Blog
Addressing Adolescent Suicide
Wednesday, October 26th, 2011 in Adolescents and Families, Kids
Recently, there have been tragic incidents of teenagers taking their own lives. Although this is sadly not a new phenomenon when another life is lost I think one of the conversations it reignites within the mental health community as well as society at large, is who are the kids who are at risk, and why are they not getting the help they need? There’s no question that when we look at kids “at risk” there’s a certain universality to the profile that emerges. These are teenagers who are often totally emotionally overwhelmed with the stressors of being an adolescent including: the process of individuating from parents; conflicts in interpersonal relationships; rejection and intense bullying by peers; academic pressures; the uncertainty of evolving identities; and even body changes.
Teens who are at higher risk often don’t have healthy ways of coping so they self-medicate and numb with drugs and alcohol. They typically have undiagnosed and untreated depression, anxiety, or other mental illnesses. Many high risk teens are not adequately supervised, don’t feel supported by their families, are bereft of resources, and feel isolated as they try to navigate through the intense challenges of adolescence. And then there is exposure to violence either at home or on the Internet, or relentless personal or cyber-bullying. Suicidal teens may have untreated histories of sexual, physical or emotional abuse, neglect or trauma, struggle with sexual identity, or may have family histories of addiction, attempted or completed suicide- all of those things up the ante in terms of risk.
Start with those potential issues and then add the confluence of what we now understand about the developing adolescent brain. It is still rooted in all/nothing, black/white dichotomous thinking, and it experiences time-limited pain as never-ending. The pre-frontal cortex is still evolving, so their capacity to assign analytical reasoning to things is compromised as well as their ability to understand “cause and effect.” This is why when parents ask impulsive teens, “what were you thinking?” the answer is “they weren’t thinking.” Their brains are fundamentally impulsive, aggressive, and pleasure seeking. Taking all of this into consideration, we start to understand why so many kids struggle and why they attach a permanent solution- committing suicide- to a temporary problem.
When they don’t get the help they need it may be because their pain is not being taken seriously enough. I want to stress that although teens can definitely be moody, (if you live with one you know that’s true!) being “depressed” is NOT a normal part of adolescence, so it should never be minimized when an adolescent presents with symptoms of hopelessness, helplessness, excessive guilt, sleep or eating disturbances or feelings of worthlessness. When a teenager suddenly falls apart academically, has serious changes in his or her personality, begins to talk openly about a pre-occupation with death, is spending a lot of time getting drunk or high, begins posting distressing and depressing things on their Facebook page, we need to see these as serious red flags and ask, directly, if they are having suicidal thoughts. Do they have a plan? Do they have the means? Have they ever rehearsed it? What would prevent them from following through with their plan?
Asking does not give someone the idea to do it- it may, in fact, be the key to intervening in time and helping to prevent an attempt. So above all else, TALKING to teens about the red flags that we see, expressing genuine, non-judgmental concern for their behaviors AND for their pain, and offering them resources for comfort and connection are the essential first steps in tackling this issue in our society.
Click here for an audio recording of Lisa Ferentz’ presentation on Teens and Self-Harm.
