Understanding Depression and Suicidal Thoughts
Troy was fifteen when he began feeling hopeless. His family was having money problems, he was being bullied at school, and he started to think that there was no way out of his problems. He couldn’t imagine continuing to hide his sexuality from his neighbors in his small town. Troy didn’t believe anyone would accept him for who he was. Feeling like his pain would never end, Troy attempted suicide.
Troy’s suicide attempt was more than twenty years ago. Today, he has a family of his own, and he leads a life of joy and purpose. Troy’s recovery was a long road. “There are still days that suicide pops into my head,” he says. “But … I’ve been given tools and I have support, and I know that there are solutions to whatever it is that is going on.”
Troy’s story is not uncommon. Adults who attempted suicide in their teens often say that many of the problems they faced then are no longer relevant to their lives. Others continue to struggle with suicidal thoughts but have the coping skills they need to thrive anyway.
More and more parents, teachers, friends, and classmates are coming to terms with the seriousness of depression and suicidal thoughts. Communities are finding new ways to reach out to suicidal teens. This work is critical. You are in a position to help yourself and others and to make a difference in the epidemic of teen suicide.
If you or someone you love is in danger of harming themselves right now, please call 911. The phone number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (United States) is 1-800-273-8255. If you are in Canada, you can call the Canada Suicide Prevention Service: 1-833-456-4566.
A GROWING PROBLEM
As of 2016, suicide is the second-leading cause of death for Americans under the age of eighteen. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports that the total number of teen suicides increased 70 percent from 2006 to 2016. Experts believe that more than 15 percent of all high school students have seriously considered suicide by the time they graduate.
These numbers mean that it is likely that some of your friends, the people sitting next to you in class, and even your siblings might be grappling with suicidal thoughts. For a number of teens, the transition into adulthood can be difficult. Adolescents can be a particularly vulnerable group that can encounter pressure from their family and peer group. Many often encounter some of the following pressures and problems:
• Family breakdown
• Sexuality (teenage pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, sexual identity issues)
• Body image (anorexia nervosa, bulimia, obesity, acne)
• Moral and spiritual (conflict with parental values, rebellion, susceptibility to religious groups and cults)
• School achievement
• Peer pressure
• Social challenges
Teens may experience one of these problems or several at once. For teens who suffer from mental health conditions like depression or substance abuse problems, these stressors might feel like too much to bear.
TEENS AND DEPRESSION
Depression is a medical condition on the rise in teens. Those aged fifteen to twenty-four suffer the highest rate of depression and suicidal thoughts, but only 30 percent of depressed teens get help.
Chances are someone sitting next to you in one of your classes is struggling. Reaching out could save a life.
The words you use when talking about suicide can help others feel safe sharing their experiences. Avoid saying someone “committed” suicide.
Because suicide is such a sensitive topic, it’s important to use the correct terms when discussing it. Mental health professionals advise against saying that someone “committed suicide,” or that someone made a “successful” or “unsuccessful” suicide attempt. Instead, experts recommend using the term “died by suicide,” saying that someone “ended their life,” or that he or she made a “πoπfatal” or “fatal” suicide attempt. There are good reasons for these word choices.
“Died by suicide” does not make it sound like someone committed a crime or a sin. Calling suicide attempts “fatal” or “nonfatal” just communicates facts without any judgment. On the other hand, labeling suicide attempts as “successful” or “unsuccessful” can encourage people who have made nonfatal suicide attempts to make further suicide attempts. Suicide-attempt survivors who seek treatment have reported feeling like failures after hearing people call their attempts “unsuccessful.”
Psychologists and psychiatrists encourage everyone to choose their words carefully after someone dies by suicide. It’s important to make sure that friends and family left behind feel like they can talk openly about their loved one. It’s also critical to remember that every time you talk about suicide, someone listening might be struggling with suicidal thoughts. The way that you talk about suicide could be the difference between them asking for help or hiding their pain.
There is a direct link between depressive illnesses and suicide. It is important to note that teens who are feeling depressed do not necessarily feel suicidal. It is also very important to know that not all suicidal teens are depressed.
Depression’s Warning Signs
It is not unusual to feel sad, blue, or even depressed from time to time. Sadness is a normal reaction to loss or grieving. On the other hand, sometimes feeling down becomes so intense that it interferes with day-to-day living. People can get depressed for many reasons: genetic factors, loss of a personal relationship, illness, grief, feeling alone, poor self-esteem, feeling like a failure in life, abusing alcohol and drugs, or a number of intense life disappointments.
Depression is an internal state. The image that people who are depressed show to the rest of the world may not reveal the true desperation they are, in fact, experiencing internally. Some exhibit a few, and some experience many, of the following signs of depression:
• Losing interest in hobbies, school, and friends
• Experiencing a lot of aches and pans
• Feeling blue, rebellious, and angry
• Sleeping too much or too little
• Letting hygiene go
Depression gets in the way of day-to-day life. Look out for symptoms in yourself and others.
• Crying spells
• Trouble with day-to-day concentration or memory
• Persistent sad, anxious, or empty mood
• Feelings of hopelessness and pessimism
• Feelings of guilt, worthlessness, and helplessness
• Fatigue
• Difficulty making decisions
• Weight loss or gain
• Restlessness and irritability
• Persistent symptoms such as headaches, digestive disorders, and chronic pain
• Thoughts of death and suicide
• Suicide attempts
Many of these characteristics are common in teenagers, but the time to be concerned is when roughly five or more are prevalent or if a teen has suicidal thoughts or makes an attempt on their own life.
Kinds of Depression
Depression doesn’t come in just one form. There are many different types of depression. In seasonal affective disorder (SAD), people who have difficulties adjusting to less sunlight during the winter months feel depressed and blue. Bipolar disorder is a mental disorder that can be seen as a wide variance of mood. People with bipolar disorder are sometimes depressed and sometimes experience mania, which is when a person is hyperactive, highly elated, or irritable. Someone who is bipolar has mood swings between these two states.
Clinical depression means that the depression is severe enough to require treatment. A person who is clinically depressed feels sad most of the day, nearly every day, for at least two weeks. Often the person cannot sleep or sleeps too much. Clinically depressed people lose interest in activities that they once enjoyed, lose their sense of value for themselves, and feel worthless and helpless. Because they have a severe loss or increase in appetite, a weight change may start to become noticeable. For adolescents, depression may appear like irritability. Self-destructive behavior may be common when dealing with depressive states. This behavior may take more indirect forms such as acting out and self-destructive behaviors such as cutting (using a knife on the skin) or alcohol and drug abuse.
Bullying can take place in person, online, or through text messages. There is a link between bullying and depression, so it’s important to report bullying immediately.
Attempting suicide is a more direct and highly lethal form of self-harm. Clinically depressed adolescents are significantly more likely to attempt suicide than their nondepressed peers. In treating clinical depression, many professionals work with antidepressant medications. Depression and its warning signs should be taken very seriously. The sooner depression can be identified and treated, the better.
Bullying and Depression
Researchers have found a relationship between bullying and clinical depression in teens.
Bullying incidents have been reported during all levels in school from primary grades to high schools. Bullying incidents have also been reported at the college level and even in the workforce. Many school boards have curricula that address the problem of bullying. Some have help lines to assist victims of bullying.
Text Messages, Cyberbullying, and the Death of Conrad Roy
Michelle Carter appears in court during her trial in 2017.
In 2014, eighteen-year-old Conrad Roy III ended his life. He left behind a loving family and his seventeen-year- old girlfriend, Michelle Carter. Roy’s suicide would end up making international news, and Carter would find herself in prison for it.
After a 2017 trial, a Massachusetts judge found that Carter’s text messages to Roy convinced Roy to take his own life. In her text messages, Carter repeated myths and lies about suicide. She told Roy that dying by suicide was the way to end his pain. After Roy’s death, Carter told a friend that she “could’ve easily stopped him or called the police but I didn’t.” Carter was convicted on involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to two and a half years in prison.
Carter’s prison sentence shows cyberbullying can come from surprising places, including friends, girlfriends, or boyfriends. The Carter case is an extreme reminder that everyone is responsible for what they say online and via text message. Words carry a lot of weight—and digital words have real-life consequences.
Bullying can take place in person or online. While most interactions online are positive, there are those who use the internet to antagonize and intimidate people. Cyberbullying is a way to harass, humiliate, or threaten others using the internet or cell phones.
Report bullying to a trusted adult, like a coach, parent, teacher, or guidance counselor.
There are many cases where cyberbullying has been one of the main causes for young people to end their lives. In fact, experts say that victims of cyberbullying are twice as likely to hurt themselves.
If you have ever been bullied, you cannot help but feel disempowered. Many students who kill themselves were bullied by others and could not break the painful cycle. They saw suicide as a way out from the day-to-day torment. It’s important to remember that there are solutions to bullying.
First, be aware of what you are posting on websites. If you have a blog, be very careful what it contains. Go to an adult if you read anything online or have a circumstance that you feel uncomfortable handling yourself or if you are feeling threatened in any way. In general, always guard your private contact information. Do not give people you do not know any information about yourself, like your cell phone number, name, address, school, or email address.
If you are being bullied on the internet, you need to save the evidence. Don’t keep looking at it, as this may create more stress. You should store it in a place where you can access it later. Next, send an assertive message telling the bully to stop harassing you, and block or filter all messages from the bully.
If you’ve done those things, and the bully is still harassing you, change your email address, block the bully on social media accounts, and tell your school counselor or a teacher. If the cyberbully is a peer, have your parent contact his or her parents or guardians to let them know what is going on. If you continue to be bullied, have your parent contact a lawyer to send a letter demanding the cyberbullying stop. Contact the police if the cyberbullying involves threats of violence, coercion, obscene messages, harassment or stalking, hate or bias messages, or if he or she is creating or sending sexually explicit pictures.
BUSTING MYTHS ABOUT TEEN SUICIDE
Contrary to popular belief that suicides occur around holidays, such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, and
New Year’s, research indicates that suicide is most prevalent in the spring. People usually die by suicide during the daytime. Less than half of people who die by suicide leave a note. Many times, suicide attempts are actually cries for help that need to be taken seriously. The act is a way of communicating the intense turmoil the person is feeling. Many teens do not actually want to end their lives; they want an end to the pain they are feeling.
There is a lot of misinformation about suicide floating around. This misinformation can stand between people and the help they need. Below are some common myths about suicide attempts and suicidal thoughts. Understanding the truth about suicide and suicidal thoughts is the first step toward beating the stigma that surrounds it.
Myth: Friends Should Not Tell on a Friend Who Is Talking About Suicide
Fact: It is difficult to betray a friend’s trust, and you may worry he or she is going to be angry with you, but by telling a responsible adult, you may in fact be saving your friends life. This is one secret you should not keep.
Myth: Once a Teen Is Suicidal, He or She Is Suicidal for His or Her Entire Life
Fact: Many times people can feel suicidal for a limited time, and with the proper interventions and preventive measures, their behavior can be controlled. It is important to note that being suicidal is not necessarily a life sentence.
Myth: People Who Talk About Suicide Will Not Attempt It
Fact: People who talk about suicide do quite often make attempts, including fatal attempts. If a teenager mentions that he or she is thinking of suicide, do not brush it off or laugh it off; take the threat very seriously. Eighty percent of people give many clues to the fact that they are going to attempt to take their own lives. This means that if you know ten people who constantly talk about suicide, eight of those ten may try it, so take it seriously.
Myth: Suicide Affects Only One Member of a Family
Fact: Some families do have a history of suicide. Suicidal behavior is not necessarily predetermined genetically, but there is a major concern that once a suicide exists in a family, other members may be at high risk. What is hereditary is a predisposition for depression, which can lead to suicidal thoughts. Nowadays, with medication and counseling, high-risk family members can be helped. Just because one member of a family has died by suicide does not mean another member of the family is doomed to take their own life.
Myth: People Who Survive a Suicide Attempt Never Try Again
Fact: Half of all teens who have made one suicide attempt will make another, sometimes more than one a year until they take their own life. In fact, three months to a year after the first attempt, repeat attempts have been noted to occur, even when it looks like the person may be improving. That is the strange thing—just when you think the person looks happier, he or she may try and take his or her own life again. The issues and the problems that led to the suicide attempt need to be altered or changed, otherwise the person may likely try again. The majority of suicide attempts are expressions of extreme distress and not just harmless bids for attention. Those teens who have had a suicide attempt should be carefully monitored.
Myth: Suicide Is Painless
Fact: Many suicide methods are in fact painful. The media sometimes portrays suicide attempts romantically, but the reality is they can be very harsh.
Myth: People from Good Families Never Die by Suicide
Fact: Suicide can claim people from all walks of life, religion, socioeconomic stature, and age. For example, a teenager may feel that he or she is in a perfect family but feels he or she can never be good enough. It’s critical to not let shame about yourself or your family stand in the way of getting help.
