Youth Suicide

WOW!! It's been a long time since I have used this format. I wasn't even sure I remembered by login information. But, here I am. I wish it was for a different reason, youth suicide is a heavy topic. A topic that most people hear about, feel bad that they know someone who took their own life, vow to make a change, and a week later it is business as usual. That needs to stop.

Yesterday we learned of two, yes TWO, students that committed suicide in our district. And today I learned that the teenage suicide rate in the state of Colorado is DOUBLE the national average. How did that happen? What is different about this state than others? While I can't answer those questions, I can tell our story. I will not stop telling our story until something changes. Many of you know bits and pieces of our story, but not the entire story. Our entire story is way to long for this post, so I will give you a brief view.

Being a military family means lots of moves to new locations, schools, and making new friends. My kids know all to well what it is like to be the new kid. It's not fun. Especially as they got older. We got spoiled in NC. We were there for 9 years. That's a long time for a military family to be in one spot. The Army said it was time to go and we moved to Colorado about 2 years ago. As in previous moves I searched and searched and searched and searched where we should live, where will the boys go to school. We had high schoolers when we moved to Colorado. That is a beast we had not had to tackle before with the military moves. We had to deal with different episodes of bullying through the years, but nothing like we have seen here.


At first it looked like the boys were adjusting well. Then our youngest would come home pissed off at the world, shut us out, internalized everything, and I knew we were in trouble. This kid, much like his dad, would shove everything down until there was a point of no return. He was getting bullied on the bus that took the kids to the community college. We attempted to address this with administration, but it only made our son's situation worse.  And while the school says it has a zero tolerance policy for bullying, nothing was done to these kids. Once the kids in question knew that we had sought help from administration they upped the ante and became even more relentless. This caused our child to head into a downward spiral. Our son made not so great choices and lost his spot in the welding program. We ended up having to change his graduation plan and he ended up being enrolled through the district with an online program so we could keep him home away from the issues. He could not function in the building.

One night I was running late for work and our son was at the kitchen table doing school work (this was before we moved him to the online format). I could tell he was off. Something wasn't right. I asked repeatedly what was wrong. He answered each time with "nothing, I'm fine." I knew he wasn't fine. I was in tune with this kid. I knew his mannerism, I knew he was off. I continued to pry as to what was wrong and he broke down crying saying that kids at school told him he should just kill himself. I stood there mouth in hand and had no idea what to say to him. I had no idea how to take that hurt away. I had no idea how to communicate to him how loved and valued he is. I cried with him. I don't remember the words I spoke that day to him, but I remember every motion, touch, and the look on his face that said this pain is not worth living through. We again sought help from the school, but unless our child was willing to name the kids they wouldn't do anything. And given past lack of action on the schools part, our child was not willing to take that emotional risk again.

What the school and those kids didn't see is a tender hearted kid who would give anyone the shirt off his back if they needed it. What they didn't see was the multiple trips to the counselor and changing counselors because I was out of tools in my toolbox to help him. What they didn't see was my child crying and saying maybe it was better if he wasn't here anymore. What they didn't see was me sleeping downstairs on the couch so I could check on him often, or sitting outside his bedroom praying for an answer to end his hurt that didn't involve him taking his own life. What they didn't see was his bedroom door taken away. Not because he did anything wrong, but we needed to for safety. What they didn't see is that I almost quit my job so I could stay with our child 24/7. What they didn't see what the constant worry, anxiety, and heightened state of awareness that we were all on.

This story is not unique. There are families just like ours that are going through this very hell each and every night. The families that you would least expect to hear it from. Kids are already under an immense amount of pressure to get perfect grades, do well on the ACT/SAT, being dual enrolled, volunteer so it looks good to colleges, be involved in clubs......and the list continues. Somewhere along the way, we as parents, have embraced this craziness and instead of saying ENOUGH, we keep on the crazy train. And a lot of time it is us driving that train. Because if we have to admit to our parent peers that our kids aren't involved in 17 activities plus school we feel like we are less than as a parent. Instead of teaching our kids life lessons that matter we are teaching them how to work the system.

I have heard from many people that we need to teach kids to be kind to each other. And while I agree with that statement, how are we going to teach them that when the majority of adults in this country screams, cries, and carries on worse than a two year old if someone doesn't agree with their point of view. We have become a country of yelling at each other until someone agrees with their point of view or gets tired of arguing and walk away. We have adults going on multiple social media platform to name call and spew hate in the name of free speech. So, how can we in good faith expect our children to behave differently? I don't think we can. While we can say our kids need to be kind to each other and we need to teach them to embrace different, they are watching us. The adults in their life. The majority of adults are failing our children. We are failing to show them we can love and respect someone who is different than us or has a different path than us. I'm not even sure how to start he conversation. Maybe I already have by writing this. Maybe it starts with each of us just simply being kind to each other. And not be kind to them but belittle them behind closed doors. Our kids hear that too. I mean genuinely be kind. Respect that someone has a different point of view or lifestyle and IT IS OK. We live in a country that allows us to do that. We need to embrace the differences in each other. If we were all the same or believed the same what is the point in being here? We can learn more from each other than any education system can teach us or our children.

I am not sure how we got over the hurdle and our son's situation started to get better. I don't think it was any one thing, I think it was multiple things. This time last year I lived in fear that my child would take his life and there wasn't anything I could do to stop it. I can only imagine the heartache that these families are going through. Hug your babies tonight. You never truly know everything they deal with when they aren't with you. Please keep an open door and let them say whatever it is that they need to say. Even if it is what they ate for lunch. It is important. It is a starting point. It does matter. You matter. Our kids matter.