? This matters every single day.

This year, I struggled with how I wanted to approach writing about it.

Then last week, I learned of another incident, a young person ending their life.

When I worked in policing, I saw versions of the same story over and over again. It crossed every demographic imaginable. Wealthy families. Struggling families. Popular kids. Isolated kids. Police families. Families with no connection to policing at all.

Mental health does not discriminate.

But this year, I want to specifically talk about boys and young men.

Because I can no longer ignore the research, or the reality.

Young men are consistently among the highest-risk groups for death by suicide, and researchers continue to point to the role of emotional development, impulsivity, social pressure, and delayed brain maturation in adolescence and early adulthood. Studies show that the areas of the brain responsible for judgment, emotional regulation, and risk assessment continue developing well into the mid-20s for young men.

Years ago, when I was the Chief of Police in my hometown, my son was preparing to leave elementary school and enter high school. I remember standing at a public event speaking with two veteran youth workers who had spent decades working with teenagers.

I asked them what advice they had for me as a Mom. My son was about to enter a world where he would suddenly be surrounded by older teens, young adults driving cars, experimenting with alcohol and drugs, navigating relationships, sex, peer pressure, and independence.

I will never forget what they said to me:

“Your job is to keep your son alive until he is 25.”

That was it.

Simple. Direct. Unforgettable.

And from that moment on, my motto as a Mom became:

Alive To 25.

Honestly, there were moments I considered changing it to “Alive Until 30,” but I’m still operating in the under-25 parenting years, so maybe there’s time.

What changed for me after that conversation was perspective.

I stopped expecting teenage boys to process life the way adults do.

I began understanding that many young men genuinely do not yet have the neurological development to think themselves through overwhelming emotional situations, high-risk decisions, or moments of despair the same way an older adult can.

And that’s where the heartbreak comes in.

Because throughout my policing career, I met families forced to live with the unimaginable loss of a teenage boy or young man who chose suicide over what, to the outside world, seemed like a temporary problem.

But temporary pain can feel permanent to a young person.

The situations were heartbreakingly consistent:

• The end of a relationship.

  As adults, we understand most people do not marry their first love. But for a teenage boy experiencing heartbreak for the first time, it can genuinely feel like the end of the world.

• Conflict at home.

  Curfews. Friends. Video games. Cell phones. Rules. To adults, these arguments can seem small. To a young person, they can feel enormous.

• School and future pressure.

  Grades. University. Career expectations. The pressure to “figure life out” at 17 or 18 can be crushing. We need to stop acting like every young person must have their entire future mapped out before their brain has even fully matured.

• Bullying and humiliation.

  Adults often dismiss bullying with “we all went through it.” But school is a young person’s entire world. When humiliation follows them all day and now online all night, it can feel endless.

• Online mistakes.

  Sending an intimate photo. Posting something impulsive. Making one bad digital decision. Young people often cannot fully comprehend the permanence or consequences of online behavior until the fallout arrives.

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I could list dozens more examples from policing. But the point is this:

Most families will likely encounter at least one of these struggles with their children.

So how do we help keep them alive until 25?

For me, I chose honesty. I sat my son down and explained the science in plain language.

I told him that the parts of his brain responsible for judgment, impulse control, and long-term decision-making were still developing, and that this was normal, not weakness, not stupidity, not failure.

Then I talked openly about what I had seen in policing.

Reckless driving. Drinking. Dangerous stunts. Fights. Weapons. Accidental deaths. Suicide.

I explained that many of the young men I encountered never intended to die. They simply made decisions without fully understanding the risks or permanence of those moments.

And when we talked about suicide, I made one thing clear:

Feelings are temporary, even when they feel unbearable.

I told him there would be moments in life where heartbreak, embarrassment, rejection, shame, loneliness, or pressure would convince him that things would never improve.

But they would.

And if those moments ever came, my job was not to judge him. My job was to sit beside him long enough for the moment to pass.

That became the foundation of everything else and I told him the motto for us both- “Alive To 25”. He agreed, that we would discuss issues and concerns openly while he was developing the skills needed to navigate some of it on his own.

Not lectures.

Presence.

Sometimes that looked like reminders: Drive safe. Wear your seatbelt. Don’t drink and drive. Call me anytime. I’ll come get you. Take your time.

And sometimes it looked like silence. Turning off my phone. Sitting together. Watching a show. Going for food. Staying close when something felt heavy, even if neither of us had the words.

I didn’t always have solutions.

But I constantly reminded myself:

I was viewing situations through an adult brain. They were experiencing them through a developing one.

So what do I want to say this Mental Health Month?

Two things.

To boys and young men:

What you are feeling is real. The pain, pressure, rejection, loneliness, embarrassment, heartbreak — all of it is real.

But it is also temporary.

The only truly permanent decision is ending your life.

Think back to another difficult period in your life. At the time, did it feel endless? And yet somehow, eventually, it changed. The same is true now, even if you cannot see it yet.

Call someone. Text someone. Wake somebody up. Go to a hospital. Sit with someone until the feeling passes. Promise someone you trust that you will not make a permanent decision in a temporary moment.

Then keep that promise.

And to everyone else:

Please stop deciding whether someone’s pain is “serious enough” based on how you would personally react.

That is not how compassion works.

What matters is that someone you care about is hurting.

Listen without minimizing. Sit without fixing. Support without judgment.

The smallest acts matter more than you think: A text message. A hug. An invitation. A conversation. A reminder that they matter.

And do those things consistently, not only during a crisis.

Because the reality is that many people struggling will never directly tell you.

If someone trusts you enough to share their pain, that is not an inconvenience. It is an opportunity.

May is Mental Health Month.

But there are 11 other months in the year.

Please do not make caring about people a seasonal event.

There are available crisis help lines in almost every country around the world, have a number ready for when you or someone you care about needs it.

Always remember;

"There is only one of you in this world, always be yourself. You matter in this world".

Jennifer Hyland