My DH is a high school teacher. He has a fellow teacher (I’ll call him “A”) that he is particularly close friends with, both in and outside of school. A has a 15-year old son (“B”) who was a student at their high school & in one of my husband’s classes. B also engaged in a hobby/activity with his dad and my DH on a regular basis. DH knew him well.
Last week, B took his own life. The details are horrific. A note was left, so there is no chance that it was accidental (I don’t know what the note said). No one saw signs of this coming. He was a kid with a lot of friends and involved in many activities. Deeply involved in his church & two school sports. We attended the service a couple days ago. Nearly 1000 people attended – it was standing room only. His parents are absolutely destroyed.
I’m really struggling to make sense of this. My own two D’s have each had some experience with depression / anxiety – I know it is epidemic right now among young people. I have also had my own experience with emotional health issues & know how intensely painful and hopeless life can seem at times, so I can relate to the pain this kid must have been in.
I guess I’m struggling to understand how there could have been no signs. DH says he saw nothing that indicated that B was in trouble. I’m finding myself deeply affected by this event, even though I’m on the periphery. I can’t even imagine what his family and close friends are going through. Especially his dad A who has no part of his life – home, work, friend group, hobby – that is not majorly impacted by this. A is the sole breadwinner for the family & is planning to return to teach his classes next week when the holiday break ends. I can’t even imagine.
Can anyone help me understand this? Can anyone offer suggestions of how DH and I can best support the family in the coming days, months, years?
It’s heartbreaking. Terrifying to me even.
One thing to remember is kids can often be very impulsive, teenagers brains aren’t yet fully developed in that area, and they also don’t have the life experience to put setbacks into proper perspective. There likely won’t be a full answer that really makes sense. That’s probably the scariest part to me.
My best advice, based on friends who have lost their children, it to be patient with them. Their grief will come in waves and some days they won’t be able to breathe with it. Time isn’t going to magically make them feel better and they likely will have waves of grief that hit them for years. Just listen as they talk about their son whether they are heartbroken, matter of fact, crusading or raging at the moment.
I’m really sorry for you and your husband. Our district had 4 suicides in the space of 2 years and teachers were as devastated as anyone else and often took the brunt of it from devastated classmates who had no one else to turn their fear and anger on.
My 17 year old daughter went to 3 suicide wakes in 2017. None of them knew each other, but she knew all 3. Two were high school students, one a 30 year old.
It’s an epidemic.
And I know what you mean about it effecting you. I’ve lost lots of sleep over this, particularly the last of the 3, because of the violence of the way he chose to take his own life.
I’m so sorry, I have known 4 teenagers who succumbed to suicide over the past 2 years. One was struggling with her sexuality and was bullied in school, one had a perfect ACT score then jumped off a bridge 2 weeks before college started, the other 2 I know nothing about other than they were in the same high school.
The school did bring in counselors to help the kids cope, but the feeling of grief, loss and bewilderment has never left.
Your friend and the other students will need support and patience for a long time to come. It might be painful for you but he doesn’t want his son forgotten, take his lead and cues for when he needs to talk and let him know you will always be a friend.
When i was grieving a family loss, I appreciated people just doing things they thought would help rather than saying “let me know if there’s anything I can do.” I came home every day to a home cooked meal outside my door. Most days someone emailed and said “I’m coming to pick up your kids and take them to the park unless you tell me no”. Just do something rather than wondering what you should do.
My deepest sympathies. My second son has lost 2 friends to suicide in the past year, one his best friend in the world. No signs of anything that would make someone suspect this could happen. It is truly tragic when young people take their own lives. I’ve known both parents and the visitations are extremely difficult and I’ve lost countless hours of sleep wondering why. It takes those left behind awhile to come to terms. My advice is to offer support, be there if they want to talk but also give the space to grieve.
One piece of advice is to be very careful what you say. I know people have said hurtful things to my sister without realizing it. Even saying that kids are impulsive hurt her, because my nephew had obviously researched an effective way to complete suicide and drove about six hours to do it! It was not impulsive in his case. And saying things like, “God just wanted him to come home sooner…” is horrible. You would think that would go without saying, but people have made statements like that.
Another thing to keep in mind is that the extended family (grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.) are also hurting deeply. My mom has said, “Nobody asks me about how I’M doing!”. So if you know any of those folks, be kind to them, too.
I tried to put myself in the parents shoes & think what I would want. I thought that the hardest thing might be if people never mentioned the child in fear of upsetting me - I would want people to talk about him/her & tell stories etc.
We went to the informal reception after the service & sat with A & the other members of their immediate group of friends for quite a while (this is a close-knit group of guys who all engage in the same hobby that A & B do with DH). There was joking around, laughing, lots of story telling & B’s name was used freely. It was initially surprising to me, but I could tell A was being greatly helped by interacting with these guys in their typical way.
@GertrudeMcFuzz, you hit the nail on the head about talking about the child with the parents. My friend’s daughter was killed in an accident when she was 16. She said it meant so much to her that the girl’s friends still came to the house and visited, sometimes to talk about the daughter, but sometimes just to visit. I would have your husband encourage these kids to keep in touch with the parents as much as they can. I’m sorry this happened.
One helpful thing for my sister was that his friends took the trouble to post photos and anecdotes on his Facebook page. Even 2 1/2 years later, someone will occasionally post something! The latest was a video of my nephew dancing and being silly with his friends. My sister loved that.
We often think there aren’t signs, but we need a better understanding of how to SEE the signs, particularly in this changing world where our kids lives play out in social media that we may not be privy to. Unfortunately these things are not looked upon well in our society, so it becomes taboo to even address it.
A couple of little recommendations from someone who lost a brother to suicide: You didn’t do this, but don’t use the term “committed suicide.” Your use of a more neutral term like “took his own life” is perfect, as is “died from suicide.”
Also, your H may need to tamp down on students at this school gossiping about how the death occurred. Some people will ask about the details (morbid, but it happens). Offer them nothing and shut down those who speculate.
There is no “bright side” to this situation, so agree with @MaineLonghorn that you shouldn’t even attempt to come up with one. One SIL told me, in a phone call the day after my brother died, that she had used this as a “teachable moment” to discuss suicide with her children. Of course this was her prerogative, but I still can’t believe that she chose to phrase it that way to me (and TBH, it took me a few years to forgive her).
Thank you @LuckyCharms913. Yes, I had read that “committed suicide” is painful to families/friends so I purposely avoided it. And yes, there is no bright side. Zero. There is really nothing we can do to help the situation in any way, other than support the family as the days pass. I will also try to support DH - he will be on the front lines next week with his students & an empty desk in one of his classes; and A is his daily lunch companion.
That phrase didn’t bother me when I lost my brother to suicide. I will say that I burst into tears every time someone hugged me after commenting on it for months afterwards. Which is kind of embarrassing at work. It was an almost biological reaction – hug = waterworks. I was fine with verbal condolences. And am always pleased when people mention him. But I think different people process differently.
Heartbreaking. i can think of nothing worse. My cousin’s son died by suicide 20+ years ago. The pain never goes away. I try to remember to text/call her on the boy’s birthday and on that awful day every year. @MaineLonghorn offers good advice. Ditto @Luckycharms93. There have been suicides in both the high school and college experiences of my kids. It is truly a parent’s worst nightmare. Make a donation in the child’s name to a suicide prevention organization. Don’t ask “what can I do?” Just “do.”