Teen who made encouraging video on bullying commits suicide

It is difficult to know what to do when someone you love is struggling with depression. This story reminded me that we should always watch out for others.  Even though we cannot control their thoughts and actions; cannot prevent tragedy - we can do some things and perhaps it will help.  Here are a few ideas to keep in mind:

• Approach, don't stay away.  
• Ask: how do you feel emotionally?  Ask: can you tell me a thought that seems to run through your head?  Ask: have you talked to a doctor?  Ask: what, if anything, seems to help?
• Advise someone who is deeply depressed and/or suicidal to call their doctor.  If they are already being treated, urge them to call their doctor to give them an update.  If they don't have a doctor, see if they will call a helpline or let you call for them and find out how to get a doctor.  

Especially for teens, acknowledge the reluctance to get help.  Explain that it is necessary the same way that getting treated for a broken bone is necessary.  Make sure they have access to a hotline.  Have them put a post-it note on their computer.  They can write the number backwards and say it is a password.

SAFETY:  Someone who is having thoughts of suicide should be taken to the hospital.  Someone who is having suicidal thoughts should not be left alone.  Those who are suicidal don't get over it quickly - it takes time to treat depression.  Medication and counseling can and will help but not overnight so remain vigilant.

Note:  I am not a mental illness professional!  Please seek help from your doctor, pastor, school counselor or other professional whether you are the depressed person or someone who is concerned and wants to help.

Another Suicidal Message

A few Facebook posts today got my attention: a video on YouTube of the Vega Choir from Sweden doing Radiohead's Creep and a video posted by Ellen DeGeneres.  I've written about suicide before here, here, here, also here and here.  If you're interested, take a look.  Any discussion or questions are welcome.

The Rule of Four

I'm working on my thoughts about the 30 Essential Truths according to Dr. Gordon Livingston, author of Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart, posted recently on Alex Blackwell's great blog The Next 45 Years. Some of them hit very close to home. This post is about the Fourth Truth. From Alex's blog:

4. The statute of limitations has expired on most of our childhood traumas. For some, childhood was pleasant, almost idyllic. But for others, when there has been serious physical, sexual or emotional abuse it is important to recognize this and process this with a trained professional. No matter your past, change is the essence of life. In order to move forward in life we need to learn to live in the present.

This one hit closest to home for me.  How long can a situation that existed 30 years ago haunt someone?  Oh, about 30 years or so.  A professional can guide the process of recognizing past traumas.  To recognize is to identify the event(s).  This is different than describing - most of us know what happened to us.  In order to explain our past, we need to look at it through the eyes of an observer.  Why?  Because our vision is clouded by memories and stuck on rewind, playing the same tape over and over without alteration.  There are many other facets and by looking at them, we start to break up our tape.  Once the past is recognized, we are supposed to process it.  (put it in the blender and hit whip)

Progress; passage: the process of time; events now in process. To gain an understanding or acceptance of; come to terms with: processed the traumatic event in therapy.

An example: Mom has schizoaffective and bipolar disorders.  She has been hospitalized and medicated, received shock treatments and therapy, attempted suicide numerous times and spent days if not weeks in deep depression, locking herself in her room.  We were kids.  I was the oldest.  Sometimes she was manic, staying up all night playing the piano or rearranging the furniture.  On other manic occasions, she would go out drinking and playing cards (for money).  I remember feeding her, calling an ambulance when (and only if) she was unconscious, having holiday meals in the psych ward, seeing her restrained with leather straps, trying to take care of the four of us kids when she couldn't and having babysitters, nannies and grandma come before I was old enough.  I grew up picturing her funeral.  Every day.  For the next 30 years or so.  My psychologist pointed out many things that never entered my mind such as mom being extremely manipulative.  My dad would tell me that there was nothing I could do, releasing me from the burden of the responsibility I felt to make everything better.  A self-help book said that people learn good coping skills (as well as poor) growing up in an unhealthy environment.  When I began to hold on to ideas such as these, my mental recording that had been stuck on the previous description started to break up.  Just when I noticed that I was feeling better....

After living on her own and being stabilized as much as possible, mom fell and eventually had to stay in a nursing home.  When I go to see her, she is angry and says many of the things I heard as a child:  you kids don't care about me; I don't want to live anymore; I'm in so much pain, etc.  This took me back so fast, I physically felt the rush to the past.  Only this time, I wasn't a child who didn't understand.  Now I see much more and know that things will not change and that I should not feel guilty.  What I know and what I feel are quite different.  But this time, I know how to get help processing.

Would you? Or wouldn't you?

My son goes back to school after the holidays and learns that a classmate has committed suicide. The first day was unclear - heard there was an accident or he had hung himself. The second day confirmed the hanging. The obituary said he 'died suddenly.'

Before the holidays a girl stepped out in front of a train. Two trains were passing in opposite directions. She crossed after the first went by right as the second started to pass. There were counseling sessions at the school and memorials left at the railroad crossing.

Being familiar with suicide attempts via my mom, depression via me and my kids, I would choose to open up. But I understand and respect those families who can't face that. People say that there is nothing worse than losing a kid. Losing a kid to suicide is worse - lots worse.

I wish I were professionally qualified to speak at schools about depression and suicide. Depression can be fatal, but it is treatable. If your kid needed medication to treat an illness that could kill, you would make sure those meds got taken. But stigma - the idea that mental illness is 'all in your head' - prevents people from getting treatment or helping the mentally ill. Your brain is a part of your body. If your body gets sick, you go to the doctor and get treatment. Mental illness is the brain getting sick.

It is also a mistake to always dismiss kids' moods as normal adolescence. The best thing to happen to my kid was a unit on depression in health class in 7th grade. He was able to come home and say 'I feel like that.' The biggest challenge was finding a child psychiatrist. So I would like to think that I would open up to help other families.

I'm not criticizing anyone. I can't presume to know the dynamics of other families. We all do the best we can. My thoughts and prayers are with those who are affected by mental illness.

You don't know what it's like....to be me

Children of the mentally ill, an article from an Australian website devoted to adults, adolescents and children with mentally ill parents, gives an intro to what it's like. Programs like Al-Anon and Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACoA) are geared toward focusing on yourself and your growth. Abandonment sums it up - feeling like the rug has been jerked out from underneath you again and again. A firm foundation of parental love is non-existent. Adult children have lost trust, hope, control.

Our family went back and forth between normal and dysfunctional as the roller coaster of manic-depression ran through. I became an 'emotional perfectionist'; always wanting to be in control, to feel normal. After many bouts of depression that weren't responding to treatment, I was diagnosed with manic-depression myself. Wow - what an utter failure. Shouldn't that be the absolute worst thing? Like finding out you have a terminal genetic disease. But, hey - perseverance is one thing I learned and listening to the pdoc(psychiatric doctor) was another. No hospitalization, no suicide attempts, no days and weeks in bed or staying up all night rearranging furniture and no drug and alcohol misuse or abuse.

Hopefully, my kids have come through and know they are loved, have a rug to stand on, can trust in me and themselves, have hope for the future while acknowledging that God is in control.