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Mental Disorders

University president wants you to know he attempted suicide

Cameron Knight and Anne Saker
The Cincinnati Enquirer
University of Cincinnati President Santa Ono speaks April 30, 2016, during the university's 197th spring commencement.

INDIAN HILL, Ohio — The president of a public university with nearly 45,000 students astonished a fund-raising audience and his Twitter followers by revealing that he twice had tried to kill himself in his youth.

In a week when the University of Cincinnati remembered a student who died by suicide in 2014, President Santa Ono said he wanted to send a message that depression is treatable, sufferers can move on with life and mental illness should not be stigmatized.

"Someone was there for me to help me work my way through that with medication and also seeing a professional to help me through very dark times in my life," Ono said in a separate interview with The Enquirer. "There's light at the end of the tunnel. If you have the proper counseling and support, it's really possible for you to move past that and move back into functioning life."

Immediately after student Brogan Dulle’s May 2014 death, Ono was instrumental in finding the resources for the university to provide any student with five free sessions of mental-health counseling.

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“It’s a courageous revelation for him to put it out there,” said Dr. Phil Diller, a physician who oversees University Health Service in his role as chairman of the university's Department of Family and Community Medicine. “He’s using his office to really communicate this point: that people who are highly successful in their lives have issues with mental health as well.”

College students are particularly vulnerable to depression and suicide, Diller said. The most recent data shows that 174 Ohioans between 15 and 24 died in 2012 from suicide; more than 100,000 college students nationwide attempted suicide in 2012.

On Saturday night, Ono attended a fundraiser in this wealthy Cincinnati suburb for a group called 1N5, named for the statistic that one in five people will suffer from mental illness. The group is focused on helping teenagers.

At that event, Ono told about 200 people that when he was 14, he locked himself in his bedroom and tried to overdose on cold medication and beer. He attempted suicide again in his late 20s. The event raised more than $115,000, according to organizers.

After the fundraiser, Ono took to social media, telling his more than 70,000 followers on Twitter about his suicide attempts.

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"Speaking at the event, I reached a couple hundred people, and I felt that if I really wanted to break the silence the right thing to do was to take advantage of the fact that I communicate with a lot of people over Twitter and social media," he said later. "I wanted to get that message out to a broader audience."

Ono met with Diller and other mental health care providers at the University of Cincinnati following Dulle’s death. The 21-year-old UC student went missing May 18, 2014, and a massive search ended eight days later when his body was found in the basement of the building next door to Dulle’s apartment. He had hanged himself.

"It's amazing that he was willing to share that to help other people," said Dulle's mother, Beth Dulle of Cincinnati. "It's not easy for people to talk about things like that."

She said Ono has become a great friend of her family since he helped with the search for her son.

“He’s an amazing person,” she said. “For him, such a public person, to come out. I think it has to give a lot of people courage to open a dialogue. It’s hard to ask for help.”

Ono confided to his colleagues at that meeting about his suicide attempts and struggle with depression, Diller said.

“You could tell that (Dulle’s death) really touched him, and he really wanted to do more," Diller said.

Dr. Charles W. Collins, a UC Health physician and executive vice chairman of the university's College of Medicine Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience, saw the Ono statements pop up Saturday night on Facebook.

“I thought, ‘Wow, this is an important revelation,’ because he is at the top of his game as a person and as a great individual, and he admits this, which can be quite helpful to people,” Collins said. “It has a powerful effect because it brings it out of the darkness. So many people have depression and have no one to really discuss it.”

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Collins said Ono can counteract the impression that depression is a weakness.

Ono said he did research into mental illness during his time at Emory University in Atlanta under his mentor, Earl Lewis, now president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in New York City. They focused on the high suicide rates among Korean students who felt extreme shame in failure.

Since then, Ono said he has been passionate about suicide prevention.

Cost of not caring: Mental illness in America

"Our students really are an inspiration to me," he said. "The millennial students are much more empathetic toward each other. Many of them have seen someone commit suicide. People are much more aware of what's happening, and that's a good thing. It's motivating them to do something about it. That's motivating them to demand adults and leaders within organizations to do something about it."

Ono is the son of a noted mathematician who emigrated from Japan after World War II and held research posts in Princeton, N.J., and at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Ono, an accomplished cellist as well as a college administrator, became University of Cincinnati president in 2012.

"For the last 25 years, I've been symptom-free," said Ono, now 53. "A big part of the balance in my life is that I have a loving family, and they're there for me even though I have a stressful life.” Speaking about his own dark periods "will be an encouragement to other people who are going through difficult times."

Students flood college counseling offices

When he was younger, Ono said he would have been petrified to tell his story.

"Now I'm speaking from a much stronger station in life, and it's important for me and others to speak about this to encourage legislators to support more programs," he said.

Twitter responded warmly to Ono’s revelations. Many people thanked him for speaking out.

"Honesty like this from a man who has seen so much success and is loved by so many is incredibly inspiring," wrote Mike Hawke, whose Twitter account indicates that he lives in Bellingham, Wash.

Follow Cameron Knight and Anne Saker on Twitter: @ckpj99 and @apsaker

Need help now?

• The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is a 24-hour, toll-free, confidential hot line — actually a network of 164 crisis centers in 49 states — available to anyone in crisis or emotional distress across the USA who is considering taking his or her life.

• Call: (800) 272-8255

• Web: suicidepreventionlifeline.org

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