Dead is Forever.
This is the second time in less than a year that a teenage friend of my daughters has committed suicide.
The second time that I’ve tried to explain the unexplainable, finally having to settle with ‘I don’t know. I just don’t know’ to their repeated cries of ‘why did she DO that?’ The second time that I’ve hugged them as they cried, second time I’ve wondered and ached at the pain of the dead girl’s parents, and the second time I’ve pleaded with them to not ever do that to me, first begging and then angry-scared, ‘Don’t you ever ever EVER do that to me! Promise me!’
The two teenage girls, unknown to each other, living in different states, neither of them with apparent mental illnesses, neither of them exhibiting prior signs of depression, just 15 and 16 years old- both died the same way and for the same reason: Hanging themselves because their teenage partners wanted to break up.
And now they’re dead. Forever.
What is with teenagers today that such minor, insignificant problems seem that unfixable? Is there no comprehension of death? Are they missing perspective, not knowing the difference between real problems and stupid teenage dating bullshit?
It’s just depressing and it makes me mad and, my God, those poor parents.
Incomprehensible pain.
~~*~~
That’s not all that’s keeping me from blogging, there are other things going on right now, too. Mostly I’m just busy. We spent the weekend working on some odd jobs around the house and I did a good spring clean in the kids’ bedrooms.
Jes’s room is all set up with a crib and changing table and a rocking chair, along with her bed and two dressers. It’s a damn tight fit in there with not a lot of room for extras but it’s her baby. She’s got less than 2 months to go so it’s time to prepare.
There’s talk and rumors of the bad economy finally catching up to us here. The rumors range from lay-offs to company closings and that has everyone on pins and needles and short tempered. Well, I am anyway. In fact, I’m quite freaked out. Master’s more of the “wait and see and let’s not worry until we know for sure” type. Bah.
Oh, and I have pms, too. Just, you know, for shits and grins. There wasn’t enough going on that it could skip me this month.
Anyway, now that I’ve sufficiently depressed everyone, I’m off. I’ll be back when I’m better company.
Uncategorized | kaya | 
Tuesday May 5th, 2009 8:38am
I’m depressed too. Thoughts of suicide have reared their ugly heads AGAIN for me recently. No worries, it’s been an off-again, off-again thought in my head for most of my life and it gets “louder” when things are bad and right now, things are very very bad for us. Last time I had to go through pushing such thoughts away was last summer when my health was compromised.
As for why teenagers actually go through with it, perhaps more often than adults and certainly for reasons hard to understand, I saw something recently on TV (I think it was Oprah, don’t hate on me…lol) where a doctor said that the part of the brain that uses logic and reasoning does not fully develop until 18, 19, 20, or even into early 20′s. This is why young people can make tragic mistakes like drinking too much or speeding or committing suicide; they do not yet have the capacity to comprehend the consequences. That ability just does not exist in their brains yet.
Tess, telling your children “not to do that to YOU” is the best way to handle it, I think. I know for myself, especially when I was young, but even today, the biggest deterrent for me has been the idea of hurting those who love me. That I cannot bear and sometimes that has been the only thing that has stopped me.
Any of you reading this who do not understand what it is like to have the urge to end your life, please believe me when I say that, although you can’t stop someone you love from doing it if they are going to, the strongest deterrent is telling them how much they will hurt YOU. Most people who want to die not only want to stop their own pain but we get it in our heads that we are hurting others just by existing. We tell ourselves things like, “everyone will be better off without me being such a pain/burden/horrible person”, etc.
Telling someone who is hurting and possibly suicidal how much they mean to YOU is the best way to help.
Tess, I hope you and yours feel better soon. {{{{{hugs}}}}
Oh god, send my apologies to your girls, I had that happen to me in high school, it was my best friend’s boy friend and it was just devastating. Couldn’t think of anything else and it shook the whole school up so hard.
It’s never possible to explain it, but at least you’re all talking about it, it’s a hard thing to do. *hugs*
::Hug::
*hugs* Hope things get better.
We had four girls commit suicide in less than a week here. These girls did it over being bullied in school. They’re now holding suicide prevention clinics for parents and students but not doing anything about the bullying. Makes perfect sense to me.
We had four girls commit suicide in less than a week here. These girls did it over being bullied in school. They’re now holding suicide prevention clinics for parents and students but not doing anything about the bullying. Makes perfect sense to me.
Don’t you know? Bullying is apart of growing up! *sarcasm* I feel for those girls. I was almost someone that committed suicide over being horrifically bullied. You would think that after SAMSHA declared it to be a form of abuse and all the research that’s been coming out of it lately that people would start taking it a little bit more seriously.
I think it is because of a lot of things. When you’re a teenager, people either have frighteningly high or depressingly low expectations for you. Compound that with the depression almost all of us feel, and then give us a sense of love and belonging.
And now take it away. It hurts, and at times it can seem completely unbearable. You’re handling this perfectly, and by the outlooks of your parenting that we can see, I’d be utterly stupefied if either of your kids felt this way enough to do the same.
-hug-
It’s not a problem with “teenagers today” — it’s always been a problem (consider “Romeo and Juliette,” or “The Sorrows of Young Werther“. As Amber points out, “the part of the brain that uses logic and reasoning does not fully develop until 18, 19, 20, or even into early 20’s”.
No, they do not comprehend death (unless they have had the experience of loosing someone they loved in the past five or so years, in which case they *might* have learned some lessons about death). And of course they are missing perspective — for many teenagers, they were protected as children from seeing or having to deal with “real problems,” and they haven’t lived long enough to accumulate that knowledge on their own.
So they don’t have the mental capacity to tell the difference between being dumped by some looser and a true crisis — it *feels* like the end of the world for them, and in our child-coddling society, it may be the first time they’ve had to deal with anything worse than not being able to get a Wii for Christmas. And very few teenagers have an adult they really feel they can confide in, and get reasonable advice from, without being treated “like a kid,” — because A.) adults forget what it’s like to be a teenager, and B.) adults know their brains aren’t finished developing yet, and this informs how we treat them — it’s hard to help it, especially when they are still having temper tantrums and being immature at regular intervals! But I remember being a teenager and I most decidedly *did not* feel like a kid — and being treated like one made me really angry!
I made a lot of bad decisions when I was a teenager (like deciding to be anorexic, that was a *good one*, or having sex with a few guys because I thought it would make me feel better about myself — I am lucky that the anorexia only caused me a life-long chronic illness, and I didn’t catch any STDs!) but they were *my* decisions, that I made for myself, and at the time I was pleased with them, and was glad to finally be making decisions for myself. I really had no one I trusted to talk to who was an adult — only advice from my friends, which was pretty much the worst advice I could get, much of the time!
You are looking at all of this with the perspective of time and experience. Teenagers do not have that — it’s what they are jealous of, and want to get NOW NOW NOW. People, even adults, generally only see what they want to see, and so teenagers only see the cool stuff of being an adult, and they are just *so ready* not to be kids anymore….
Those two girls threw their lives away — but those deaths have taught your daughters (and lots of other teens) about suicide and death (and hopefully that it’s not the only — or even a good — answer) and so those two girls have achieved some small thing in their deaths — not that that can console their families and friends….
(I’m not the same Ellen as above…)
I’m so very sorry. Suicide is fairly common in my family, but *generally* it’s older folks, generally those with terminal illnesses. It’s hard, but for me, not all that shocking. Maybe it’s being bipolar, but I know how many times it was something stupid that set me to thinking about it, randomly, or something stupid that prevented it.
Personally I think telling the girls not to do that to you is an okay thing to do, but I think ultimately the girls that killed themselves didn’t have value to THEMSELVES and that’s why they felt worthless enough to die when that SO left. They valued themselves based on what someone else thought, and when that person left…so did the value.
My thoughts go out to your girls and their friend’s family.
My daughter goes to a private school and so far this year we’ve had two girls commit suicide. It’s really affect everyone in their school,lives and the church most of us go to.
I hope things get better for you soon because i love your post…
Big Hugs
His mija~
I’m so sorry
((Hugs))
Pass along hugs from me…you don’t have to say where they came from, but please hug your daughters!
Two parents working, stressing, especially now, caught up in their own lives and worlds with little time for anything else, especially talking; especially children they think “have it all”-that accounts for a lot. The speed of life, the isolation it creates…
My own demons didn’t subside until I had grandchildren; knowing what it would do to them has finally made me know I can’t.
alan
My heart goes out to you and yours.
Suicide is so horrid.
There are no words.
Hang in there.. you have to cause you are the grownup.. sucks.. but such is life.
hugs.. always
Hugs to you all!
Kaya,
This royally sucks. I hate the idea of suicide. I hate the various mindsets that make suicide out to be some kind of solution to anything. I have to struggle to not hate the people who commit suicide and leave the ones who love them in suck horrible agony. Your family is in my prayers.
Dave
As a mental health professional, I have to comment here. I attended a workshop about eight years ago that was dedicated to adolescent suicides. The two major points I came away from that workshop were:
a) In a major research project utilizing autopsies of teens who suicided, the overwhelming majority of the teens had an absence of serotonin, the primary neurotransmitter that is boosted by antidepressant medication in the SSRI class (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors). Basically, that class of antidepressant medication boosts availability of serotonin, and
b) Teens who attempt suicide but don’t successfully complete it unilaterally report that they attempt suicide because they see it as the ONLY choice that they have. So, regardless of the stressor (such as bullying, etc), the teen has concluded that this is the only choice he/she has and rather than have absolutely no control over life, he/she utilizes suicide as a final choice.
It is my experience in counseling seriously depressed persons that asking them “not to do that to me” has little to no efficacy. Instead, look at ways to boost serotonin levels and remind your kids that there are ALWAYS choices, regardless of how serious a situation may seem.
Of course, honestly telling the person that if they successfully suicide, the persons left behind (including everyone close to the person suiciding) will spend the rest of their lives asking themselves on a daily basis what they could have done differently. This will sometimes act as a deterrent, but not always.
When working with suicidal patients in psychiatric hospitals, I usually state, “suicide is the ultimate way to say fuck you to everyone who ever loved you, I didn’t realize this was your agenda. Wouldn’t it just be easier to say “fuck you” to these people now in person, so they really get the message?”
Sorry you all are hurting. Unlike the MASH theme, suicide ISN’T painless. It hurts a helluva lot to those left behind.
di
::hugs::
Bah. It’s something with this month, I tell you. I swing between snapping and being angry, crying desperately, and staring into nothingness while wanting to cry.
Can’t it just be over? Like. Now.
i would never condone the act of suicide,but knowing what it’s like to consistently reach to the conclusion of suicide being the only answer i can say that being a teenager is tough shit,and it’s that way for .. mostly everyone. it’s a not very well known fact but girls between the ages of 10-18 are the meanest human being’s on the planet,and having to deal with that day in and day out is an aweful experience for anyone. when your that age everything in life that goes wrong is catastrophic,and you never think its going to get better. it’s a vicious cycle of hormones really. in the eye’s of someone so young they are HUGE, very real issues. i wish that those girls could have found a better way to deal with the issue at hand but if they did then i guess people wouldn’t be discussing it,and then the issue wouldn’t be addressed.
Hugs…
*Hugs* I’m so sorry to hear your daughter lost another friend
teen suicide isnt particularly new but so , so sad. Im sorry your girls have to experience losing friends.
I remember two friends committing suicide when I was a teenager. The adults all shook their heads and said things like ‘why did he etc.’ I sat with those adults and didnt tell them that i had tried and just wasn’t even good at that.
Strangely, I feel that people that commit suicide are something between drama queens and losers. Why it’s so strange is that i have tried on a several occasions,I even felt like a loser for NOT succeeding!
When Im not in the grip of depression, I barely am able to remember the pain and hopelessness that led me to try to hurt myself. Real depression is a soul sucking darkness that leaves you feeling so close to dead that you feel you might as well be.Anything to make the pain stop.
I remember reading something when i was at an all time low. A little along the lines of ‘so you want to kill yourself tonight? how about you make one last effort for medication/counselling/reaching out to a friend? after all if it doesnt work out you can always kill yourself later’ that sounds pretty harsh to someone who hasnt been considering suicide perhaps but it worked for me. after being given every stupid SSRI in the book, thinking there was nokind of help left, I have found something to help.
Turns out my son also had depression. When he was 19 he tried to kill himself by driving off a bridge at 60 mph(yes over a breakup). What seemed like a bit of divine intervention he wasnt badly hurt. I believe that was his 11th of his nine lives used up. He made some less serious efforts too and I have to say HOW FRUSTRATING it is to get mental health help for kids. He always came to me when he felt that everything was hopeless and I must have said a thousand times, ‘we can fix this’
Last summer my son seemed to be doing better and was just out hiking with some friends when he had a serious fall and died. His girlfriend was pregnant at the time. Later on we found out she was expecting TWINS and BOYS! The boys came early and we nearly lost one to the same thing his dad died of. They are healthy 3 month old babies now and Im finally glad my attempts to commit suicide sucked! to make a very long story short…
1. No matter how dark and hopeless it feels, there is always a chance something can help. If you’re dead there is no chance.
2. There is no doubt that the statement ‘Aint life weird!?’ really applies to all of us. Maybe the universe does know what it means in your emails
3. BEING A GRANDMA ROCKS!!!
and sadly, none of them have the good grace to film it so internet perverts can jerk off to it.
shit on those selfish bitches.
have to say, though – i’m glad they’re dead.
LONG LIVE DARWINISM AND THE WINNOWING OF INFERIOR BEINGS.
Your point of view is despicable.