We can only imagine the agony of Edward Mallen\u2019s parents, for whom \u201ca normal Monday afternoon became a horrifying nightmare where one is staring into this appalling abyss of grief\u201d\u009d when police knocked on their door last week to say that their 18-year-old son had been killed by a train. Intelligent, gifted, kind and humble, head boy twice over \u201d\u201d by all accounts, Edward was a remarkable young man. Twelve A*s at GCSE, a place at Cambridge to read geography, grade eight at piano and popular.<\/p>\n
Yet shortly after Christmas depression consumed him. His father said: \u201cOften there is a trigger, some trauma, but there didn\u2019t seem to be in this case. My son had a sickness \u201d\u201d a biological sickness \u201d\u201d that overtook him very rapidly. It happened over six to eight weeks.\u201d\u009d The shocking fact is that this is not an isolated incident. Talking to experts and parents, I get a sense that self-harm, a destructive way of coping with emotional pain, has reached epidemic proportions.<\/p>\n
According to the Royal College of Psychiatrists\u2019 2010 report on public mental health, half of those who suffer mental-health problems in adult life display difficulties by the age of 14. Three quarters of mental illness is present by the mid-twenties. While three times as many women as men attempt suicide, Office for National Statistics figures show that 78 per cent of suicides in 2013 were male (up from 63 per cent in 1981).<\/p>\n