Mental Health Day

I am a high school math and physics teacher. After almost checking myself into the ER last night (for suicidal thoughts) I took today off. I have students who I know are struggling too and just got an email about one who went to the ER for the same thing the day before me. There is a pandemic going on and our state is still demanding that we do standardized testing. The students can hardly keep up with normal life right now, just like us teachers and other staff. Just like most all humans right now. It seems like everyone is breaking but no one is allowed to talk about it. I understand confidentiality but these are things that NEED to be discussed. Direly need to be talked about. I propose semi-drastic measures: not a mental health awareness month but a mental health awareness day. And I don’t mean “April 17th” is the day, I mean something like every damn Wednesday is mental health awareness day. We all need to talk about and know more about it. People are dying from it every day.
I almost lost a 9th grade student the other day... I almost lost me yesterday.