Editor's Note: The date of the Contact training has been corrected in the story below.
Quiet mumbling filled the air as more than 200 parents, teachers and members of the community searched for seats in the small room of the E911 building in Brandon. Local TV crews situated their cameras and tripods in the back corners of the room, while journalists, pens in hand, sat among the crowd in foldout chairs. Regardless of their role on that April morning, everyone was there looking for answers to the same questions: What is happening to our children? What can we do to help them?
Between January and April of this year, five area children took their own lives. Ranging in ages from 12 to 17, the youngest attended school in Byram. One attended Jackson Prep. Three of those five young people were students at Brandon High School.
"None of them fit the mold that you hear about," said George Gilreath, principal of Brandon High School. "All three of them were bright students who were outgoing and involved in school activities."
The credentials of the three young people support his words: Honor Roll, athletics, ROTC and Beta Club, just to name a few.
Teenagers experience strong feelings of stress, confusion, self-doubt, pressure to succeed, financial uncertainty and other fears, according to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Divorce, and adjusting to the formation of a new family with step parents and possibly step-siblings, can be unsettling and can intensify the pressure.
"Looking back, I was over involved with school activities as a teenager," recalls 38-year-old "Lisa" (not her real name). "It took years for me to understand why I was so involved. It was an escape from my life at home."
Growing up in an alcoholic home with parents going through a bad divorce, as a 16-year-old, Lisa was a cheerleader, played softball, was a member of the student council, a member of the school's performing choir, president of the thespians/drama club and held a part-time job. "I think that I was looking for any reason not to go home," she says.
Eventually, Lisa, like her mother, began to drink. Loneliness and fear fed her anger, and Lisa's school suspended her for fighting. She cried all of the time and felt confused and sad.
"I had no idea what to do with the pain that I was feeling," Lisa says. "I just wanted to die. I just wanted the pain to end."
"Suicide is not chosen; it happens when pain exceeds resources for coping with pain," writes David L. Conroy, in "Out of the Nightmare."
It wasn't until Lisa began to starve herself that her parents finally realized she was in trouble. They set out to get Lisa the help she needed.
"Do you think about killing yourself?" the first therapist asked her.
"Every day," Lisa admitted.
By the time she was on her fourth or fifth therapist, they were suggesting hospitalization. Lisa cried and promised them she'd get better.
"I just wanted to be normal," Lisa says, shaking her head. "The problem is, when we are young, we don't realize that there really is no such thing as 'normal.' I spent so much time in those developing years depressed and trying to figure out how to end my life. I'm just grateful that I survived myself."
"People are afraid to talk about it," says Peter Meyers, President of Contact the Crisis Line. "They're afraid that if they bring up the topic of suicide with their child, that it will plant the idea of suicide in their child's head. This just isn't the case." Suicide is the third leading cause of death among 15-to-24-year-olds and the sixth leading cause of death among 5-to-14-year-olds, according to The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
Teresa Mosley of Clinton suffered her own loss last year when her daughter Elisabeth hung herself in her closet during the night. According to the Biloxi Sun Herald, she spoke openly about her experience at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College in in Gautier.
Like Peter Myers, Mosley agrees that in our society, people don't want to talk about mental illness let alone talk about suicide. She also believes that our schools are a key component to preventing other parents from suffering the same loss that she has.
After the first suicide at Brandon High School earlier this year, Principal George Gilreath said that clergy and social workers were immediately called to counsel students and faculty. Gilreath also quickly contacted specialist Tina Brooks from North Carolina to come train staff and faculty on how to recognize and deal with potentially troubled students. But the second and third students committed suicide before she arrived.
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In the United States, someone dies by suicide every 16 minutes. Mississippi ranks 23rd in the nation in its rate of suicidal death, according to Contact the Crisis Line.
In 2004, "Out of the Darkness"—community walks organized to support The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention—kicked off in numerous U.S. cities. This year, communities nationwide are holding some 100 of the three-to five-mile walks, which are AFSP's signature fund-raising and awareness events. According to its Web site, afsp.org, the ASFP is the only national not-for-profit organization exclusively dedicated to understanding and preventing suicide through research and education, reaching out to people with mood disorders and those affected by suicide.
No communities in Mississippi are on the AFSP walk list yet, but you can organize a walk by contacting Mike Lamma, AFSP director of field management, at [e-mail missing].
If you are interested in learning some simple, life-changing skills, you may want to consider volunteer training for Contact the Crisis Line. Classes meet weekly at St. James Episcopal Church in Jackson beginning Sept. 18. For more information, contact Dorothy Triplett, vice president for public relations and training at 601-982-9888.
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