And It Has Happened AGAIN!

[DawnM]

Suicide is devastating.

Being a young adult can blow, and the emotions can feel powerful. We try to teach our daughter how to handle failure and adversity throughout her life so that she can cope with that later in life.

This is especially important to us, as my stepson killed himself last year and we know first hand how horrific suicide is on everyone left behind.

So sorry

 

[DawnM]

When I was in high school, there was this kid - wore raggedy clothes, smelled terrible. At the cafeteria, when all of the other kids ate in their cliques, this kid ate alone. He would eat kind-of hunched over his food, in order to keep other kids from stealing it or knocking it away from him. He would scarf down his food really quickly - so quickly that sometimes he'd gag or puke. Again - he did it so he could eat before the other kids knocked his food away or stole it.

Anyway, one day I was in the principal's office (I spent a lot of time in the principal's office in high school), and the principal was called away for this reason or that, and while he was gone I snuck a peek at the paperwork on his desk. It was the enrollment list, with the names of students whose enrollment status had changed up at the top. Two or three new students moved to the district, a couple moved out. But there was another name: that kid from the first paragraph. And the reason for his drop was listed as "deceased." That was it. No ceremony in the gym where everyone mourns him or whatever - just paperwork to be filed and forgotten about.

A couple of weeks later I was talking to the youth minister at my church about his job. He told me that he made a little money on the side by contracting with a local funeral home, doing funerals for children and teenagers whose families weren't attached to a church. He had done two such funerals in the past couple of weeks. One was a popular girl - a cheerleader, good grades, good family, the whole bit. The entire town turned up at her funeral, and there was a line of mourners down the block. She had committed suicide, and no one knew why.

The other was a younger boy, whose name I recognized. There were only two people at his funeral- his parents. He, too, had committed suicide. And I knew exactly why.

Heartbreaking.

 

[THEDISNEYTHREE]

We have had several young teen boys take their lives recently. All went to private expensive schools. Two killed themselves with guns. One jumped off a bridge in front of a bus of grade school kids. All of them said it was the pressure of school and life and what the future held. One was a very promising soccer star who did not like the limelight of being successful in his sport.

I talked to both of my boys when each occurred and told them that nothing in life was that overwhelming, a bad grade etc that we could not work through as a family. None of that ultimately mattered. And I pointed out the pain of those that were left behind like parents and siblings.

.

 

[Mkrop]

I think the difference is that more people are aware of each incident because of the internet

I know I would not have known about the ones locally if it was not for Facebook, although one kid went "missing" so that was shared on FB with people trying to find him, unfortunately they did on his parents' property on a remote part of it.

I think the pressure on kids nowadays for college is off the charts, as least it has been in my area. DS18 is starting college soon so we just went through it.