February 16, 2023 – Janet Shedd lost her youngest son to suicide 7 years ago.
“Tom had been suffering from depression for about nine months. We had offered him therapy and he was taking medication. We thought things were getting better,” says Shedd, who lives in Kentucky.
But when he turned 18 and was legally allowed to purchase a gun, he committed suicide. Shedd's life was destroyed. “After his death, I was a walking wounded woman. It was hard to cope,” she says. “I cried for days and didn't get out of bed.”
She calls the loss “devastating because as a parent, one of your primary responsibilities is to protect your child. When you are unable to do that – usually through no fault of your own – you feel tremendous guilt.”
Shedd is far from aloneIn 2020, suicide was the second leading reason behind death amongst adolescents and young adults (ages 10 to 34) and the twelfth leading Cause of death within the USA.
And increasingly young individuals are apparently fascinated by ending their lives.
Just this week, The CDC published a study This shows that there’s a mental health crisis occurring amongst teenagers. The report found that girls are experiencing record levels of sexual violence and nearly three in five girls report feeling continually sad or hopeless.
Almost a 3rd of women (30%) reported seriously considering suicide, up from 19% in 2011. Among teenage boys, serious suicidal thoughts increased from 13% to 14% from 2011 to 2021. The proportion of teenage girls who had attempted suicide in 2021 was 13%, almost twice the proportion of teenage boys (7%).
The many suffering children and the lack of their lives leave behind numerous grieving parents.
No universal pattern
William Feigelman, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Nassau Community College in Garden City, NY, lost a son to suicide 20 years ago.
“He had a lot of winning qualities, was engaged and had a career in the film industry,” says Feigelman. “We were shocked and stunned, it was the worst experience of our lives.”
It turned out that her son “had been high on drugs in an industry where drugs are commonplace and was depressed and self-torturing at the time.”
The decision to die by suicide is complex and can’t be reduced to individual points, says Feigelman.
“Drugs are common and played a role in my son's suicide. But people take their lives for all sorts of reasons. Maybe something went wrong. They were dumped by a girlfriend or boyfriend or lost their job. They feel dishonored and humiliated and can't look other people in the face. Maybe they feel they have let their families down. They suffer deep psychological pain and see suicide as the only way out.”
Traditional bullying and cyberbullying play a job in youth suicides. Last week, a 14-year-old girl in New Jersey committed suicide. She had been beaten at schooland a video of the attack was subsequently posted online. Unfortunately, many parents don't know if their child is being bullied. The girl's father says the varsity and college district haven't done enough to reply.
Just knowing a toddler has mental health issues doesn't guarantee they can be resolved, Feigelman says. Many parents have struggled “going from one clinic to another, from one medication to another, never getting the right help for their child who was in pain.”
On the opposite hand, there are parents whose children appear to achieve success and highly functioning. “Because suddenly something bad happens to them – like a bad math test – that drives them to suicide, and they feel like they can't go home and tell their parents about it.”
The key point, based on Feigelman, is that “the reasons for suicide vary from case to case and there is no universal pattern.”
A mix of events
Erin Hawley and Angela Wiese agree. They are sisters in Lexington, KY who’ve lost children to suicide.
Wiese's eldest son Mason committed suicide on the age of 19. She describes him as a “quiet child, but also funny, sociable and athletic, with many friends.”
“He had just graduated from high school and was going through a transition period,” she says. “He wasn't sure he wanted to go to college, so he enlisted late in the Naval Reserve.”
She wonders if he was overwhelmed or stressed by his education or didn't wish to divulge heart’s contents to his family for fear of upsetting them. “We don't know why he committed suicide. It's hard to find a cause.”
Then, 23 months later, Wiese's 18-year-old son Ethan also took his own life. “We didn't know then how much danger Ethan was in after Mason's suicide. Today we believe he had problems and just didn't know how to deal with this loss,” she says.
Hawley, whose 13-year-old daughter Myra also died by suicide, says her daughter's death was particularly shocking and got here “out of the blue” because she “came from a family where two children – her first cousins - had already committed suicide, and we talked about it constantly in our house.”
For Hawley, the “hardest thing was that she chose not to tell us that she was having problems or having these thoughts and that she wanted to kill herself. I never thought we would lose another child in our family to suicide.”
Some research suggests that the chance of suicide is higher amongst individuals who have lost a loved one to the suicide of one other member of the family or close friend, but Feigelman says multiple suicides in the identical family are “relatively rare.”
And Hawley has learned that the motives for suicide “are different in every situation and are usually a 'perfect storm' of different events, some of which may be normal, everyday things that parents may think they would understand and relate to.”
Ultimately, “our children were the only ones who knew the reasons, and we don't want to speculate,” Hawley says.
Get the perfect support
After the death of her older son, Wiese turned to assist organizations and grief therapists, but that they had no experience with grief after a suicide and understanding how complicated the grief over a suicide is for those left behind, especially for a sibling. Ethan mourned the lack of his brother, like all of us, but he didn't have the abilities to deal together with his grief.”
Wiese recommends that oldsters looking for help after a toddler's suicide – for themselves or their other children – “find professionals and support systems that specifically deal with grief after suicide.”
Shedd agrees. “My advice to other parents is to know that you are not alone. One of the best things I could do was to partner with someone who had also lost a child to suicide. That was a touchstone in the early days,” she says. “Having someone to talk to who had been through that and was standing up and functioning in the world was incredibly helpful for me.”
Feigelman and his wife, Beverly Feigelman, a trained social employee, joined support groups for individuals who had lost a loved one to suicide and eventually founded their very own support group – Long Island Survivors of Suicide.
“The group is still thriving and we've been running it for 15 years,” says Feigelman. “It's important to be around people who have suffered a similar loss because we have unique issues that don't affect people who have suffered other losses – we are wracked with guilt, shame and anger toward the loved one who died by suicide, and we are shocked and confused that our children, who we loved and even thought we knew well, could take their own lives.”
Making sense out of pain
“I'm definitely better than I was immediately after Tom died,” Shedd says. “Time helps, and you slowly move on. But even seven years later, it's still very fresh, and little things can bring back memories – like seeing someone on the street who looks like him. And of course, you miss your child forever.”
Still, “Helping other people who have suffered a similar loss and working to change things has been very helpful.”
Shedd campaigned for changes to gun laws. “If I can save someone else from a similar tragedy, it's an honor and a comfort to Tom,” she says.
After the death of her second son, Wiese founded Brothers' Run, a nonprofit that raises money for suicide prevention in schools and communities. The money also advantages essential services and mental health professionals who look after families who’ve suffered a suicide.
“Since I lost my sweet boys, I’ve realized that you can give meaning to the pain,” says Wiese.
In addition to leading the self-help group, Feigelman and his wife, along with two psychologists, conducted a large study on people by suicide, including 462 parents. And together in addition they wrote Devastating losses, A book for healthcare professionals working with relations who’ve committed suicide.
Some parents may not feel drawn to volunteering, advocating, or similar activities, but there are various healing modalities available, including spiritual practices, yoga, mindfulness, art, and physical activity.
“But I think the most helpful thing is working with a good, trained therapist and getting support from other parents,” says Feigelman. “Talking to other grieving parents contributes to post-traumatic development.”
Shedd says her post-traumatic development has led to a deepening of empathy and compassion.
“I hesitate to say this because some people might find it a slap in the face, but a mentor told me, 'You will get gifts out of this experience.' I didn't want 'gifts.' I just wanted my child back. But I have to admit – although I would never have willingly paid the price for those 'gifts' – what happened actually made me a better person.”