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J.C. Ruf, 16, was a Cincinnati-area pitcher who died by suicide in the laundry room of his house. Tayler Schmid, 17, was an avid pilot and hiker who chose the family garage in upstate New York. Josh Anderson, 17, of Vienna, Va., was a football player who killed himself the day before a school disciplinary hearing.

The young men were as different as the areas of the country where they lived. But they shared one thing in common: A despair so deep they thought suicide was the only way out.

A statewide tax on the wealthy has significantly boosted mental health programs in California's largest county, helping to reduce homelessness, incarceration and hospitalization, according to a report released Tuesday.

Revenue from the tax, the result of a statewide initiative passed in 2004, also expanded access to therapy and case management to almost 130,000 people up to age 25 in Los Angeles County, according to the report by the Rand Corp. Many were poor and from minority communities, the researchers said.

An assisted-living facility in Liverpool, England, was confronted with an unusual dilemma in 2013: An elderly resident with severe dementia suddenly became terrified of water and showering — and categorically refused to bathe.

Kevin Love told his mental health story.

The Cleveland Cavaliers All-Star forward had a panic attack during a game against the Atlanta Hawks. After a stoppage in play, Love told his coach he couldn't go in the game. His heart raced. He fled to the locker room.

Anorexia, bulimia and binge eating affect tens of millions of Americans, but eating disorders remain very difficult to treat, in part because it's not clear what goes wrong in the brain.

"We don't really have a lot of information on what kind of brain changes, what kind of underlying pathology may be not only contributing to brain disorders, but also caused by brain disorders, as induced by an altered diet," said Dr. Sabina Berretta, scientific director of the brain bank — formally called the Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center — at McLean Hospital.

The anxiety keeps coming in waves.

And right now, for Fernando Hernandez and the hundreds of thousands of young DACA recipients whose fate lies in the hands of a polarized Congress and a mercurial president, the despair is crashing in.

Mady Ohlman was 22 on the evening some years ago when she stood in a friend's bathroom looking down at the sink.

"I had set up a bunch of needles filled with heroin because I wanted to just do them back-to-back-to-back," Ohlman recalls. She doesn't remember how many she injected before collapsing, or how long she lay drugged-out on the floor.

A growing shortage of psychiatrists across the U.S. is making it harder for people who struggle with mental illness to get the care they need — and the lack of federal funding for mental health services may be to blame.

After the school shooting in Parkland, Fla., last month, President Trump promised to "tackle the difficult issue of mental health." But his 2019 budget proposal doesn't devote much funding to mental health care.