Reasons I didn't. Suicide: Personal History.
This
weekend my teenage children marathon watched the Netfilx series, 13 Reasons
Why, which focuses on the reasons that surround a teenage girl’s decision to
end her own life. The series is really
well down and I recommend parents watch it with their kids and to talk to their
kids about suicide and what’s going on in their lives so they can express the
reasons that we live. The series has
some graphic depictions of violence, sex, and drug use and in recommending it I
wasn’t sure at what age it would be appropriate. The series reminded me of my own life and the
conversations I have had with my own kids about suicide. I try to be an open book so they can know
what life is like. Sometimes I don’t realize
the impact what I’m saying to them has until one of my stories is repeated to
me. At those moments I have an odd mix
of shame and pride as I try to re-qualify what it is I said and how “it wasn’t
like it sounded” when in fact it most likely was.
At age 13, I was a mess. I wasn’t athletically skilled. Whatever moments of glory I had on the
baseball field in my youth were not translating after age 12. I had some real
moments of failure and embarrassment on the ball field that made any desire to
play baseball totally disappear. I found comfort in food and had bottomless
hunger at times. So I was chubby or just
plain fat.
I liked to play football and spent a
lot of time playing it in the neighborhood. I liked it enough that I decided I
would try to play pop warner. I signed
up but back then I was over the weight limit.
It was highly embarrassing because my older brother managed to make it but
I didn’t. So that ended any desire I had
to play any sports ever.
I think it was the summer before
middle school that I and a friend in the neighborhood were so dissatisfied with
our home lives that we both had the idea to just run away from home. I had
ideas about jumping on a freight train and just leaving it all behind. My
friend ended up moving away and we lost touch pretty quickly. Neither of us ran away as far as I know, not
geographically anyway.
I was at that transitional stage in
life between elementary school and high school where hormones and emotions are
running wild, where you’re no longer a little kid but you haven’t gotten past puberty
entirely. It also was a time where the
friends in the neighborhood had all but disappeared. A few had moved away and others were lost in
childhood vendettas. We also all went
to a new school where I either got separated from the few friends I had, or we
grew apart.
There was a lot of stress in going
to middle school. Not only did I have to adjust to new people in class, back in
my time, being bullied or beaten up was a real concern. Fights were not common place but certainly
not unheard of. I was a fat kid so I
wasn’t necessarily safe from insults or teasing. I got my fair share in the neighborhood and
at home. I remember, early on in 6th
grade, a kid giving me crap while we were in the boy’s room, in front of other
kids. I was bigger so I grabbed him and
put him is a wrestling hold I had seen on T.V. until he begged to be let
go. The other kids saw it and after that
I was never really bothered again.
From that and other squabbles in
the neighborhood, I guess you could say I am not innocent in terms of being a
bully. After that episode in the boys room
though, I never put my hands on anybody again.
I like to think that I didn’t like the way it made me feel.
I was lucky
in that I wasn’t picked on but I didn’t really have anything going for me so I didn’t
really have any close friends. So I know
what it’s like to be lonely and frankly, when the alternative is to be an
object of negative attention, loneliness can be okay.
So that’s
the picture of me between 5th and 8th grade. Somewhere in that time frame, probably around
the time I was thinking about running away, I thought about killing
myself. The turmoil of life seemed to be
too much and I figured I would get my Dad’s gun that he kept in his top dresser
drawer and shoot myself in the head.
I remember
one time, I think I was 13, going into my parents room and taking the revolver
out of his dresser drawer, holding it in my hands. He had a mirror on his dresser and I saw my
reflection holding a gun with an anguished look on my face. I don’t know if it was loaded, 99.9% sure it
wasn’t, I never pointed it to my head, I don’t think. Contemplating ending my life scared the
daylights out of me. So I put the gun
back and I don’t think I ever touched it again.
I was in a
state of turmoil in those days and I remember making threats to kill myself and
my parents getting angry and they were very adamant that I was not to kill myself
or even talk about it. I think they may
have said something close to “We’ll kill you if you kill yourself!” Or “We don’t want to hear any of that stupid
talk!”
As silly as
it seems, I think I needed to hear that.
No matter how they said it they conveyed the fact that suicide was
something that I was not to do. So if it
was the fear of death, subsiding hormones, or my parents’ warnings, I obviously
didn’t kill myself.
I’ve told my teenage kids these
stories to show them I know how hard it can be growing up. They have shared that
the kids can be just as mean as they were in my day and have both felt like
they were made fun of and had times where they felt isolated without any
friends.
A few years
ago my son Brennan, was in middle school (the wonderful years for all of us I
guess) when he decided that homework was just something that he wasn’t going to
do and sitting at his desk in class didn’t appeal to him either. So he bad grades, and was getting detention
for disobedience, and had even walked off the school grounds a few times.
On one occasion
he told the faculty at his school that he wanted to die. The school did the right thing. They called
the cops and sent him to the local hospital for a psychological evaluation. Brennan had no actual plans to kill himself. He was being an angsty teen with issues with
authority. The staff was required to keep him for a certain amount of time and
his mother had to pick him up. So he had
lots of time to think about what he had said and what he was doing.
I took the door to his bedroom off of its
hinges after that because we couldn’t “trust” him to be alone. We talked about it, a lot. The troubles with
the homework and discipline didn’t go away immediately but the next school year
Brennan changed his ways. He says that
he decided for himself that what he was doing was stupid and hurting
himself. Since then he’s gotten good
grades and has started participating in drama and has a decent sized role in
the next musical production at the end of the month.
I realize there is a lot to respond to in reading this.
Lessons to be learned:
Lock up your guns. Kids
know where they are and they might know where the keys are too. Just saying,
kids are smart.
Talk to you kids.
Share your experiences so you’re not just a “parental unit” from the
planet “Boring”.
As dumb as it may sound, Tell them suicide is punishable by
death! Just kidding, express to them you
love them and that they are not to take their own lives.
Discuss that choices and actions have consequences that may
have a farther impact than they think.
Basically, we have to be there for our kids and treat them as human beings who may be going through the toughest times of their lives, human beings that need to know there is hope and love for them at home, and human beings that need to know there is reason to live and a future where things get better.
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