I learned of the death of college student Carly Henley two days after her passing, on October 6, 2010. In the days soon to follow it became clear that scores and scores of people were wounded to the core by the loss. Wonderful evidence around the internet serves to almost suspend Carly Henley's personable allure, her impressive musical talent, and a short life the likes of which most anybody could envy.

Various reports tell of her short term struggle with depression of perhaps three months in duration. Significant in that was the introduction of anti-depressant drug Zoloft via prescription some two weeks before Carly took her own life.

Not lost on me now, finally, is the wording in the "Black Box Warning" with Zoloft, which states that antidepressants may increase the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior in persons younger than 25. Risk is especially heightened during the first two months of taking anti-depressants.

The labels on anti-depressant drugs in the U.S. were altered to reference young adults aged 18 to 24 just three years earlier - in 2007.

It is my belief, now, that Carly just happened to land among the small percentage of anti-depressant users who are susceptible to being so affected by a powerful drug such as Zoloft.

One need not ever have known such a remarkable woman to feel the pain all around at the loss of Carly Henley.


So many life lessons are so well represented by Carly Henley's compelling spirit. Let me see if I can help some to gain fuller appreciation for a woman who continues to inspire everyone who ever knew of her.



 Now it has been 14 years since Carly Henley left this earth.


She has missed approximately half of the internet's evolution in the hands of the general public. The amount of information and how we use and depend upon it has increased exponentially since Carly died.  That in such a way that even if Carly Henley was lucky enough to get the internet as soon as it became available, she still barely got to scratch the surface of what we know today (for better and for worse).


Today you can type into YouTube and virtually go just about anywhere on earth that you want to see. You can select from a variety of guides in a variety of languages and maybe even learn a new language as you experience those many videos there.   (edit:   YouTube's first-ever video was dated  April 23, 2005. In 2024 there are more than 14 billion  public videos on YouTube)

You can connect with new and far-away people easier than ever before. Things in Carly Henley's day, like chatrooms and the traditional COPS television show have been replaced, and it's a reasonable guess that most of the replacements are heading in a positive direction.

Economic times seem much more difficult in 2024 than they likely were in 2010, although much of the world had just known the great recession  just before then.

The media in general is probably a great deal worse today than it was in 2010. In an unending effort to dress-up television media so that it seems to add something to mere factual information you can find online, the TV media makes every subject seem extreme. This largely serves to further polarize humans.

Sure there are lots of great people creating "content" on YouTube who probably mean well, but they too are caught up in quasi "ratings" battles and they probably slant their content with that in mind. Everybody around us seems to be rushing to get somewhere, on the road, or in life. People take for granted how much more efficient they can be with their time in the world of technology.

Among the more noteworthy rises to prominence during the summer of 2024 has been that of the person known most often as "Hawk Tuah Girl."  The person named Haliey Welch, rose from small-town Tennessee, as someone who at age 21 had never even been on an airplane as of early June of this year.

Discovered during an evening of semi-drunken shenanigans on a major Nashville street, she first struck the world as someone who was unabashedly herself. With a thick Tennessee accent, she evolved to let the world, and newfound fame just happen to her.

It is certainly the case that the world around Carly Henley sensed Carly to have been far more wholesome than most could ever perceive Haliey Welch to be. Another giant difference is that Carly lived in an area where the seeming real world was ongoing all around her, often with Carly included.


(edit:  according to https://www.insidehook.com/internet/youtube-took-over-world , YouTube's very first video was uploaded by one of the co-founders. Describing the video, the writer observed  "It all started with a d**k joke."   Given that, it may yet be the case that Haliey Welch deserves a lot more credit for comfortably just being herself, while adjusting to the hordes of people who are drawn to her)

Haliey Welch was raised by her grandmother in a tiny town an hour or two south of Nashville and for the most part the distance kept the real world from getting too close to her - until now.

After a few doses of Haliey Welch's persona, online commenters often respond with:  "We made the right person famous" - which is something you almost never read, about anyone.

That vibe is mostly a function of Haliey just being herself, in her own thick accent. She's a happy girl who seems so largely out of place in the electronic world of 2024.

Carly Henley struck the world all around her as "happy"  and  "radiant"  as well.  Right up until the moment where that world all around her collectively learned all at once that perhaps she wasn't...

... and when it was too late for anyone to act on the reflexive interest they would have surely had if only a chance would have presented itself.


It certainly cannot be said that things are any easier for young adult females in 2024 than they were in 2010. Social media has turned high school into even more of a boiling pot of social water than it ever was before Carly Henley graduated in 2008. That is compounded by so much effort now directed toward concerns about who, or what is coming onto school grounds from the outside.

It is difficult to know at what age is ideal to instill into young people a way to diffuse immediately any feelings of suicidality. Maybe so-called "suicide hotlines" are still easily located by those who can't afford the time to be drawn around the internet search engines by outdated material. No doubt those who are working on the other end of such hotlines are much better trained with each passing year.

The challenge remains just how to inspire people who are feeling so low, to pick up their phones, or go online somewhere, just so that someone will hear their pleas for relief.

This corner remains of the strong feeling that the anti-depressant Zoloft was centrally the cause for Carly Henley having so suddenly sunk to a point at which she took her own life. Carly had only been taking Zoloft for a few weeks, and her death happened on October 6, 2010, just barely into her Junior year at the University of Washington.

People in her circles gave her more than most can ever hope to get from society. Carly was on a trajectory toward some really grand experiences, both in school life and with her singing talents. Her personality seemed as genuine as anyone might have wished, and she didn't seem from the outside like someone who was asking too much from the world around her.

I wish it were easy to push a few buttons on Google to find out how suicides among young adults are presently trending when anti-depressants are involved. It would be a mild comfort just to find that data isn't getting worse with time.


Marking 14 years since Carly Henley left this world.



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