Moving Video by Teen Who Survived Suicide Attempt

Sad news recently as teen suicide deaths in our area continue.  This time, two high school girls have taken the tragic, irrevocable action to end their lives….new victims of the "permanent solution to a temporary problem."

It is hard to describe how I feel upon hearing the news: first, OH NO, NOT ANOTHER YOUNG LIFE! then deep heartache in thinking about the intense pain of the poor mother and the terrible grief journey the families must now endure.

And it brings it all up again for me.

In a twitter feed that mourned the loss of one of the girls, a video called "What if I killed myself…" was posted.  Here is a description: "This video is produced by 1VoiceInside for Suicide Prevention Month. Hopefully this video helps to de-stigmatize suicide and opens people's minds to the true helplessness and hopelessness that mental illness induces."

A young man shares about his battle with depression and suicidal ideation.  Thankfully his attempt did not succeed and he courageously tells his story.  The first time I saw the video, my heart flipped because his basketball jersey number was #33, which was Josh's football jersey number.

His message is so important as kids need to know that they are not alone,  On June 5th of this year, the Josh Anderson Foundation (JAF) co-sponsored a Teen-To-Teen Mental Health Summit where 5 kids also courageously shared their stories.  This successful program is one that we want to repeat and multiply - view post to see video and learn more.

As a society and in our communities and families, there MUST be a paradigm shift in how we view mental illness. I long for the day when we have the same understanding and empathy towards a kid suffering from a mental illness like clinical depression as if he/she were a diabetic.  Both kids need to manage their illnesses (medication, activities, etc) to avoid the devastating and affects of the disease.  And if they don't, the consequences could be fatal.

Yet today, in middle and high schools across America, the kid struggling with a mental health issue  feels isolated due to the stigma.  They cannot be real and open about what is really going on inside because of fear…fear of what people will think, what they will say, how they will be treated.

No kid should have to live in shame and fear.

No kid should have to suffer in silence.

No kid should have to feel like suicide is their only viable option. 

RIP Josh and all the others who are in my heart. 

Thoughts from "Searching for Mercy Street: A Journey Back to My Mother, Anne Sexton" by Linda Gray Sexton

Linda Gray Sexton became a suicide survivor at 21-years old when her mother killed herself by sitting in a running car with the garage doors closed.  The Pulitzer Prize-winning poet's battle with mental illness was over.  Anne Sexton was only forty-five years old.

In the years following her mother's death, Linda finished college, edited and published Anne Sexton: A Self-Portrait in Letters (1977), got married, had two children after suffering several miscarriages, published four novels, was a critical contact for Diane Middlebrook, author of Anne Sexton: A Biography (1991), suffered from the same illness and suicidal ideation as her mother and at the age of thirty-six, was at a place in life where her mother's death overshadowed everything.

The answer to her psychotherapist's question, "How often do you think about your mother?  Once a week?  Once a month?" was "How about every day."

In her words, she "needed an exorcism" and what resulted was this brutally honest memoir published in 1994, twenty years after her mother's death.

Rather than being cathartic, she found writing Searching for Mercy Street to be more a testimony to the events of her life - the abandonment, the chaos, the strange sexual games played with her mother, the domestic abuse, Anne's multiple suicide attempts and resulting hospitalizations, the constant manipulation as well as the few positive memories such as the writing lessons received at their kitchen table.

As I told my own story, I validated my life's experiences and toughened myself; it was a part of my self-education, one that helped me gain control over what had once seemed unmanageable.  Silence compels us to look at what lies behind it, and revelation brings with it knowledge - which is why some feel as if they must write about the private aspects of their lives, in search of solace and clarity.  To speak candidly, with neither justification nor humiliation, relieves the haunting of memory and mind and becomes one way to regain our dignity and our strength. 

Yes! - this is EXACTLY why I continue to write in my journal and on this blog.  It is a testimony to the journey I was thrust on, against my will, kicking and screaming, over five years ago.

So this is a very personal memoir about living with mental illness and suicide, both her mother's and her own.  Through her own suffering, she is able to absolve her mother's action.

Suicide is an immediate and permanent solution to pain.  The pain can be either physical or emotional: emotional pain of an intensity sufficient to drive the sufferer to consider suicide often manifest itself in physical symptoms so powerful that to quibble about origin is beside the point. Pain is pain regardless of its source. None of these conditions can necessarily be conquered by willpower; neither are they induced by laziness, lack of moral ethic, or selfishness.  

In my mind I had accused my mother of these failings many times. Now, my own experience had taught me a different and quite simple lesson: suicide is a synonym for escape…She had sought death because she believed she had no alternative. A life of pain is not a life worth living. She was not a coward, but instead a realist.

After reading these words, I can't help but wonder how much is applicable to our beloved Josh. He was not at risk for suicide, so we and his psychologist thought but obviously he was. What haunts me is this: what internal pain did he suffer from and for how long?

Her words about the root cause (depression), reminds me of William Styron's short powerful memoir, Darkenss Visible - see post for thoughts.

My mother died of depression. Untreatable, unceasing depression. Why, when we refer to depression, do we think of it in the main as a state characterized by numbness and low spirits rather than intense suffering? Why, in fact, is the word pain rarely used when describing depression? The dictionary uses synonyms such as melancholy, despondency, and sadness.

These are relevant questions at the time of publication in 1994 and now, twenty years later.

Before Josh's death, I was naive and uneducated in the topics of mental illness, depression and suicide. I did not know the signs of depression/suicide, leaving it to the "experts".  Now, I cringe whenever I see the list of signs because at least half can be ticked off as applicable to Josh.

This fuels our mission of The Josh Anderson Foundation: to "provide teenagers with the mental health education, resources and support so that they will never turn to suicide."

Teenagers because they may be their own last line of defense but also parents and teachers, coaches and youth leaders.  We all need to come together to stop Death's tool from taking any more young lives.

4 Years and 1 Month later - April 18, 2013

Josh has been top-of-mind lately as it is a big week for the Josh Anderson Foundation (JAF).  We have brought suicide awareness speaker Jordan Burnham back to Northern Virginia to speak to middle schoolers, high schoolers and parents about his depression, suicide attempt, and how he found ways to cope after his miraculous survival.  Check out ESPN's E:60 Special to learn more about his story.

He spoke to the entire student body of three schools: Lake Braddock Middle School, Lake Braddock High School and W.T Woodson High School - about 6,000 students.

We held parent sessions the night before he spoke to the students and roughly a hundred parents came out. I wish there were more.  I attended these sessions and at both, during the Q&A, parents asked him, "In retrospect, what could've stopped you from going out your 9-bedroom story window?"

Of course, my ears perked up as this is the question I ask myself over and over about Josh:  What could've helped him?

His answer reinforces JAF's mission.  Jordan simply said that he needed to hear a speaker like himself: someone young, who talks confidently and unashamedly about his struggles with depression, suicidal thoughts, time in a mental hospital, skepticism about therapy, medication non-compliance and alcohol abuse while in high school.   That he needed to be educated about mental health issues and know that it was not only okay but it was actually courageous to be open and seek help.

As I sat listening to his story, I couldn't agree more.  Teens need to hear from people they perceive as cool - someone they would like to emulate.  Lectures from adults go in one ear and out the other whereas a powerful, honest story like Jordan's will impact and inspire them.  As he told parents, his main goal was to give kids permission to own up to their emotions/feelings and to do whatever they can to get better.  I believe Josh would've been impacted by listening to such direct and unafraid talk about mental health.

One of the schools had two suicides this school year.  My heart dropped when I heard this.

The counseling staff at the other school said that kids were coming to see them because of Jordan's story.  GOOD!

At Lake Braddock High School gym

Speaking with students afterwards

Middle school students line up to speak to him

W.T. Woodson auditorium - two sessions allowed him to speak to the entire student body

Jordan's parents are lucky that their son miraculously cheated death.   I wish that were us.  But at least we can do something so that Josh's death is not in vain.  We can work to save other teens, by providing hope and education so that they will NEVER turn to suicide.

But as rewarding as all of this is, it does not take away the deep. bottomless sadness that overwhelms me - even four years later.  I have finally gone through Josh's desk and closet and have found strands of his hair which I keep in his wallet along with driver's license and AAA card.  This is next to my computer along with his passport, issued in August 2007.  The pages are empty as he never had the chance to go abroad.

The loss feels very raw right now, like when a deep wound reopens.  But this is what grief does; it ebbs and flows, recedes and advances, diminishes and lengthens, very much like the waves of the sea.  Today, after Lauren had spoken at a Safe Community Coalition breakfast about the work that JAF is doing, she was approached by an administrator at Josh's school, who said that despite dying in their sophomore year, his friends took him with them throughout the rest of their high schools days - all the way through graduation.  Hearing this is bitter-sweet; it helps me to know how much he was loved but is tough to contemplate once again, the negative space of his passing.

RIP beloved son.  We are keeping your memory alive while working to save others.

3 Years and 11 Months Later - Nothing Was the Same by Kay Jamison

After Josh's death, I read a number of bereavement books in an attempt to find answers and comfort from those who had suffered the same loss - see list.

While all have been helpful, I have found much food for thought in memoirs from celebrated authors who, having lost their spouses, penned their grief in literary prose.  See posts for more.

• C. S. Lewis's A Grief Observed
• Joan Didion's Year of Magical Thinking
• Joyce Carol Oats - A Widow's Story

Kay Redfield Jamison will be added to this list.  Jamison is a Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins and co-authored the classic textbook on bipolar disorder called Manic-Depressive Illness (published 1990).  Five years later, at considerable risk to her reputation, she bravely published a memoir called An Unquiet Mind which chronicles her own struggle with this disease. 

In her second memoir, Nothing Was the Same, Jamison writes about the loss of her husband, Richard Wyatt.  What I found interesting and unique was her differentiation between the darkness felt in grief and that of depression.  I wrote a number of quotes in my journal.

About grief:

Grief conspires to ensure that it will in time wear itself out.  Unlike depression, it acts to preserve the self.

Mourning, as Freud made clear, is a natural part of life, not a pathological state. "Although grief involves grave departures from the normal attitude to life, it never occurs to us to regard it as a morbid condition and hand the mourner over to medical treatment.  We rest assured that after a lapse of time it will be overcome." 

Grief is not a disease, it is necessary. 

Grief gives much to the living, slows time that one might find a way to a different relationship with the dead.  It fractures time to bring into awareness what is being mourned and why. 

Grief, lashed as it is to death, instructs, it teaches that one must invent a way back to life.  Grief forces intimacy with death; it preserves the salient past and puts into relief our mortal states.  All die, teaches Grief.  

Grief is at the heart of the human condition.  Much is lost with death, but not everything.  Life is not let loose of lightly, nor is love.  There is grace in death.  There is life. 

Grief vs depression:

Grief, like depression is a journey one must take largely unattended....I had less energy but enough to see me through.  This is never so in depression.  Weariness pervades the marrow when one is depressed; it is what renders despair intolerable.  I bled out during my depressions.  This was not so after Richard died.  My heart broke, but it beat.  

Time alone in grief proved restorative.  Time alone when depressed was dangerous.  The thoughts I had of death after Richard's death were necessary and proportionate.  They were of his death, not my own.  When depressed, however, it was my own death I sought out.  In grief, death occasions the pain.  In depression, death is the solution to the pain.   

I read deeply, if fitfully, after Richard died. Such consolation was never possible for me during the times I was depressed.  When depressed, I could not concentrate well enough to read; little made sense to me and the written word left me cold.  When depressed, nothing could open my heart or give me courage.  I was too dulled, too incapable of receiving life; I was dead in all but pulse....Grief on the other hand, rendered me able to take solace from those who had written so well about loss and suffering. 

I found her thoughts about grief helpful - that to be human will mean, eventually and inevitably, that one will face the death of a loved one and will need to grieve.  It is unavoidable.  It is a part of living.  It is a part of one's journey.  And to grieve is absolutely necessary if one is to reconcile with death and find a "way back to life."

Her descriptions about depression are haunting.  They remind me of William Styron's thoughts in his powerful memoir, Darkness Visible.  Did Josh feel this?  If so, why and how did he hide this from us and his psychologist?

For those diagnosed with clinical depression, I have more empathy.  For those teens in our high schools who suffer from undiagnosed depression, it is imperative that they are educated enough to seek help.  This is our foundation's mission.  We must succeed so other lives may be saved.

RIP Josh

"The Catcher In the Rye" - Chapters 11 - end

The last post left off with Holden impulsively taking the train into New York City. As we follow him through the next 48 hours, his current depressive state is reinforced by random thoughts, what he sees and smells and events that occur when roaming around the city.

Random thought:

The more I thought about my gloves and my yellowness, the more depressed I got.

After being out at a bar, he comes back to the hotel lobby:

The whole lobby was empty. It smelled like fifty million dead cigars. It really did. I wasn't sleepy or anything, but I was feeling sort of lousy. Depressed and all. I almost wished I was dead.

He was solicited by a the elevator man/pimp:

It was against my principles and all but I was feeling so depressed I didn't even think. That's the whole trouble. When you're feeling very depressed, you can't even think.

While hanging the prostitute's dress up in the closet:

I thought of her going into a store and buying it, and nobody in the store knowing she was a prostitute and all. The salesman probably just thought she was a regular girl when she bought it. It made me feel sad as hell. I don't know why exactly.

Nothing happened and she leaves.  It is almost daylight.

Boy, I felt miserable. I felt so depressed, you can't even imagine. What I did, I started talking, sort of out loud, to Allie. I do that sometimes when I get very depressed.

The prostitute and elevator man/pimp comes back to Holden's room, wanting more money.  He resists and gets punched in the stomach.  After they leave, he takes a bath and tries to sleep.

What I really felt like, though, was committing suicide. I felt like jumping out the window. I probably would've done it, too, if I'd been sure somebody'd cover me up as soon as I landed. I didn't want a bunch of stupid rubbernecks looking at me when I was all gory.

I wrote these quotes in my journal because they describe how Holden's sad and lonely feelings spiral down a dark path to suicidal ideology.

My questions:  Is this how it feels to become deeply depressed in a relatively short period of time?  Is this what Josh felt that fateful night?  Can a teenage boy who was seeing a counselor for a year and never diagnosed as "depressed" become situationally depressed? And if it is acute enough, can the mind and body take the leap to suicide?

The next night, Holden was getting drunk in a bar.

I was crying and all. I don't know why, but I was. I guess it was because I was feeling so damn depressed and lonesome.

To clear his head, he filled a basin in the bathroom with cold water and dunked in his head.  Then he went outside in the freezing cold and walked to Central Park.  He sat on a park bench and began obsessing over the possibility of getting pneumonia and dying. He thought about his brother's death and how he was not able to go to the funeral, due to his hand.

I have about fifty aunts - and all my lousy cousins. They all came when Allie died, the whole goddam stupid bunch of them. I have this one stupid aunt with halitosis that kept saying how peaceful he looked lying there.

Reading this passage reminded me of Josh's funeral because he did look at peace.   Tim and I had never organized a funeral before - so many decision to make! And within 24 hours!  Trying to make good choices while in shock is indescribably difficult. Thanks goodness we had a close family friend and Tim's brother helping us out.

The funeral director suggested that we have an open casket for the public viewing. I knew a lot of Josh's friends would be in attendance and was concerned for them. How would they react, seeing their friend in a cushion-lined box...dead?  He said that it would be important for them to see Josh and say their good-byes. A part of me wishes I could've witnessed this rather than accepting condolences in the lobby. But it probably would've been unbearably difficult.

At the private viewing the night before, one of our daughters could not do it. She ran out of the room where Josh lay, surrounded by flowers, down the stairs and to the car, sobbing. I was in no condition to help her and thank God, one of our dear friends comforted her.  They talked and after a while, she was able to come back in.   So with Tim and I on either side, she said her good-bye to her brother, touched and kissed him - one last time.  It was hard, but in retrospect, she's glad she did it.  It makes me wonder if some of Holden's issues stem from not being at his brother's funeral.

The novel ends as it begins, with Holden in some sort of psychiatric hospital or sanitarium, telling his story.  We do not find out, however, what happened to put him there.  I wouldn't be surprised if the cause was attempted suicide.

Did Josh ever read this story?  If so, did any of Holden's thoughts and feeling resonate?  I don't know but wish I did.

RIP beloved son.  I wish you could've survived that terrible, dark night.  If so, maybe you would be here now.