I'll always remember that late afternoon I spent sitting across from a bright and talented young man in a psychiatric hospital's group room. Half of his face was boyishly handsome. The other half was scarred from a car crash that no one called an accident. He politely answered my questions about music and books, but we both knew I was there to keep my eyes on him while his psychiatrist, therapist, and terrified parents discussed his requests behind closed doors.
He steered the conversation back to what he had asked for. He wanted his belt back so he could walk without holding his pants up. He wanted his shoelaces back so he could stop shuffling down the hallways in untied boots. He wanted a few minutes of privacy.
Since his parents had admitted him -- after his third attempt to take his life -- a staff person was added to each shift with one assignment: Watch this boy. He slept; someone watched. He dressed; someone watched. He sat on the toilet; someone watched.
Yet even with the constant vigil he reported progress. The new meds made him feel better. He made friends on the ward. He felt safe for the first time in a long time. He warned that the constant watching put his recovery at risk. He said he would never completely fit in with the others if he couldn't let go of his pants or tie his shoes.
The meeting ran long. A different staff person took my place. I drove home through dark Vermont woods. I likely kissed my infant daughter goodnight and read while my wife fell asleep by my side.
The treatment team and the parents granted the young man's request. He had worked hard and earned their trust. They returned his belt and his shoelaces and told the staff to perform random but frequent room checks.
Around 11:00 that night, just when I would have been turning off my reading lamp, this bright and talented young man took his hard-won freedom and a brief moment of privacy and he hanged himself. Friends slept in the surrounding rooms. Highly trained staff stood around the corner.
I think of this young man as my oldest child walks down high-school hallways made quieter by one less voice. A bright and talented young woman in the grade above her shot herself at home over a long weekend. An older sister found her and called 911. This detail devastates me.
My wife works as a student assistance professional in the local schools. She gets notified when there is trouble or crisis, so we found out about this tragedy shortly after it happened. Details were sketchy. We didn't know if our daughter knew this young woman, but we knew some of her friends had played sports with her, so we sat my daughter down to talk about what had happened. With today's electronic grapevine, she already knew.
According to the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control the top three causes of death for people between the ages of 15 and 24 are accidental injuries, homicide, and then suicide. In 2007 (the last year that statistics are available) over 4,000 teenagers and young adults killed themselves. They left behind thousands of parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents and friends who might ask themselves for the rest of their lives, "Is there something I could have done differently? Is there something I could have done?"
A distraught staff member at the psychiatric hospital asked a similar question. The hospital's chief executive officer reminded us, "Sometimes depression is a terminal illness."
I wanted to find statistics on how many people tell someone they're going to commit suicide before they do it. I've heard the number is low, but I can't back up this claim. According to some experts only one in six people leave a suicide note. Maybe the pain of living becomes so great that the focus narrows to the task at hand.
There are some common signs that a teenager might be thinking about taking his or her life. They include changes in eating or sleeping habits, neglect of personal appearance, persistent boredom, and/or a decline in the quality of schoolwork. In other words, a suicidal teenager might start looking like a teenager.
When we sat my daughter down to talk she wanted to know specific details. We told her we wouldn't share them if we knew. Instead we told her we loved her more than she might ever understand. We spoke of the family a few miles away now suffering a pain we couldn't begin to comprehend. We reminded her that she was young and she still lacked perspective and the ability to rationally process decisions when under stress. We assured her that someone would break her heart someday. She would make what she would think were catastrophic mistakes. She might feel horrible about herself. All of this was to be expected, and we would be there for her when it happened. We spoke about families we knew who suffered terrible loss but still continued on. We explained how important it was to tell an adult if she was worried about a friend, or if she felt really terrible herself.
When I worked at that psychiatric hospital my oldest child was an infant. I didn't really think of myself as a parent then. I couldn't picture that young man's parent's pain. Now it is all I can think about. And the parents aren't at fault. Friends often don't know what is going on. Depression can be a terminal illness. Some people never want to be stopped.
But the living need to talk about suicide. It might be all we can do.
When I think of the pain suffered by parents of those now gone, a song comes to mind. I heard the band Red Heart the Ticker play it live as they celebrated a new album release. The man who wrote the song, Tyler Gibbons, told the crowd he didn't play it often because it was so personal. The "Ballad of J. Murphy" goes:
It was a great wide field you crossed with your man.
It was a knee-high grass. You laid down with your man.
Looking into his eyes, your chestnut hair was blowing in your eyes.
The slow gait of your words, were your whispering?
And the buzz of insects, were you listening?
15 years old, your heart is young, your body's cold.
It doesn't matter which one of you...
It doesn't matter which one of you...
Brought the pistol.
It doesn't matter which one.
It was a fancy car that came for you.
It crushed the wheel-high grass where it came for you.
Checked your pulse, but it had ceased.
The sun had gone low, it was shining through the trees.
I hope you get back on your feet in that speckled light.
I hope you get back on your feet in that speckled light.
15 years old. Your heart is warm. Your heart is old.
Follow David Petrie on Twitter: www.twitter.com/davidpetrie
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An illustration: if you saw a tiger in the woods charging toward you, how fast would you run, how far, and how hard would your heart beat? Would you tell me, after you've escaped, that you weren't afraid to die, and that the reason you didn't fight back was because there was a chance you'd lose, and the tiger win, and death become you?
It takes guts to die.
Think about, will you. We did not evolve as a species to orchestrate our own ends. We evolved to survive, to tug the next generation into being..
But sometimes there are people who are in pain, obviously unfathomable to you, who would choose death as a welcome alternative to escape their agony. Perhaps because the pain is so great, so unbearable? These are people who throw a wrench into what's supposed to be. And believe me, they do not cross that edge lightly.
However, rather than you seeing this, you've chosen to heap upon the wounded your scorn. What about some empathy---what about choosing to withhold your indictment for what you can't understand? What about being the kind of person someone whose suicidal might turn to for help and perspective---warmth in winter?
We've all been depressed. We'll all be depressed again at some point in our lives. But billions and billions of people get through that depression every day in hopes of making the next day better. Yet, we're supposed to feel sorry for that tiny minority who decide they want to take the easy way out? Though I understand your view and, obviously, you have a lot more empathy than I, I cannot condone an act that serves no useful, and IMHO a selfish, purpose and only leaves loving family members behind with a lifetime of regrets. Suicide is the worst form of selfishness, IMHO.
She had her own car paid for, then he took it, so now it is up to the family to go get her and take her where she needs to go. We all love her and don't mind but it is a two hour deal there and back.
She lives on a small Social Security check and has to make a house payment with it. Her 5 other children used to help her a lot, but they figured out that the money was going to Dan. Then she started charging and getting loans to help him. He has impoverished her and himself and left all of us with less than we had.
She says he is suicidal and so that keeps us from saying anything. He is bipolar she says. Anyway it is a tragedy for her and the ones watching it happen. We have all figured out that she is so afraid he will commit suicide that she will give him anything she can.
I will have my husband talk to her about the medicine.
Do you mean he is dangerous to his mother or will just worry her to death?
His way of doing things makes his brothers resent him so he gets negative feedback.
Thanks for your insight.
www.mylifewithateen.com
I don't know why some people talk so mean. My folks were like that...it hurts.
When my father died I found a drawer full of photos he'd treasures of my children going back 30 years. And he left me a good bit of money, spending almost nothing on himself.
People are very complicated and show love in odd and awkward ways. Real life isn't like "The Cosby Show".
I hope you're not living with so much verbal abuse now...I know how it can sting even years later.Thanks for writing your story.
All aside, I get along most of the time with both of them, though, since leaving home for boarding school at 15, I feel the need to keep a bit of distance, no sense needlessly walking through the minefield. As I've gotten older and more independent, things have gotten better, though it only takes a snide comment to bring all those feelings rushing back.
She also plays honky tonk piano at her nursing home and gets in fights sometimes...a lively, cranky old lady.
In life you will meet people who DID grow up with the Disney version...they fall in love with tatooed bikers and pay bills late for excitement. At least we lived, and we have good stories!
Whatever the case, mom opted for the all out assault, I'll never forget the mockery of sympathy in her voice, as she went on a tirade of, in summary, "go kill yourself, you selfish ungrateful brat" (she's since reiterated this position(not towards me specifically; I wouldn't dare speak of such a thing with her), going so far as to say that she'd tell what pills to take. Dad was in pseudo-philosophical drunk mode, saying something to the effect of "If you feel it's your time to "check out", then do so.".
Needless to say, in the times I've felt anything less than cheerful(ah, the fun of understatements), they're the last people in the world I'd speak to about it.
I can tolerate enough crap that I'll probably maintain a functional relationship with my parents, on the surface, but I doubt I'll ever have a mature relationship with either of them (especially mom), the kind where we can speak of things. Part of me envies those who have that, if only a little.
Of course, there were lots of warning signs like the fact that I never participated in class, never did my homework, missed tons of school, and was always quiet, shy and reserved. Being incredibly intelligent though meant that because my grades were good no one cared to ask me if I was good; I wasn’t.
I tried to end my life and by some stroke of luck I was found very quickly and got to spend 2 weeks in the psych ward at a hospital. That made me want to end my life even more as the sort of suffering I was put through in the hospital was worse than I could have ever imagined. In fact, it is something that I think about to this day and there are days like my recent birthday where the acute and all-encompassing loneliness does make the thought come back with vigor.
the only effective deterrent to suicide is HOPE. hope is the answer to the question "Why?"
it is lack of a valid answer to the question "Why?" that drives the despair which leads to someone believing that escape from physical existence is a plausible option.
the lack of hope in their heart is what allows suicide a chance to be justified in their mind.
so if you want to reduce the number of teens considering suicide as an option, then work to develop their HOPE in something.
take a look at this world. to high school teens, it's like standing on the edge of the diving platform 100ft. in the air. they look down, and not all see the same thing. some see it as a challenge to dive in. but some see an empty pool.
I went through a horrible depression at 21, bottom of the ocean. The book of the month club sent me a copy of Lady Bird Johnson's "White House years"...like I cared. But I forced myself to plow through it. That woman really got a KICK out of just meeting anybody, going anywhere, looking forward to the bluebonnets in Texas. She was contagious and I felt better, slowly. Shrink books and a shrink mostly made me self centered and feel bad. I needed to look outward...
Besides niacin...people need to seek out positive, interesting things to read, especially when they are very low. God bless you, Tyler.
To clarify, the statement about teens not being able to process decisions when under stress is not about mental illness -- it's about adolescent development. I link to the Academy of Adolescent and Child Psychiatrist's fact sheet (the purple type). Here's the link again: http://www.aacap.org/cs/root/facts_for_families/the_teen_brain_behavior_problem_solving_and_decision_making
They write: "Adolescents differ from adults in the way they behave, solve problems, and make decisions. There is a biological explanation for this difference. Scientists have identified a specific region of the brain called the amygdala which is responsible for instinctual reactions including fear and aggressive behavior. This region develops early. However, the frontal cortex, the area of the brain that controls reasoning and helps us think before we act, develops later. This part of the brain is still changing and maturing well into adulthood."
I regularly remind my daughter about this fact. She thinks differently than I do and than she will when she is an adult. She needs to let her brain catch up sometimes, and talk to us before making rash decisions.
is this clearer?
Listening, open communication and dropping the stigma of mental illness are crucial to the conversation about suicide. Education, too, needs to be part of the dialogue. Even with the right combination of medication and therapy, some of the most difficult symptoms of mental illness take a verrrrry long time to remit. There are skill-based modalities, such as Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Cognitive Behavior Therapy and others, that help patients develop ways to cope when self-harming impulses arise.
Through education we can convey hope. As a parent of a teen who has been hopitalized for suicidal ideation and other self-harming behaviors, I know hope is essential to any form of recovery.
The government doesn't see mental health care as an important part of overall health care. Cuts having repeatedly been made, and it's now very evident what the long term consequences of these cuts are.
I hope you're in a better place now.
You never know...
I like teenagers. It's really the last time most Americans have an emotional life before getting behind that plow. We should treasure them and lift their hearts with a happy remark.
My youngest son works at a popular deli downtown. The kids at our giant college there stream through all day. He is invaluable...at 24 he exchanges comments in Arnold S. accent and laughs a lot. People who graduate and visit a year or two later will come by to visit him.
My son doesn't go to church, but he prays with me and believes. And the owners appreciate him with decent money. He's the heart of our family.
I know young people will read this article. Please know many here wish you joy and hope...don't give up.
I must have done something right to raise him and he's not conceited! Thanks, Mac.