The age of consent, the age of mortality, the age of majority, the age of deceit.
The age of realization. When you realize what is happening around you. What perils occur daily that you cannot ignore.
Is there an age that we suddenly see things differently, we become more aware of events around us.
Children are very self centered, as they need be, they are learning for the very first time, some with little guidance on the ways of the world. Don’t point, use an inside voice, say please and thank you, we don’t hit or bite. No running in the hallways or with scissors. Look both ways before crossing, don’t talk to strangers unless they’re in uniform. So on and so on…
As we grow and age certain things may happen to affect our judgment, faith or trust whether we have good support on how to navigate the hard waters of adolescence is unfortunately left up to luck. Were you lucky enough to have parents that cared, that noticed, that taught right from wrong, that disciplined, that loved.
I have reached an age were I notice mostly other peoples hurt because of a death. A loss. Grief. Tragedy.
However, I am not positive that it is because of my age, it could be my circumstance or perhaps even my psychological hurt. Maybe I have an overly empathetic heart and over sympathetic mind. Whereas many it seems in todays world go through the growth of maturity but yet stay self centered or have been taught to look out only for number one; themselves. Don’t worry about others seems to be the way of America.
On my FB dealing with grief page people randomly contact me after having lost someone and as painful as it is to hear their stories I am happy to talk to them, to listen to them to console them. Not because it makes either of us feels better, I am often left in tears after a conversation with someone who lost their husband in a truck accident, their nephew by suicide, their son to an overdose, their mother to cancer, it goes on and on. The one constant is the need to be heard, to be felt. To tell the world we are in pain, that this terrible thing that happened is not fair and we don’t know how to deal with it. It is such a unique human reaction, the one we have to death and loss or tragedy.
The stages of grief have been attempted to be explained by many doctors or physiologists, Khubler Ross has the most commonly know five stages of grief, which are accurate in that you do feel at some point, denial, bargaining, anger, depression, and acceptance, some more than others and some much longer than others but that is why we say all losses are different.
The hardest for me at the moment is suicide. Trying to understand why someone can feel so lost, alone, or even hated that they would rather be dead. That they cant understand or know what them taking their own life will do to those around them who love them.
Mostly I am heartbroken at the amount of teenage suicide that happens in todays world.
Globally 160 000 teens annually take their own life, suicide rates in males aged 15-19 rose between 1979 and 1996. Suicide is dominating the country (USA) so badly that it has bumped up to the third leading cause of death in youth aged ten to twenty-four.
This terrifies me, not only because I work with kids who will soon become teenagers that I hopefully can help or pay attention to but also because I have three of my own, one of whom used to yell that he wanted to kill himself whenever he was angry and is almost a teen. My fear is that with such strong emotion as a child, it will lead to emotions so strong the ability to cope will be lost. I am scared.
When I was 15 I took about 10 Tylenols hoping it would kill me, I made myself throw up after 20 minutes because I realized I didn’t really want to give up yet. I look back and remember feeling so lost and alone. My parents were divorcing, I had no real friends but a few acquaintances, I was teased at school constantly, people writing on my locker or screaming names at me like whore or slut. The worst was being called to the principals office and was told to cover up- I was wearing a tank top with slacks? He said my teacher also a male was concerned the boys in class were distracted by me. I hated going to school. I hated being at home, with no parents or family around to care. The point is, is that most 13, 14, 15 year olds go through a hard adjustment and unfortunately today combined with social media and online bullying as well as the highest rates of mental issues to deal with, ADD, ADHD, OCD, Bipolar, anxiety kids have a lot on their plates and we as a society need to recognize and fund more resources for them. We need to teach compassion, mindfulness and techniques to cope with stress if we taught in school lessons on empathy and the importance of helping others instead of pushing our kids to compete with each other to be the best perhaps we can stop this epidemic. As we grow we see the world differently, we realize the people from high school don’t matter and as an adult the only other time I felt so desolate that I wanted to die was when my daughter was born blue with multiple congenital issues. I bargained with ‘god’ or whomever had the power, to take me instead, in the days leading up to her death. But the reason I never considered taking my own life after she died was because it would have left my other two children without their mother and that alone forced me to keep going in those dark days. Today I just want to help others to know they are not alone. Which is why I talk to grievers online, why I started my grief blog and FB page. When I searched for someone to talk to about grief back in 2012 I found nothing. Today there are so many sites, blogs, pages when you Google for help with grief and I am grateful there is so much now and that I can be of help, hopefully, to those that stumble upon my page or blog in their dark days.
Some helpful links:
Recognizing Warning Signs and Finding Students Who Need Mental Health Support
https://mentalhealthscreening.org/
Suicide is an epidemic in todays society that gets ignored far too often. Here are few stories that stuck with me. I share them to honor their memory. To acknowledge their suffering.
Amanda Todd 15
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/amanda-todd-suicide-rcmp-repeatedly-told-of-blackmailer-s-attempts-1.2427097
Libby Bell 14
13 Y.O. Adelaide Girl Dies By Suicide After Cyberbullying & Physical Abuse
Amy Everett 14
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/10/australian-girl-face-iconic-akubra-hat-commits-suicide-aged/
http://www.voiceonline.com/ramandeep-bains-commits-suicide-by-jumping-off-alex-fraser-bridge/ *
*I couldn’t find a photo of Ramandeep Bains but she was 25 and had only been in Canada for 5 years, she left behind a 3 year old son.
This past spring a 15 year old boy named Mitchell David Slater called his mom to say sorry but he couldn’t take it anymore he hung up and jumped off the Alex Fraser bridge in Delta -05/26/17
The story of Mitchell broke me yesterday after his aunt recounted what happened to me. Mitchell was a smart, handsome boy. Around 900 people showed up to his funeral, he had a girlfriend for 2 years, a loving and supporting mother and aunt. A month before Mitchell jumped off the Alex Fraser bridge they went on a family vacation and all seemed fine. Mitchell is the nephew of a friend I went to high school with, I wrote this post for them.
Mitchell is the smiling boy in the middle. My heart is broken over and over when I think of the pain his mother and his aunt and the rest of his family feels. Mitchell suffered from mental health issues. Suicide phones were installed on the deck of the bridge he jumped off after his death to hopefully help anyone else that finds themselves in that position, hopefully a way out.
“The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that each year approximately one million people die from suicide, which represents a global mortality rate of 16 people per 100,000 or one death every 40 seconds. It is predicted that by 2020 the rate of death will increase to one every 20 seconds”.
If you’d like to donate to help mental health initiatives please do so here:
The Canadian Mental Health association and British Columbia division
https://cmha.ca/donate/ https://cmha.bc.ca/get-involved/donate/
Mental health foundation of Canada
Ways To Give
The American foundation for suicide prevention
https://afsp.org/
Brains and behavior research center in NY NY
https://www.bbrfoundation.org/
Help is only a phone call away
Thanks for reading and please share you never know who may need it.
Sheri
Dealing With My Grief 