- My little sister Orli died by suicide three months ago.
- No one saw it coming, and she never indicated she was struggling.
- Things might have been different if society treated mental health the same as physical health.
Content warning: This article mentions suicide.
The last text I sent to my little sister Orli was about summer internships.
She was making a spreadsheet of places she might be interested in working during the summer before her junior year of college, and she asked if I had any advice about where she might apply if she wanted to do something journalism-related.
Everything about her life was geared toward the future. She was accepted to a summer program in Israel and wanted to study abroad in Dublin, and she was already thinking about graduate school when she didn't even have her undergraduate degree. That's why when my mom called me on February 11, right before dinner, and told me Orli had died by suicide, nothing made sense.
Mental health is still taboo
Time stopped after I received that phone call, and it never restarted. Days weren't passing normally because nothing about what happened to Orli, to me, to our family was normal. It wasn't normal that I had to deliver a eulogy for my little sister, feet away from the casket that held her body. Or that I had to watch her be lowered into a grave, and then go back home without her.
It's not normal that I had my little sister in my life for only 19 years.
But what became painfully obvious to me in the days and weeks after I lost Orli was that mental illness is common, but it's still taboo. Millions of people like Orli are suffering, but they don't feel like they can speak openly because of the shame that accompanies it.
That can change.
Hugs and kisses aren't enough
After my family started posting publicly about what happened to Orli, a flood of condolences and prayers rolled in. I kept seeing one recurring comment from parents, urging people to hug and kiss their kids and remind them how much they're loved.
My parents told my sisters and me every day how much they loved us. It was never a secret, and before each of us went away to college, they made sure we knew that if we were ever in trouble, or even if we just wanted to see them, they would come right to our dorm room. Orli knew support was always there for her, but it wasn't enough.
After I specifically called her death a suicide in a tweet, many people commended my "courage" for being open about what happened. But I never considered doing anything else. Talking about mental illness shouldn't take courage. It should be viewed like talking about a broken arm, but the world Orli and I grew up in insisted that the seen and the unseen couldn't be equated, and it attached an element of shame to dealing with an invisible illness.
Orli knew that if she was ever in trouble, her family would be there for her. But still, she never shared how much she was struggling.
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, some warning signs of suicide include talking about wanting to die, being extremely sad, displaying mood swings, and behaving dangerously. But my sister didn't show any of these to her family or friends.
With a death like hers, it's easy to fall into an endless loop of what-ifs, but I believe my family did everything right in supporting her. Still, one question lingers in my mind: How might things have been different if society changed how it treated mental illness?
Orli set the best example of how life should be lived. Her passion and commitment to changing the world were infectious. She lived up to the meaning of her name, "my light," and she lit a fire in everyone around her that will last long after hers went out.
I can't change the world as Orli could, but in her memory, I will try, and I'm starting by telling her story in the hopes that mental health will be treated differently.