WTH! Another suicide in barely over a month.

[crimycarny]

9. Yes...it is absolutely horrible

The lack of understanding of how to reach these kids BEFORE they get to the point of no return is so frustrating. Honestly, I didn’t really understand what was so wrong with our approach until this happened to my son. It seems like the immediate knee jerk reaction when someone mentions they are having suicidal thoughts is to immediately intervene in ways that can be more harmful than helpful. “Thinking of suicide? OMG!! Let’s take you out of school/job/sport and put you in intensive intervention!” No wonder kids don’t want to say anything when they are first having those thoughts. Not only does that intensive intervention create more stigma but it also can take kids away from perhaps the only bright spots in their lives (their sport, their job, etc). I’m not saying intensive intervention isn’t necessary sometimes (maybe even most of the time) but not a one size fits all approach. REMOVE THE STIGMA!

I was in a support group for survivors of suicide and mentioned at times the pain was so strong I thought of suicide myself at times. This is extremely common for survivors of suicide. Someone in the group piped up and said “I’m a social worker trained in this area so I have to ask x,y,z...”. Oh, I shut up right away. The threat was that I’d be taken into some intervention program and yanked from those I needed the most—my family. I never mentioned it again. Too afraid to. I guarantee many kids feel that way.