On Edge is an investigative series from the Colorado News Collaborative (COLab) about Colorado’s mental health.The series title reflects a state that has the nation’s highest rate of adult mental illness and lowest access to care, and the fact that state government is on the edge of either turning around its behavioral health care system or simply reorganizing a bureaucracy that is failing too many Coloradans.COLab is a nonprofit that unites more than 160 communities and news outlets to ensure quality news for all Coloradans. KSUT joined COLab in 2020.Explore On Edge stories here.
Marc Piscotty
Seventeen-year-old Navee Essien of Aurora tried to end her life in November. She since has been diagnosed with bipolar, anxiety and major depressive disorders, and is learning to manage them.
Navee Essien has grown up keenly aware of her gifts.
More times than she can count, people have reminded the senior at Aurora’s Rangeview High how fortunate she is to have a close family and strong support system, academic and athletic talent, ease making friends, and the kind of smarts, beauty and confidence that make people say
damn, no way that girl is 17.
By those measures, she knows she is approaching adulthood with advantages lots of kids don’t have. She also knows those advantages could not prevent a string of traumas from interrupting her coming of age, and they were not enough to protect her from a despair so deep in November that she tried to end her life.