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Mary Rose O'Leary has shepherded three children into adulthood, and teaches art and music to middle-school students.

Despite her extensive personal and professional experience with teens, the Eagle Rock, Calif., resident admits she's often perplexed by their behavior.

"Even if you have normal kids, you're constantly questioning, ‘Is this normal?'" says O'Leary, 61.

When I was growing up, my father thought about ways to kill himself as regularly as I outgrew my shoes. There were pills to my penny loafers, carbon monoxide to my jelly sandals, razors to my Doc Martens. I was 4, 10 and 28 when he made his most damaging attempts.

We found him: on the side of the road, on the side of the bed, in my grandmother's garage where he'd tried to make a tomb of the giant powder-blue Oldsmobile we called Orca.

If you take Prilosec or Zantac for acid reflux, a beta blocker for high blood pressure, or Xanax for anxiety, you may be increasing your risk of depression.

More than 200 common medications sold in the U.S. include depression as a potential side effect. Sometimes, the risk stems from taking several drugs at the same time. Now, a new study finds people who take these medicines are, in fact, more likely to be depressed.

When news broke that celebrity chef and author Anthony Bourdain took his own life just three days after fashion icon Kate Spade killed herself, mental health experts raised concerns about the extensive news coverage that was sure to follow and how that might impact others struggling with thoughts of suicide.

"When I heard about Bourdain, I was sad for him and for all the people who were going to hear about it, and I am also sad for people who might be influenced by it," said Madelyn Gould, a professor of epidemiology in child psychiatry at Columbia University.

The number of people dying by suicide in the United States has risen by about 30 percent in the past two decades. And while the majority of suicide-related deaths today are among boys and men, a study published Thursday by the National Center for Health Statistics finds that the number of girls and women taking their own lives is rising.

Suicide rates rose in all but one state between 1999 and 2016, with increases seen across age, gender, race and ethnicity, according to a report released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In more than half of all deaths in 27 states, the people had no known mental health condition when they ended their lives.

In North Dakota, the rate jumped more than 57 percent. In the most recent period studied (2014 to 2016), the rate was highest in Montana, at 29.2 per 100,000 residents, compared with the national average of 13.4 per 100,000.

The decline in life expectancy and health among less-educated white Americans is often attributed to "deaths of despair"—those from conditions like substance abuse and suicide. (Suicides, the CDC reported last week, are up nearly 30 percent since 1999.) The cause is often attributed to "cumulative distress," as Princeton's Anne Case and Angus Deaton have speculated.

In the wake of the Parkland high school massacre, there's been renewed interest in "red flag" laws, which allow courts and police to temporarily remove guns from people perceived to pose a threat.

The new research offers insight into the laws' effect — and it may not be what you think.