On a warm spring day, four teenagers settled themselves around a table on an outdoor patio. The evening sun was growing dimmer, making the lights hanging from the umbrella above them twinkle.

More lights — a blend of reds, greens, whites and blues — were draped along trees and the fence lining the backyard. Birdhouses were nestled in trees. It was as if a fairy house had been plopped down in the middle of a Highlands Ranch subdivision.

The warmth and comfort of the home, which belongs to Amy Mays, the founder of a nonprofit organization that seeks to destigmatize mental health issues, wrapped around the teens, welcoming them to talk about topics they don’t always feel comfortable discussing with their parents, friends or teachers.

They chatted about the pressure they feel in school and the colleges they’ve been accepted into — and, at times, they talked about suicide.

Suicide has become a reality teenagers face across Colorado, as the number of youths killing themselves has increased, solidifying it as the leading cause of death in this state for individuals between the ages of 10 and 24. Between 2015 and 2017, there were 533 suicides by teens and children, up from 340 such deaths between 2003 and 2005, according to a report by the Colorado Attorney General’s Office.

But even as multiple high school students in the Denver area have died by suicide in recent weeks, and many students can name friends or classmates who have died or tried to harm themselves, teenagers say they struggle to find people to talk to as openly as they would like to about mental health.

Teenagers say part of the difficulty they face when reaching out for help is that their parents, teachers and school administrators came of age during a time when mental health — a topic often laced with stigma and shame — was a subject to be avoided or dismissed. So even when conversations are happening, teenagers say they sometimes aren’t going far enough.

“I have a friend who attempted suicide two months ago,” Sarah Ridlen, a freshman at Rock Canyon High School in Highlands Ranch, told the others at the table. “I am watching out for her obviously.”

How is she doing? asked Elise Neff, a mentor and board member with Mays’ nonprofit organization, Happy Crew, who sat with the teenagers at the table.

“Right now she’s doing better; she’s taking new medications,” Ridlen replied. “No one really knew before she was suicidal.”

‘It is a huge topic right now’

High schools around the Denver metro area have coped with multiple student suicides in recent weeks, including two teenagers at Cherry Creek High School, as well as a student from Eaglecrest High School, also in the Cherry Creek district, and, according to 9News, a student at Valor Christian High School in Highlands Ranch.

Suicide prevention resources Colorado Crisis Line: 1-844-493-8255, coloradocrisisservices.org. Chat online or text TALK to 38255.

Mental Health First Aid: mhfaco.org. Get trained to recognize the signs and how to respond.

American Foundation for Suicide Prevention: afsp.org. Join one of their upcoming walks for awareness in Colorado.

Crisis Text Line: crisistextline.org. Text 741741 from anywhere in the nation to reach a counselor.

Second Wind Fund: thesecondwindfund.org. Links students to mental health professionals and pays for up to 12 counseling sessions.

But teenagers said such discussions about suicide only become a priority after a death, and then, after a few weeks, it stops.

In the end, they said, nothing changes.

“I think that while it is a huge topic right now, it will fade off and that is what makes kids think that it is OK to commit suicide,” said Anna Neff, 15, one of the teenagers at the table, a few days after the Happy Crew meeting.

Suicide, the teenagers said, shouldn’t be thought about that way because people don’t forget losing a friend or classmate.

Teenagers’ push to raise awareness about mental health and youth suicide came into the spotlight this month when students walked out of their classrooms at Cherry Creek High after the death of a freshman in February.

Junior Meg Wyman was one of the students who spoke about their own experiences with mental illness.

One of the challenges in talking about suicide, she said, comes from parents, teachers, school administrators having grown up in a culture where the approach to mental illnesses was to “suck it up and deal with it.” But students need to be taken seriously before they harm themselves, Wyman said.

“Even if they’re mental health professionals, they still might have that underlining attitude about mental health,” she said.

For example, it feels as though caring for teens’ mental health is done so they can “continue to get good grades,” which puts additional pressure on youths, Wyman said.

When she was in sixth grade, Wyman said she was required to see a school psychologist. During her visits with the psychologist, she would have to make up schoolwork she was missing in classes.

One day, Wyman asked the psychologist, “What can I do to get away from you?”

“And she said, ‘Get your grades up and stop making Cs in class,’ ” Wyman said.

The pressure to perform well in school and extracurricular activities, which can create anxiety about failing, is one of the risk factors contributing to teen suicides, according to the report by the attorney general’s office.

‘A generational shift’

Unlike previous generations, teenagers and young adults are more attuned to their mental health, and they are more likely to see a psychologist or other professional for help. More than one-third of Generation Z and Millennials have received such help, according to a 2018 study by the American Psychological Association.

“There is definitely a generational shift,” said Dr. Jason Williams, a psychologist with the Pediatric Mental Health Institute at Children’s Hospital Colorado.

He said it can be hard for teenagers and children to find a trusted adult to talk about mental health, in part, because many adults feel like they need to have an answer for a problem a youth might be facing, which doesn’t always address the underlying depression or anxiety that might be present.

“Parents don’t have to have the answer” when talking to their children about these topics, Williams said.

For their part, school officials said they are increasingly being called on to provide students with more than an education — especially as other community-based mental health resources have disappeared across the state — but because their time is limited with pupils, there’s only so much they can do to address the mental health of teenagers and children.

“There has to be a larger role in our community,” said Scott Siegfried, superintendent of the Cherry Creek School District. “Everyone must take a bigger role in this.”

As more students receive mental illness diagnoses and it’s become more acceptable to talk about those issues, schools have had to adapt to meet youths’ needs.

The Jefferson County School District is training all adults who work in schools — from bus drivers to teachers to cafeteria workers — on how to talk to students about suicide, recognize warning signs and how to direct them toward help, said Michelle Gonzales, district counselor and suicide prevention lead.

“It’s not always a comfortable situation or a comfortable conversation,” she said. “It used to really be a taboo topic.”

It can also be tricky for schools to broach the topic after a student dies, said Nate Thompson, director of social, emotional and behavior services with Littleton Public Schools.

“We want to be honest,” he said. “We want to talk about it. But we also don’t want to overexpose kids to trauma who may not have been as impacted.”

Going forward

Sitting on a couch at May’s house, after a Happy Crew meeting, Katherine Griek, 18, recalled the time after her grandfather died.

It happened three days after her 16th birthday and was the “hardest thing” she’s had to go through. Afterward, she ended up missing school and started drinking and smoking marijuana. She recalled having suicidal thoughts.

“And it’s really hard because you want to push yourself to get that help, but at the same time you wish people came to you and talked to you about it,” she said.

But with help from one of her friends, Griek said she was able to get through her challenges. And when she turned 18 she got a tattoo on her side: the word “Continue,” but with a semicolon where the “i” goes.

She’s going to continue forward.

Updated April 14, 2019 at 9:07 a.m. A photo caption on this story has been updated to correct the spelling of a last name.