Hope and Healing
Not all the news about teen suicide trends is bad news. Research shows that several kinds of suicide prevention programs reduce the number of student suicide attempts. In particular, programs that teach warning signs and fight the stigma of depression help teens to help themselves and others.
Prevention can be seen as circular, involving three connected stages. Primary prevention aims to reduce the risk of suicide by concentrating on improving the physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being of at-risk people. Secondary prevention (early intervention) tries to target suicidal individuals either before they injure themselves or during a suicidal crisis. Tertiary prevention (postvention) focuses on individuals who have been affected by suicidal behavior: ones who have attempted it, those who are at high risk for recurrence, and family members who are also at high risk.
Students at Logansport High School in Indiana are helping their classmates by participating in the Sources of Strength suicide prevention program.
Prevention is education. Prevention programs include lessons on life skills and parenting, crisis hotlines, and support for high-risk families, and there are trained professionals to do screenings, assessments, and prevention work. Suicide prevention education includes parental education. Teaching parents to learn about suicide’s warning signs, the significance of developing their child’s and their own self-esteem, developing trust with their child, and the need for parenting courses, especially on how to parent an adolescent, are all part of the education.
Peer education in schools could include topics like the warning signs of depression and suicide, how to deal with stress appropriately, and sexuality. Community education could also include warning signs like copycat suicides, developing community resources for teens, initiating suicide prevention programs, offering grief support groups, and generally developing positive attitudes toward teens so they will seek help in their own communities.
Teen self-education needs to include what leads up to suicide, how to cope, whom to talk to when they require help, and having access to school curriculum dealing with suicide.
There is strong evidence indicating the treatment of alcohol and drug abuse can reduce suicide rates. Lessons about the hazards of substance abuse should also be addressed at school. Some effective interventions involve gun control. In a household in which a firearm is kept, it is three times more likely that an inhabitant will die from suicide than a person who is living in a gun-free home.
Yellow ribbons represent suicide prevention efforts.
Suicide Intervention Programs in Schools
Many schools have suicide awareness and intervention programs. The program may start by addressing what suicide is. You and your classmates may know or not know about key information about suicide, including common myths.
You might also learn about how you can tell if someone is suicidal. This might be done by identifying what is normal adolescent emotional development, like mood swings, from suicidal warning signs. Doing a role-playing exercise with a friend in which one person says how he or she is experiencing depression while the other friend reacts appropriately is also a good exercise.
There may be a discussion on why teens attempt suicide. Some of the discussion might focus on stress. For example, you might find a partner and both list all the stresses in your lives. Hook up with another group of two people and see if you match or can add more. At the end of the activity, you can list all the causes of stress and then talk about what you can all do to relieve stress.
These sessions might include a lesson about active listening. It is important to talk about how you can help someone who is feeling suicidal. First, always try to be a good listener. Here are questions to ask yourself in evaluating your listening skills:
• Name a time when you were a good listener.
• Name a time when you were a poor listener.
• When did you pay attention?
• When were you too busy to pay attention?
• Did you make good eye contact?
• Were you distracted when somebody was trying to talk to you?
• Were you empathetic to somebody else’s feelings?
• Were you interested in what somebody else had to say?
Suicide intervention programs might also involve discussions about alcohol and drug abuse. A young adult who is recovering from substance abuse could come to your school to talk about his or her experiences.
If your school is not sensitized to or aware of the problem of suicide, here are some ideas to get started in the community:
• See if your school can start a peer counseling program.
• Make sure your school has guidelines in place for suicides, bullying, cyberbullying, high-risk behaviors, and depression.
• Find out what is already available in your community.
• Ask your local law enforcement agency about guidelines for restrcting access to firearms for young people.
• Contact your local crisis line and ask what it has avalable in resources for education and traning.
• Ask your local emergency services (paramedics, ambulances) about procedures and follow-up for people who attempt suicide.
• Create a website to inform individuals about services and resources.
• Help organize suicide awareness or intervention skills traning.
• Get involved with staff at your school to create a sucide prevention plan.
EARLY INTERVENTION
Intervention is the care and treatment of the person who is in crisis or who has suicidal concerns. It involves evaluating and managing a crisis situation.
In school suicide-intervention programs, the school develops systems to provide immediate help to high-risk students and establishes policies and procedures as well as links to outside community resources that do follow-up with students. Counseling in the school focuses on the severity of the student risk and immediately prevents self-harm and stabilizes the student’s current level of coping. There is a reduction in suicide rates of young people when there have been school-based interventions, such as crisis management, self-esteem enhancement, development of coping skills, and assistance in helping to make healthy decisions.
School guidance counselors are an important part of early intervention programs.
There are many ways to do interventions. Some of these treatments might start with a survey that determines a person’s suicide risk level. A person may also start psychotherapy, which is a term used for different kinds of psychological counseling. Some methods include teaching people how to think positively and to develop coping and problem-solving skills. In therapy, a person may also undergo interpersonal therapy, which may include teaching social skills, such as making friends.
Psychotherapy doesn’t have to be one-on-one. A person can join group therapy, meaning meeting people of the same age or with the same depressive illnesses. Family therapy is when everybody in your family participates in therapy sessions, either one-on-one or together as a family. There are also various supports at school, such as the school nurse, guidance counselors, psychologists, and social workers.
A person who is depressed can also use relaxation and visualization therapies, and biofeedback, which aims to correct stress level. Antidepressant medications are another way to fight depression.
If the depression is severe enough, a person might require hospitalization. Once a suicide has been attempted, hospitalization may also be necessary. This may entail confinement in the psychiatric ward of a hospital and placing the patient on suicide watch and all staff on high alert. Although hospitalization may seem scary, it is a time in which specialists can help direct the next steps in preventing reoccurrence, like assessing for drug and alcohol abuse. This is also a time that you may be treated with medications like antidepressants or antianxiety drugs as well as making sure you have somebody to go to for counseling when you leave the hospital.
POSTVENTION
The days and weeks after a suicide can be filled with confusion and turmoil. Postvention refers to the steps schools should take in the aftermath of a suicide to help the students, staff, and parents. After a student has died by suicide, coordinated services and activities designed to help students, parents, friends, teachers, and the community cope are necessary.
The death of a student by suicide is very difficult for staff and students at the deceased’s school. Some of the major concerns that need to be addressed are grief resolution and making sure that a suicide death does not inspire copycat suicides in a school community. Professionals can help support the family and friends who have been profoundly affected by the suicide of their loved one through individual and group counseling and support.
High-risk students should be sought out to be counseled and monitored. The funeral and memorial services should be handled with grace and dignity. It should be recognized that any student who dies by suicide was part of the community and will be missed as his or her life had meaning and value.
Here’s what you can expect a counselor to do after the suicide of a peer:
• Help you accept the reality of the loss. It is important to give yourself permission to grieve in your own way, as long as it is not detrimental to yourself or others.
• Help you to identify and express your feelings. You may have feelings of regret, anger, and guilt. Both positive and negative feelings may need to be expressed in a safe and empathetic environment.
• You may learn about typical grief reactions in an effort to normalize your experience. In the grieving process, there will be highs and lows, much like being on an emotional roller coaster.
• You may experience feelings of lack of control, which is not unusual.
• You may be cautioned against not allowing yourself to grieve or hurrying your grief process.
Remember that grief is individualistic, there is no right or wrong way to grieve. It may take you a long time to feel happy or even laugh again.
Once a teen has died by suicide, many people are affected. The devastated family and friends are known as “survivors.” There are millions of survivors each year trying to deal with the loss of their loved ones who died by suicide. Suicide-loss survivors suffer in three ways: first, because they are grieving for the deceased; second, because they are suffering from the traumatic experience; and third, because people do not talk about suicide. It can be difficult to confide in your closest friends and family members. You might not receive the response you may have received if it was another kind of death.
After a loved one has taken their life, you may go through a series of emotional ups and downs. You might experience initial shock. You might feel it is all a bad dream and when you wake up things will be back to normal. You might have bouts of crying and feel blue or tired. Your sleeping patterns may suffer as well. After a suicide, survivors within the family often experience feelings of guilt and often want to punish themselves for what has happened. You may torture yourself with thoughts about whether you could have done something different. If so, would the person be alive today? You may constantly ask or say to yourself:
• What if … ?
• Why didn’t I … ?
• If only I could have …
• Suicide cheated me out of time to say goodbye.
• I had no chance to say, “I’m sorry.”
• I’m feeling helpless.
• I feel vulnerable. I’m afrad it will happen to others in my family.
• Why didn’t I see the warning signs?
• Why?
Many times in your head you will go over and over the last conversation or the last time you saw your loved one alive. You may start experiencing nightmares.
Each person grieves differently and at his or her own pace. Remember, you may not be at the same stage as your other family members or friends. There is no correct timing for grieving. Some people may stay longer in certain stages than others. The stages of grief are:
• Denial (This isn’t happening to me!)
• anger (Why is this happening to me?)
• Bargaining (I promise I’ll be a better person if … )
• Depression (I don’t care anymore.)
• Acceptance (I’m ready for whatever comes.)
It is important that you do not hold back your emotions. Let them out. Cry. Talk to your friends. You may need to take the initiative to talk about the suicide or share your feelings. Many people do not know what to say after a person dies by suicide. It might be up to you to open the channels of communication. You may find it helpful to reach out to family and friends. Many times, clergy is around the family to provide comfort. This could be a time to look to your religion for some comfort.
Coping with a Parent’s Suicide
Losing a parent is one of the most traumatic experiences a teen can go through. Losing a parent to suicide can often cause a confusing mixture of emotions. It is normal to experience feelings of anger, numbness, shame, or even relief if a parent was struggling for a long time prior to taking their own life. Experts say that it is critical to allow yourself to feel these feelings and work through them as part of the grieving process.
Keep in mind that some days will be easier than others. Difficult days might include Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, your parent’s birthday, and the anniversary of their death. Mental health professionals advise preparing for days that may prove difficult.
Creating traditions for special days like Mother’s Day or Father’s Day can help you cope with the loss of a parent.
Psychologists recommend creating new traditions for these days, traditions that celebrate the life of the person you lost. That said, always check in with yourself. If you need time alone on those days, let the people around you know. If you need extra support, communicate that too.
Facing questions about your parent’s death is also something to prepare for. Plan out what you’ll say in advance of questions so that you’re not taken off guard. It’s OK to tell people that you don’t want to talk about your parent’s death. The American Society for Suicide Prevention suggests the following responses to questions or comments that violate your boundaries:
• I don’t really want to talk about it right now.
• That comment is very hurtful to me; you know my [parent] just died.
• It really is none of your business.
Grief is hard work, but you don’t have to go through it alone. Reach out to friends and family. Join a support group for teens who have lost a parent to suicide. And if you begin to have suicidal thoughts yourself, ask for help immediately.
Suicide is usually a culmination of a sequence of disturbing and troubling events. Depending on the relationship you had with the deceased, you may have been already living in a nightmare without control, and now that it is over there is a feeling of relief. You may feel ashamed for having these feelings.
There may also be a feeling of guilt, which might come from the relief that you feel that the person who died by suicide finally did it, guilty at not being able to stop the act, or guilty for blaming God. You may review the past because you may feel you have failed the person, and you want to try and discover how.
Many survivors also feel shame because the act of suicide is not condoned by their religion, town, family, or in general, society. You also may start blaming either yourself or others.
Dwelling on the suicide and picturing it in your head over and over is not beneficial. You may try to remember the kind and good acts of the deceased. The expectation that you will eventually find the “why” for the suicide is one of the first things you may have to let go of on the way to healing. You cannot turn back the clock or erase the past. It is important to find someone or a group that you can relate to that will be a positive influence in your life and help you get to the stage of acceptance and support you through your grieving process.
Grieving for a Sibling
If you have a sibling who died by suicide, you are a very vulnerable survivor. You must struggle with your own grief, as well as guilt, anger, sadness, and all other strong emotions. Unfortunately, your parents are also dealing with their own grief at the same time. They might want to give you the attention that you need but may not feel they have the strength to do it. You may start feeling neglected and troubled, or you might take on a parental role and view your parents as the children.
You need to be able to heal together as a family. Blaming each other will not help. Talking together and sharing emotions will be better for everyone in the long run. If you have young siblings in your family, they may not understand the reactions around them. They may feel the death is their fault, or they may feel abandoned by their loved one. They may benefit from child-oriented therapy, like play or art therapy.
Healing After a Loved One’s Suicide
If you have been affected by someone close to you who has taken their own life, bereavement groups are excellent for support. Information on finding one close to you can be found on the internet. Some are affiliated with local hospitals or medical centers. Often members of these groups talk about their own experiences and how they’ve learned to live with their loss.
Eventually, you will laugh and enjoy your life again. You may have mixed emotions for feeling this way, but remember your feelings are natural and normal. To start the healing process, it is really important that you take care of your own personal well-being. You should eat right, exercise, and try to get enough sleep. This is not the time to take up risky behaviors like smoking, drinking, drugs, and sex just to drown out or not deal with your feelings.
Finding someone to talk to about your loss is important for healing.
You may need to go to a bereavement group or see a social worker, psychologist, psychiatrist, school guidance counselor, clergy person, or any professional person whom you feel comfortable enough to talk to and whom you feel can guide you through the therapeutic experience. There are also crisis intervention hotlines and centers that are staffed by trained personnel who offer guidance and support while you grieve.
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
If you are experiencing suicidal thoughts, you are not alone. Likewise, if you have lost someone you care about to suicide, you are not alone. The people around you care about you and want you to stay safe, just like you want to protect your friends from harm. Even if it feels like no one cares, there are places to turn where you’ll be heard, respected, and helped.
Katie Stubblefield’s Second Chance
In 2017, Katie Stubblefield became the youngest American ever to receive a face transplant. A suicide attempt in 2014 required her to have more than twenty facial reconstructive surgeries before the transplant took place. The transplant surgery was performed by eleven surgeons over the course of nearly fifty hours total.
Stubblefield’s experience serves as a reminder that not everyone who attempts suicide suffers from depression. At eighteen, she made her attempt in the heat of the moment, after a bad breakup and medical and family issues.
She has shared her story in the hopes of preventing others from taking their lives. In spite of years of medical treatment and a difficult recovery, Stubblefield sees only the joy in life. She is grateful to have a second chance. She says, “Life is precious, and life is beautiful. Life is a gift.” Stubblefield hopes to spread her message to as many people as possible. She aims to work as a counselor and motivational speaker after she finishes college. Luckily, she has her whole life ahead of her to spread her message of hope and healing.
Call a crisis line. Ask a friend, teacher, or parent if you can take a minute to talk. Remember that some problems might seem big now that won’t affect your adult life at all. Other problems, like grief over losing someone you love, won’t always feel overwhelming to you. Instead, you’ll work through your grief and honor your loved one’s memory by building a healthy, happy life. You can use your pain to help others experiencing the same obstacles as you have. Ask for help. Help someone around you. The world will be better for it.