I braved the (one inch of) snow last week and attended a nighttime meeting at the high school.
About eighty of the employees went in all to hear a visiting consultant speak about school safety. I dreaded hearing about metal detectors and police patrols and making our schools resemble prisons so that a mom coming to bring cupcakes would get frisked or something.
Instead, this woman talked about mental health. About warning signs that a child might have suicidal thoughts as early as first grade. About tiny signals they give that all is not well.
I sat up and listened, you can bet.
A lot of the talk was about cyberbullying and how this generation forms their identity largely around what their online associates say about them and how they feel compelled to check it constantly to see who they are. This virtual identity building (and destruction) can compress the years of suicidal thoughts during which we can intervene into a matter of months or even weeks if bullying escalates to make life so unlivable.
I wanted to flee the room and get on ItGetsBetter immediately because I love me some It Gets Better. And it's NEEDED.
The part that caught my attention most was the fact that suicidal thought tend to become more serious ina predictable arc. Like "I could just kill myself. Then that teacher/kid/parent would be sorry" is followed by "I could kill myself with mom's pills/dad's gun" and then they start visiting the item, fixing it in their minds, and then they take it to their room for opportunity and they rehearse by holding it in their hand. Like that. Once they fantasize about the item enough that they become literally disoriented to look up and find themselves in class, not on their bed with a gun, it's the danger zone.
There's a kid in my class who threatens to hurt him/herself. There's another to scratches his/her own arm hard when angry. It's time for me to know these things.
So I'm asking the creepy dark question. How many of you remember having suicidal thoughts? How old were you? What helped? And what did you imagine?
I was fifteen. I imagined driving my truck off a bridge, thinking it would be nice to just drown. I parked on the bridge a few times but never tried. It stopped around the time I started college, as did the eating disorder and other forms of self-punishment.
10 comments:
I really got nothing - I never got beyond that first thought - "then they'll be sorry!" - which is extremely common.
It's hell to be a teacher. I mean, you are there because you care about kids and want to help them and make their lives better and yet you are so limited in the help you can give. And it never ever feels like enough.
I do know in our state we were required by law to report stuff like suspected abuse, suicidal thinking, etc. to the principal and guidance counselor.
FGBVs, Diva, FGBVs.
While my dark thoughts followed me into adult life I never got beyond the fact I'd probably screw it up and end up in physical pain as well as emotional pain.
My mother always swore we (our family) had chemical imbalance in our brains.
I had a similar driving-off-the-side-of-the-road fantasy when I was in high school. But for me, it was truly situational. One of my best friends fell asleep at the wheel coming home from a lock-in (all night, supervised party in a public location, like a church or in my friend's case at a movie theater, that were hugely popular in this area when I was a teen), his car hit a tree, and he died.
I think the fantasy was more about dealing with what happened to Jasper, and my sadness about that, than real suicidal thoughts. Although looking at it 20 years later, I can see that it was a dangerous time for me, and that it could have easily become more serious if I was dealing with bullying, family, school, boyfriend, or other problems.
My driving-off-the-road fantasies only happened when I was in my early 30s and hadn't yet realized that I could just divorce my husband, rather than wait around for him to die before getting my life back. That said, the last few years have been rife with some of the darkest thoughts I've ever had about going on. Thankfully it's been more along the lines of "dammit I'm tired and done!" rather than "how many bottles of pills do I have?"
Hugs and cupcakes and FGBVs to you sweetie!
mid-twenties, thought about overdosing. I was still in school at the start, then was unemployed for about 3-4 months. Getting a job and finding something I loved to do seemed to take care of it. I've had dark moments since but I've never been suicidal since.
I would make an awesome reply but I am busy have a Full On Panic for my anxious little girls.
Ok, y'all. I've talked to the principal, the school psychologist (works for the spec ed coop doesn't counsel), and the parent. And the kid, of course, who got my it-gets-better spiel and I hope to gawd we can do more for him/her.
I didn't mean that you hadn't talked to them - I know that you are an incredibly caring and competent teacher. I guess I was just thinking out loud about stuff when I was a teacher.
I did think about how when kids are little, their family is their entire world in many ways and only gradually does their world get bigger. When your primary world is really messed up, it's hard to see that there is any way it would get better since there is no better for you to know. Not that that helps you really, I guess just keep on telling that poor kid that it does.
I know you know, Karen <3 I just wanted to make clear to everyone that I AM doing something other than fretting on the blog, I swear!
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