Our View: After tragedy, Duluth can no longer let neighbors 'bear it alone'
In 2021, Duluthian Tony Nephew penned a thoughtful and dark commentary about mental trauma and how mental health "in this country is stigmatized, ignored, or treated as a burden for the individual to bear alone, with little help and less understanding." He was in therapy at the time, after suffering a mental breakdown, he indicated when submitting the piece for publication consideration to the News Tribune Opinion page.
"I felt that this was something I had been bottling up for a while," he said in a note accompanying the submission. "My reason (for writing this is that I am) hoping for a better world. Mental health needs to start being talked about more."
Last week , Nephew was found dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. His wife, ex-partner, and two children, ages 7 and 15, were also found shot to death inside two homes in West Duluth, according to police. The tragedy, a shocking rarity for Duluth, prompted a candlelight walk, a remembrance run, impromptu memorials, tears, and more this week as our stunned community grappled with what happened.
Our grieving now also needs to include those conversations and those helping actions that Nephew urged us to be having and taking, as neighbors who care for each other. Untreated trauma, how we regularly deny mental health crises, the heartrending catastrophes that can come from grief's crushing complexities, and the nightmare of suicide, as well as "homicide before suicide," as Nephew included in his published commentary , all demand to be confronted and addressed — by all of us together.
The op-ed called for more training of mental health professionals to pair with and to work with police, "with the goal of destigmatizing and decriminalizing mental health issues." On that front, Nephew wrote, Duluth could become even more of "a model for law enforcement and mental health care. ... We have the medical care facilities, several colleges that offer courses in behavioral health, and one of the area's leading law-enforcement training centers. We have the infrastructure in place."
Nephew criticized insurance companies for failing to cover mental health the same way they do physical health.
"A society is judged by how it cares and provides for its most vulnerable members," he wrote. "One unrecognized trauma after another is being left untreated or ignored. ... We looked to the stars and put a man on the moon, yet we are afraid of looking inward, at ourselves. The struggles of the next generation can't only be with our physical world. We need to be inward-focused, too. We have to start repairing ourselves. So many of us are broken and unfinished inside, and we don't even see it."
Anyone feeling like they're among those who are broken or unfinished can be assured there is help, even if sometimes it proves inadequate. There are people who care.
The national suicide and crisis lifeline can be reached by calling or texting 988. To chat with someone, go to 988lifeline.org/chat , or text "MN" to 741741. Other lifeline resources are at speakingofsuicide.com/resources .
In the Northland, emergency numbers include: in South St. Louis, Lake, Cook, and Carlton counties and the Fond du Lac Band, 218-623-1800 or 844-772-4742; in Superior and Douglas County, 715-395-2259; in North St. Louis County and the Bois Forte Band, 218-288-2100; in Itasca County, 218-326-8565 or 211; and in Koochiching County, 800-442-8565 or 211.
The "senseless and tragic" shootings that occurred in West Duluth on Nov. 7, as Duluth Police Chief Mike Ceynowa referred to them, didn't need to occur. Our community didn't need to suffer the gut-wrenching losses of Kathryn "Kat" Nephew Ramsland, 45, a professor in the Art Department at Lake Superior College; her son, Oliver Nephew, 7, a beloved first-grader at Rockridge Academy in Duluth; Erin Abramson, 47, who worked in the Environmental Services Division for the city of Superior; the son Abramson and Nephew had together, Jacob Nephew, 15, a student at Marshall School; and Nephew himself, 46.
A community that refuses to stigmatize and ignore mental health maladies is less likely to suffer such tragic endings and crushing losses. We can do better. We can create a better world.
As Nephew wrote three years ago, "It's time to start building better frameworks for mental health in this country." No one should be left to bear it alone.
