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How Teen Suicides Force A Community To Deal With Death
New York, 2:03 PM
Sun Dec 6
22 posts in the last 24 hours
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How Teen Suicides Force A Community To Deal With Death |
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11/02/09
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11/02/09
I don't think it does. Bridgend in Wales experienced the same teen suicide phenomenon, and it's as far from Palo Alto as you could imagine: [www.vanityfair.com]
And I grew up in a town where there was a teen suicide rash, in my sister's age range. It was terrifying, and even after the initial burst of suicides, it keeps echoing. It's a decade later, and her friends have died at a rate that's astounding compared to my friends from the same school. They also stick together a lot more than we did, and many of them found partners and got married in their early 20s while my friends are mostly single. I don't know what that might have to do with the suicide thing, but I know the suicides remain a central part of their lives.
11/02/09
11/02/09
My freshman year the kid who sat next to me in English class was found sitting on the tracks. He transferred schools afterwards.
This is MY TOWN. These are MY PEERS.
And there is something wrong in Palo Alto. There is something seriously wrong.
We are across the street from Stanford University. We are EXPECTED to attend Ivy Leagues and Cal and UCLA. Anything else is looked down upon. The adults in our town are wealthy, and successful. It's hard to put into words the feeling and pressures that being in PA puts upon you.
After every suicide there are town forums on teen stress and depression, but no one attends. Because we're too busy with our extracurricular. And our parents don't attend because they're too busy at their jobs, or because "their kid doesn't have problems".
Stress doesn't even BEGIN to be enough of a word to cover what these high schools do to people. I had three anxiety attacks my senior year alone, and I was incredibly lucky. I would have friends who would just start crying because of what they were expected to do, from their parents, their peers and themselves.
This is my incoherent ramble. Take it for what it is, interpret how you like. I don't know where this is meant to go, but I feel like I need to say something. It's so weird to see outsiders analyze what's been happening here, and in a way I really don't want you all to be. I see it as a "This is our problem, go away" type thing. But I'm not so sure I should be. #paloaltotrainsuicides
11/02/09
I went to school in Palo Alto briefly in the early eighties when I was little, and it was one of the happiest times of my life.
I went back six or seven years ago and found the atmosphere very peculiar. Even just walking around the streets.
There was a case in Wales of an "outbreak" of teen suicide. There was no more sinister reason than shitty job and life prospects, and the same spiralling knock-on grief as here. Yes, a certain percentage of teens in any population will commit suicide, but to just call it statistical overrules what you've just spelt out, that there's something bigger wrong. #paloaltotrainsuicides
11/02/09
I do think schools need to spring into action when the trouble starts, though. Any sort of extracurricular/optional offerings just won't do the trick. #paloaltotrainsuicides
11/02/09
11/02/09
As the daughter of a suicide, I feel compelled to reinforce the knowledge that suicide is contagious and profoundly life-altering to every survivor. Anyone and everyone who knows the victim will ask themselves what they could have done differently - once or repeatedly for their whole lifetime.
I read some statistic when it happened (I suffer from my own clinical depression issues) and there is something like a 60% increase in likelihood of committing suicide if someone close to you has done so. (I'm not really sure about the whole correlation/causation thing there). I can testify that even though my dad and I had been estranged for 5 years I have spent the five since it happened intellectually satisfied that I had to nothing to feel guilty about - emotionally, I had no idea what was going on and have actually been in deep denial about my feelings.
It's not just the death of someone you feel you could have prevented - it's that everyone else feels the same way. 350 people attended my dad's funeral and they ALL felt guilty and shocked and so sorry that they couldn't help when it would have mattered. 250 people (at least) for the rest of their lives will have a nagging feeling that saps their vitality, confidence and sense of self-worth.
I don't know what can be done. When I was close to ending it I literally could not conceive anyone in the world would be sad if I were dead. I honestly thought they'd be relieved. It does wax and wane, though. I never would have believed it the first time - and paradoxically, the more major episodes you have the more likely you are to keep surviving.
Anyway - sorry for the novel. #paloaltotrainsuicides
11/02/09
As far as your first point, last week, my city had two suicide attempts on very public overpasses, which closed main highways for hours. The cause of the road closures was reported in each case, and I think the media did the right thing by refusing to euphemize the events. Still, I can't help wondering if the significant publicity surrounding the first attempt was at least a factor in the second, which, sadly, was "successful". #paloaltotrainsuicides
11/02/09
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11/02/09
Just in regarding to media reporting, there was a case in Australia recently, with four suicides in six months at one school. Sixty Minutes here did a story on it, but Beyond Blue, an organisation that works to address depression, won an injunction to stop them ever airing it. Their argument is that any coverage could lead to more deaths.
The Australian Press Council guidelines recommend not reporting suicide at all.
The Commercial Television Industry Code of Practice says that tv reporting on suicide "should exclude any detailed description of the method used. The report must be straightforward and must not include graphic details or images."
And from a Stave Gov health website: "Research shows that reporting of method is directly linked to copycat suicides."
(This info comes from the below two stories.)
[www.abc.net.au]
[www.abc.net.au]
The second story linked above is a transcript from Media Watch, a show that discusses media issues - it's very interestng. #paloaltotrainsuicides
11/02/09
11/04/09
In four years, though, I didn't hear of one suicide. I did hear one account of someone falling into the gorge. I do think they tried to cover them up because once I drove over the bridge right as police cars pulled up and a police man ran to look over the edge. My roommate said they were still there 45 minutes later. But we never heard anything about it. #paloaltotrainsuicides
11/02/09
There's some evidence though that by demystifying, de-romantasizing and de-otherizing suicide, people may be more likely to get help. There's some really interesting work done about Kurt Cobain's suicide - because Courtney Love spoke in a way that showed her sadness and anger (painting him as mentally ill and the act as "cowardly"), the expected increase in rates wasn't seen. It's not about victim blaming, but shifting suicide from an individual decision made by people with nothing going for them to a major public health concern. #paloaltotrainsuicides
11/02/09
In any case, it is incredibly sad for all involved -- the victims, the friends and family, and the bystanders. #paloaltotrainsuicides
11/02/09
I can't imagine what these kids' families, friends, the community, the transit employees, and the commuters must be going through. Imagine being the driver of one of these trains. . . #paloaltotrainsuicides
11/02/09
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@BuffySummers: The train was pulling into the station when the stroller rolled off the platform and onto the tracks. It was on the tracks rather than the rails, so the stroller was more or less safely under the train. #paloaltotrainsuicides
11/02/09
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There was a suicide at my brother's high school last year, and the administration was very proactive about working to avoid any copycats. It's a tricky business (compounded by the fact that it's a religious school): there's a need to reach out to those students for whom depression and suicidal ideation are already a part of their conceptual reality, but to do so without glamorizing the act as a sort of ultimate, heroic, final "fuck you". Adolescents can be notoriously indifferent to the difference between good and bad attention, and you'd have to be really dense not to notice that, if attention from adults was what this kid wanted, he got it in spades, albeit posthumously.
This is why I think a proactive approach (before any suicides) is so important: in a perfect world, suicide would become like eating paste, something that just isn't done, not because the paste isn't there, but because it's a damaging thing to do that doesn't benefit anyone.
Those poor kids. Those poor parents. #paloaltotrainsuicides
11/02/09
I live in Menlo Park, which is the next town over from Palo Alto, and I can attest that the CalTrain tracks run right through neighborhoods and business districts, and most of the crossings are level rather than grade separated ~ meaning that all a person has to do to get in front of an oncoming train is to duck under a little pedestrian gate. I've lived here for 15 years, and in that time I've crossed those tracks mutiple times every day, to get from our neighborhood to downtown Menlo Park & Palo Alto. I always cross with a touch of trepidation, even in my car and certainly when my kids & I are on bikes. So many people have been killed on the tracks during my time here that I have an abundance of respect for the trains, and I shudder a little when the non-locals come screaming through at top speed. In a contest between person and train, train *always* wins.
I knew a couple of people who killed themselves in high school, one a year to the day after finding his mom dead of a suicide in the family swimming pool, the other because his girlfriend had broken up with him. The first guy obviously had huge emotional trauma from his mother's death and might have killed himself no matter what, but the second, I think, would have gotten over the breakup and gone on to live a normal life, had he not succeeded in killing himself at 17.
I do believe that the idea of suicide waxes and wanes in young adults quite commonly, and access to quick and lethal methods of killing oneself, like CalTrain and the Golden Gate Bridge, make it all too easy for someone to act upon what might otherwise be a fleeting notion. CalTrain has to figure out a way to make these tracks less accessible. As for the pressure cooker these kids live in ~ it's real, it's acute and I don't know what the answer is. It makes me very scared for my 6 and 8-year old kids, and I just hope that I'm able to instill in them the belief that they can follow their own path, and it doesn't have to lead to an Ivy. It's crazy competitive around here, and so hard for kids to opt out of that mentality, but right now I think people are getting a hard look at the what you reap when you sow that type of hyper competitive culture.
11/02/09
But I think there is an additional problem: there is a high ratio of engineers in the population here, and a correspondingly high level of kids on the autism spectrum, especially with Asperger's Syndrome. Having AS can make it that much harder for a student to deal with the additional pressures. #paloaltotrainsuicides
11/02/09
This is my own personal struggle with this impairment due to my AS. I often, especially when I'm in a dysthemic state or upset, can't see alternatives to the situation that I am in, or can see only one way out when there are really quite a few. This is often fatalistic thinking ("I failed this test so now I will fail the class and never graduate," when the test is really a small portion of the overall grade and all other classes are going well, for example.), and most people experience it sometimes--but it is a much harder thing to break for many of us with AS.
I've never been more than passively suicidal, but I do get really fatalistic when I'm feeling depressed (and I've been in a down swing for over a year). I can very easily see how a kid on the spectrum might decide that suicide is the only solution to his problems, and remain convinced until he follows through.
(A recent study, though, showed that parents who are eningeers don't have significantly different rates of autistic kids than non-eningeers, but the more general traits may be more common in this group.) #paloaltotrainsuicides
11/02/09
As for the pressure theories discussed above - I know everyone wants to think there's an identifiable cause for suicide, but it's usually more complex than that. I had everything going for me, with incredible advantages, when I was suicidal. Later in life, when I fell on some very hard times, it wasn't even a possibility. Suicide is its own unique demon and has little to do with logic. #paloaltotrainsuicides
11/02/09
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I'm not sure how this would affect the teenagers in PA, as someone who grew up in East Palo Alto, an incredibly rough town surround by affluent neighborhoods, it was always difficult to know that we weren't afforded most of opportunities as a lot of the kids there. I mean we aren't even allowed to go to high schools in that school district which are all of 5 minutes away, instead we are bussed out to schools almost 20 miles away. I know this is off on a tangent, and am not trying to make it an us vs them issue, I'm just trying to understand how EPA is relevant to this situation. #paloaltotrainsuicides
11/02/09
11/02/09
I think it is important to remember that the actual window of time that a depressed person will actually go through with the act is very small. If you can interrupt it, you have a chance at saving that person, they have a chance at saving themselves. Everything passes. #paloaltotrainsuicides
11/02/09
I wish more people would openly talk about suicide. I am guilty of being silent about it because, truthfully, it scares me deeply. But I know firsthand the pain that being silent about suicide can bring. It is not something to be skirted around, hidden away or ignored. My partner's father killed himself when my partner was only five years old. He never knew it was a suicide until two decades later. He grew up knowing that something was wrong about the story he had always been told about his father's death but never knowing exactly what that was. He was a small child when it happened and he was unable to process the experience, even though he was aware on some level about what had happened. By keeping that skeleton in the closet, his family denied him the ability to process it, even when he himself started to exhibit the same symptoms of depression that his father had had, until far too many years after the fact, after he had already suffered under the weight of a childhood trauma he couldn't have articulated if he tried. When he himself began to feel suicidal when his depression got out of control, it was talking about it openly, admitting to himself and someone that he loved that he wanted to die, that ended up saving his life. And to this day, I am infinitely grateful that he did open up and he was able to talk about it and break that cycle.
If you can talk about it openly, you can save someone's life potentially. It is terrifying to look that spectre in the face, though. #paloaltotrainsuicides
11/02/09
With regard to the kids, I think Palo Alto definitely is filled with affluent families that push their kids, and define failure as not getting in to an Ivy League school. Both Gunn and Paly are pretty competitive environments, and I could imagine the pressure cooker gets to kids. In that sort of environment, to acknowledge depression or fear about one's future, could be seen as a sign of failure. #paloaltotrainsuicides
11/02/09
See, this is what I don't get. Why commit suicide if you have everything going for you. Gunn and Paly are two schools with vast resources (which I would expect since Palo Alto is like 76% white), great campuses, very respectable teachers, etc. While the pressure can be very hard you know you'll be rewarded later on for your hard work and sacrifices. And I take issue with some of this. Don't you think it's just as hard growing up in places that are the opposite of Palo Alto (you know, poor) that would cause someone to commit suicide? Pressure is everywhere. Some people can handle it very well in the most adverse of places while others who live in relative luxury cannot. That's just how life is. #paloaltotrainsuicides
11/02/09
There's so much wrong with this statement. #paloaltotrainsuicides
11/02/09
Just wanted to provide another possible angle on this incredibly sad story. #paloaltotrainsuicides
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as someone whose community was consistently affected by suicide and death in my 13 years at my school, statements like yours are upsetting to hear because in many ways it misses the point in so many ways. #paloaltotrainsuicides
11/02/09
Because at that age, in that moment, you don't. You're defined by your grades, your achievements, your capacity to perform for others and to live up to others' standards. That kind of pressure-cooker environment involves a lot of self-negation. Ignore your body's needs for sleep so that you can cram more activities into your schedule and still get seven college-level classes' worth of homework done. Stop [X]ing and work; you can [X] later when you've gotten into the right college/finished your degree/landed a respectable job. And sometimes, even when you perform as expected and get the right grades, an acceptance to the right school, the right degree for the right job, etc., you get out of school and there's a busted economy that can't or won't hire you, or a city that's priced you out, or perhaps a general disillusionment that all of your hard work and sacrifices haven't actually earned you anything that you were promised they would. #paloaltotrainsuicides
11/02/09
I have been depressed for a couple of years now and I have everything going for me. I go to an Ivy league, have great friends, great parents and nothing tragic ever happened to me. But, I dread getting up every morning and cannot phantom of it ever getting better.
I am sure these kids felt hopeless and just couldn't breathe anymore. When I was so depressed that I cried all day and did not leave the house, the only thing that prevented me from committing suicide was guilt of how my parents would deal with it.
I am currently in therapy and taking antidepressants. I hope it gets better, but the feeling of hopelessness is very strong.
So I completely understand having everything going for you, and still being completely depressed.
Saying why commit suicide if you have everything going for you is a statement that will make a person less likely seek help because they think that nobody will understand. They will feel judge and pathetic for feeling this sad, even though they have everything going for them. #paloaltotrainsuicides
11/03/09
Those things happen to white,children in schools with vast resources, too. And they can be underreported, too. And a child who is having these issues, but is still expected to perform in the top 10% to get to Stanford without the help and support he or she needs, certainly could sink into a deep enough depression to commit suicide. It's not about the weak rich people and the plucky poor people - this isn't some French propaganda from 1790. Although, let me say, it did end in those rich folks being killed. It's a dangerous path to go down, pretending that people who suffer depression, but who are rich, are somehow weaker than a person who suffers depression but has a lower income. There are some other factors, of course, but basically: assuming that because a person has an upper-middle or middle-upper income they live an easy life is just inaccurate. #paloaltotrainsuicides
11/03/09
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