Eastern Idaho Public Health hosts symposium on youth suicide

Between 2010 and 2014, 96 Idaho school children died by suicide, according to the Suicide Prevention Action Network of Idaho.

Eastern Idaho Public Health is trying to prevent those deaths by educating people about mental health in children.

EIPH is holding events across eastern Idaho where speakers give talks on the issue.

“Makes all the difference. Just makes people say ‘Oh my gosh. This is a real person, you know, a real person. This is not pretend this actually happens,'” Logan Zuck, one of the speakers, said.

Zuck said he was 15 when he had a spell that almost took his life.

“I had some self harm because one of my hallucinations told me to cut myself,” he said.

He was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, OCD, ADHD, torrettes syndrome and a dissociative disorder.

“A lot of friends that left me when I was diagnosed,” he said. “No longer my friends, and no longer wanted to be around me because of my diagnosis.”

Zuck says he’s using his story to help others.

“It’s not the person’s fault. They did not choose it,” he said. “It’s the same thing as cancer and other illnesses like that.”

Zuck says he’s doing great now. He’s just about to finish up his freshman year of college. He wants to be a psychiatrist so he can help others who have a mental illness.