Living: Dealing with Suicide of a Child
In my first years of practice, an adolescent girl from an abusive home took a lethal overdose and quite by coincidence she lived. She was furious to be alive, and I was furious she tried to die. I knew she had desperate moments, but I struggled with the enormity of her actions. Suicide is almost incomprehensible to most of us who find life dear and precious and want every second of it we can have. Someone choosing to die — especially a child — shocks our brain into paralysis, unable to find reasonable explanations.
Yet in 2008, for the first time in 10 years, suicide became one of the 10 leading causes of death for adults. In recent years, it’s become the 14th leading cause of death in children younger than 12, about four out of 500,000. However, this statistic is not so telling since much fewer young people die from suicide than adults. The factors that are associated with suicide — depression, drugs, social pressure — don’t usually hit until puberty, and the suicide rate climbs among adolescents aged 10 to 14 and then again among teenagers 15 to 19. *
It’s difficult to know if a child has actually “committed suicide” since the method of death is usually not a weapon, but by doing something like jumping off a roof or some other behavior he/she has been told is dangerous. The official definition of suicide is: a fatal self-inflicted destructive act with explicit or inferred intent to die.” Most children younger than 11 aren’t able to grasp the concept of death. Generally, children begin to understand abstract concepts such as “death,” “justice” or “truth” and begin abstract thinking and reasoning at 10 to 12 years. How would a child realize that a suicidal action leads to irrevocable nonexistence?
Suicides in young children may be related to an abusive household, a diagnosis of ADHD, a conduct or mood disorder, or a major disruption in life such as a move or family problems. With adolescents, factors may include depression, drug use and peer pressure. Too often with adolescents (and adults) drug use can lead to an accidental overdose so suicidal intent is difficult to ascertain.
It is intensely painful to lose a child to an accident or an illness, and parents who lose a child to suicide are beyond consolation. Guilt is the prevalent emotion, which leads to miserable routes of thinking usually to the unanswerable question: “What could I have done to save my child?” This incessant guilt about what might have been done to prevent the unthinkable is a legacy a suicide leaves forever. All the unanswered questions as to “Why did this happen?” make the grief process even more difficult. Often parents of children who die by suicide are subject to feelings of shame as well as guilt and a pervasive feeling of failure.
It has been reported that the divorce rate for parents who have lost a child is much higher than in the normal population with some statistics showing 75 to 90 percent divorce. Many couples become estranged and emotionally distant and apathetic, lost in their own sadness. There is usually shared guilt, and perhaps blame, and instead of turning to each other for comfort, each stays lonely and grief stricken unable to pull out of their isolation.
Going to see a therapist/counselor both individually and as a couple is ideal. Couples who chose individual and joint therapy seem to have a better chance of keeping the marriage intact. There are many complicated factors that affect why some couples stay together and others don’t.
Staying involved with family and friends is challenging, but grief is healed through the comfort and sharing with close friends and family. The act of suicide can have a shameful aura about it that may encourage grieving parents and other family members to seek solitude; however, a little solitude goes a long way during recovery, so parents should not give into too much of it. Again, try to maintain normal routines as much as possible. Seek the solace of grief groups or support groups for parents who have lost a child; this can be very helpful in furthering the healing process. Grief is a process that thrives on connection with others.
Suicide is a terrible act of self-destruction. It also impacts dramatically and painfully all connecting relationships. The legacy of a death by suicide is all-invasive, and the suffering it causes is immeasurable. Most parents survive because they feel they have no choice. Friends and family support is crucial, and the passage of time will ease the acute pain but it never completely erases it.
*from an article by Christopher Beam, 2008
