LOS ANGELES —Teenage suicide rates have been increasing at alarming rates. In fact, suicide is now the second-leading cause of death for teens (after accidental injury). Even though there has been a more intense national focus on the topic of teen suicide than ever before, we haven’t been able to slow this disturbing trend. Suicide prevention expert Dr. Mark Goulston says that before we can stop teen suicide, it’s crucial to recognize why this crisis is so pervasive today.
“Many children today are suffering deeply,” says Dr. Goulston, co-creator and moderator of the new documentary Stay Alive, a new 75-minute video/podcast documentary serving at-risk populations, which is available here on YouTube (#StayAliveNow). “We can’t move the needle on teen suicide until we identify what drives this suffering. Once everyone can empathize with the isolation, pain, and fear impacting today’s teens, we can offer them true understanding, and help them feel heard and far less alone.”
Stay Alive can help viewers get an inside look into what it feels like to be on the journey from despair to healing. The documentary, featuring suicide survivor Kevin Hines and suicide prevention advocate Rayko, delivers messages of education, compassion, and caring for those who are in deep despair, along with guidance for their families and friends who love them. The raw and intimate personal disclosures, paired with proven approaches to help those who are suffering, make this program uniquely valuable and unlike any other, you have ever seen.
“To save lives, we must also remove the societal stigma surrounding suicide,” says Dr. Goulston. “This begins with helping the people who care about at-risk individuals gain understanding and offer support. The next step is helping society recognize the true struggles of those at risk. Misunderstanding and judgment only further isolate a person who is suicidal. Instead, it’s time for more compassion. When everyone understands how much suffering is really going on, we have a real chance to reach out and save lives.”
Here are some of the reasons Dr. Goulston says that teenage suicide has been so hard to impact.
Teens are not likely to reach out for available help
They feel that what they are going through is a “failure.” Teens are afraid that any struggle they encounter might be considered failure, and they worry that their parents will be disappointed in them. They may think, When I tell my parents how or what I am feeling, I will feel more exposed and ashamed, and when I see that they can’t do anything, I’ll feel even more alone and worse.
Teens don’t want to need somebody. Traversing the psychological terrain between teenage dependence and young adult independence is fraught with anxiety, confusion, and fear. But teens aren’t going to reach out in despair as you might imagine. The more a child needs their parents, the less independent and more ashamed they feel. Adolescents making their first foray in independence may feel shame when they can’t handle everything on their own.
Shame intensifies their isolation. Shame is about wrong being, which means that a person feels there is something essentially wrong or “bad” about them. These feelings make them less likely to reach out because they think that there is something inherently bad or evil about them.
Teens worry that parents won’t understand. They feel that their parents won’t understand what they’re going through, and even if they are understood, teens often believe there’s nothing parents can do to make them feel better.
They don’t want to worry their parents. Teens may also believe that reaching out will make one or both of their parents more worried and anxious, and they feel guilty about that.
Their pain is likely to go unnoticed.
Everyone thinks not my kid. Often, when a teen dies by suicide, their bereaved parents say, “I had no idea.” When other (rightfully shaken) parents hear this, they wonder how anyone could overlook an at-risk child. They may even say, “That would never happen to my kid.” People always think that suicide impacts other people’s kids, but the reality is that it can strike very close to home. As a result, we sometimes aren’t as vigilant or don’t recognize warning signs for what they are.
The warning signs are hard to spot and may come too late. Parents need to be aware of any changes in their child’s demeanor—keeping in mind that these changes can be difficult to spot among naturally moody teens who tend to isolate themselves even in the best of circumstances. Teens are moody—that’s to be expected—but parents shouldn’t write it off as just moodiness. When it crosses over into physiological disturbances of sleep, appetite, sexual desire, or just an unshakable dark feeling, and stays stuck there, it has then crossed over into a mood disorder and can be incredibly destructive.
Tech and social media mean less face-to-face interaction
Social media fuels adrenaline and teens are getting hooked. “We have become an adrenaline-fueled society,” says Dr. Goulston. “In the past, emotional closeness, tenderness, and love triggered dopamine, a pleasure chemical. But nowadays people are addicted to adrenaline, which also triggers dopamine. Social media gives us all adrenaline, which excites us and makes us feel powerful. It tells kids they don’t have to feel powerless, vulnerable, frustrated, and angry.”
Teens interact online but connect less in person. Social media perpetuates a lack of bonding and connectedness. Teens are spending more time online and less time hanging out together and socializing. Instead of forging real relationships, they are bonding to the Internet. As a result, they are less emotionally intimate with each other and spend more time in isolation.
Social media provides more opportunities for social rejection. Teens care a lot about what their friends think, so much that it literally hurts. Two researchers at UCLA discovered that social rejection actually registers as bodily injury or pain in the brain. When a teen’s friends disapprove or socially reject them, it can be worse than a punch in the gut. Social media can fuel this rejection and the resulting pain through online bullying or harassment.
Bullying follows kids home. Thanks to the omnipresent nature of social media, bullying can follow a child home from school and impact their lives 24/7. For teens who are being harassed both at school and online, there is no reprieve from the pain.
“Help” is often directed at the wrong problem, or connection missed
Teens in crisis need empathy, not solutions. When a parent, therapist, or other adult tries to offer solutions to a teen in crisis, it may not help lessen the pain. They don’t need solutions to treat the symptoms; what they need instead is empathy. (Click here to view Dr. Goulston’s video “What Your Teenager Who Won’t Talk to You Wants You to Know.”)
“Anyone dealing with a suicidal person who is feeling helpless, hopeless, worthless, and useless should do what they can to feel those feelings with them as opposed to giving them a solution,” says Goulston. “The person who’s in pain may nod in agreement from the neck up, but may have other more lethal plans from the neck down.”
Adults tend to have a hard time connecting with teens
Teen issues are the same as they’ve always been, but the circumstances are different. Every parent was a teenager at one time, yet things are very different today than they once were. Even though teens have some of the same issues their parents had (like dating, curfews, the pressure at school, and bullying), the circumstances are different. Colleges are more competitive than ever, and technologies like Facebook and texting add new layers of complication to teen relationships. With all these new circumstances, it’s impossible for adults to truly understand and empathize with what their kids are going through.
Symptoms can look a lot like failure or laziness to parents. Adults—and high-achieving parents in particular—see what teens are capable of, and are so concerned about them “blowing it” that they fail to recognize pain and warning signs when they occur. It’s easy for parents to write off a child’s moodiness or assume that they are blowing their chances for success due to laziness. But when parents do this, they could be missing the pain that is driving the symptoms. This causes them to react to what their teen does, without ever noticing the pain their teen is feeling.
Their world is changing, and teens may feel unprepared to adapt
Teens don’t know what they need to feel better. Very often a teenager’s moodiness is tied to something in their world has changed, and they are continuing to use an approach that no longer works. Truthfully, teens have no idea what would make them happy over a long period. If they did know how to find happiness—or knew what happiness even looks like—they would take steps to get there. Instead, they stay in a constant state of frustration and irritability.
The bottom line: When it comes to our teens, understanding is the real lifesaver. It’s time to start this conversation and help save lives.
“A patient once told me, ‘If you can really understand why I might have to kill myself, maybe I won’t need to,'” concludes Dr. Goulston. “Compassionate understanding is crucial to stop the isolation and desperation of at-risk populations, including our teenagers. The moment we can feel true empathy with the struggles teens today face, we can let them know they are not alone and that they can find hope.”
If you or someone you love needs help, call 911 or call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), or visit www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org.
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