Category Archives: suicide

Not another horrible day

A different day, another awful situation. 

A child, or teen, or young adult has been struggling with emotional turmoil and is tumbling into danger. They confide in a friend, or maybe a few friends.

They may have “met” someone in an online chat and now this person is their “boyfriend” or “girlfriend,” and they are planning to run way to meet this person.

Perhaps the young person has been “sexting” with someone they know personally, or “met” online, and now are being threatened with “sextortion,” that the images of them will be spread around, unless they meet some demand. This has recently led to many teen and young adult suicides.

Perhaps the young person shares that they are a victim of abuse.

Or, perhaps they stumbled upon, or were led to, the terrible misinformation that hurting oneself is a useful way to cope with painful feelings. The young person proceeds to experiment with self-harm, and posts online about it.

So-called friends hear the plan, listen to the horrible stories, or see the images of scratches, cuts or burns, and fail to turn to an adult for guidance.

Every parent I’ve ever spoken to is under the impression that their child would, of course, come to them if a friend were in grave danger. And sometimes that is true, but an awful lot of the time – in almost any of these kinds of incidents I’ve ever encountered in clinical practice or consulted on, as it happens – that was not the case. The case was, almost every time, that other young people knew about the plan to run away, or the abuse, or the self-harm, and did not seek the guidance of an adult.

Sometimes these “friends” have an unflagging alliance, suddenly, to keeping promises (unlike the promises they have made to you, dear parent, about everything from cleaning their room to homework being done well to treating your automobile with respect). Sometimes they believe they are better equipped to help than an adult would be, although they cannot arrest an abuser, drive someone to the emergency room or help them connect with a mental health professional for counseling, and their capacity to manage extreme distress is probably not much better than the troubled friend’s skills. Sometimes they dread social disapproval for breaking the rule that you keep adults out of it, whether the “it” is someone self-harming, or sharing that they are a victim of abuse, or are planning to run away from home to meet up with the “boyfriend” they “met” online.

I urge you to have frequent, open conversations about these topics with your young people. Make them age appropriate; be calm and encouraging. If you are too stressed out, you may be misread as “angry.” Remember that adolescents go through a stage where their brain interprets almost every non-happy facial expression as “angry.” If that happens, the conversation will probably be a complete failure.

Be calm, be matter-of-fact, and be sincere. Ask questions, too:

How do the people you know handle things like a friend telling them this kind of stuff?

If this was your friend, what would you do?

If it were (fill in the blank for some close friend or family member), what would you want their friends to do in this type of situation?

Why do you think people are reluctant to ask adults for help with this?

What would make an adult seem safe to go to with this problem?

Don’t lecture; have the conversation. It may be a conversation that occurs for a few minutes at a time over an extended period. That’s okay; sometimes a few sentence and letting it simmer is what’s necessary.  

You may, without knowing it, be setting the groundwork to save a life.

Social Contagion

(This post mentions eating disorders, self-harm, substance abuse and suicide. Please reach out to your local emergency services if you or someone you know is struggling with any of these!)

When I was in 9th grade, I unwillingly, and briefly, attended our parish’s very small Catholic Youth Organization meetings (CYO.  The group comprised mostly boys, all altar servers, who played ping pong and pool with our associate pastor, a well-meaning middle-aged priest from Poland. The only other girls were the type of enmeshed best friends that are normal at that stage of life. Their shared passion was Bay City Rollers. They put together, in that era of typewriters with ribbons and no internet, a monthly fan newsletter with some success.  Life would have been oh, so easy, if only I could have mustered enthusiasm for the boys from Edinburgh.  I tried. But, despite the social costs, a Dylan fan I remained.

Go ahead, laugh. But you have faced the challenge of social contagion, too. You may even now be wearing a style of clothing you don’t actually even like. It’s just what’s “in.” As a teenager, you wore the right clothes, or pined after them; you strove for the right hair style. You wore the trendy colors even if they made you look ill, and were anxious for the approval of your peers.  It’s not just kids who follow the crowd; every married person knows that when your spouse’s friend circle comprises mostly divorced people, there may well be trouble ahead.

Over the years, we’ve seen waves of societal concern about the risks of contagion. Were young people teaching each other to cut or burn themselves (1990s), how to purge or starve themselves (ongoing since at least the 90s), how to get a so-called “high” from household items? Could a teen’s suicide lead to copycat attempts?  The answer to all of these is, yes.

Children now are not gifted with preternaturally adult-style brain development. The ability to sound sophisticated by parroting what you’ve read or heard is not the same as an adult brain with a well-developed executive function – something that takes into the early to mid-20s to acquire.  Your kid is not any more resistant to peer pressures of even the subtle type than you were when you were screaming in excitement over a band because all your friends were.  As it happens, they are more vulnerable, because peer pressure can surround them wherever their cell phone works. Odds are, you were free – as soon as you were off the school bus, there was some space for other influences to counterbalance the noise of adolescents striving to show their individuality by being as much like their desired group as possible.

Notice the vagaries of the teenage years: they move from music star to music star, aesthetic nomads in lockstep. No one wears jeans; then they all wear jeans. The games, the accessories, even the car you drive falls under the anxious eye of a child who wants to fit in.  It’s important for all of us to be attuned to the various social pressures to conform, because we want our young people to survive, and thrive, throughout these very turbulent times.

For Those Mourning a suicide

If you have lost someone to suicide, my sincere condolences:  peace be upon you in these incredibly difficult times.

I have been involved in grief counseling for a long time. I began volunteering as a grief support group facilitator about 20 years ago. Grief is always painful – the Irish language word clumsily translated into English as “Troubles” actually means tearing apart.  Losing someone to suicide is definitely a tearing apart, and one that carries particular burdens.

  • They are even more likely than other mourners to look backwards and try to reinterpret events to make sense of what happened. We humans like for things to “make sense,” even things that can’t be understood. Looking back can lead to a lot of unnecessary suffering – self-blame, recrimination, guilt.  Our culture pretends we can control just about everything, but we cannot. Through the lens of grief looking backwards, even a passing sad day years before can seem like a sign that was “missed,” and the perfectly normal little disagreement turns into the possible cause. Every memory is scoured for warning signs. The lists of warning sides of suicidality are helpful, but not all people have them. In reality, about 70% of suicides are impulsive acts – there are no real warning signs or markers, beyond the events of life that many people experience without becoming suicidal:  relationship struggles, financial struggles, legal struggles, job loss.  Some people will show some of the warning signs but are not be suicidal at all, such as someone who is enthusiastically minimizing their possessions in order to downsize. Please try to refocus on something else, even a small physical task, when you find yourself looking back to try to see what you “should have” seen: you are at risk of burdening yourself with unnecessary guilt.
  • Those whose loved one committed suicide are likely to hear even more of the hurtful things people can say to those grieving. Granted, most people’s hurtful remarks to mourners are well-intentioned, and yet incredibly unhelpful, such as the dreadful, “You’re still young…you’ll have other children,” or, “You should be glad they’re not suffering any longer.”  There are some people, though, who say truly, intentionally horrible things about those who commit or attempt suicide, and this leads mourners to lie about the cause of death and/or isolate from others.  Avoid these people; seek the company of those who are compassionate.
  • Those who have lost someone to suicide are especially likely to avoid going to grief support groups, or will only go to those about suicide.  I encourage going to a general grief support group, too; it can be a place to learn a lot of skills and strategies that are helpful to all mourners, and can be that first, safe place to talk about what really happened and get support as you manage the tangle of terrible emotions. You will find strategies and support for how to take one step at a time into a world that seems to no longer make sense. Please do not isolate out of pain, unnecessary shame or unnecessary guilt.
  • See your primary care doctor, avoid any mind-altering substances, and try your best to follow medical guidance – even though you will often not feel like eating right or exercising.
  • Seek individual or family counseling to help with the grief process as needed.

And, of course, as this is not psychological guidance or advice – just information and encouragement – reach out for help if you are struggling with suicidal thoughts or fear for someone else. Besides your health care provider, the local emergency room, or 911, you might call the National Suicide Hotline at 988 or the 1-800-273-TALK (8255) National Mental Health Hotline.

If you are reading this and thinking of someone you know who has lost someone to suicide, please reach out with compassion. Be present; keep reaching out. Invite for simple things; offer specific help (with chores, for companionship, to go with them to a grief support group because going is, at first, absolutely terrifying). Please do not ask a lot of questions about the death; if the person is open, instead ask about the person: the happy memories of the past. Ask if you can help and don’t be surprised if you hear, “I’m fine,” or, “You can’t bring them back,” or, “I don’t need anything.”  In that case, come back another time with specific offers (“Can I come by sometime and help with the lawn?” “Are you up for a cup of coffee at the park?” etc.).  Be gentle with people who have been torn apart.

Thanks for reading.