Nobody likes to talk about suicide. But the truth is suicide is the third leading cause of death among teenagers in the United States.
“I think that the number is so high because when teens commit suicide they don’t think before they do it,” said senior Melanie Ange, whose boyfriend, then-freshman Taylor Ambrose, committed suicide three years ago. “They think that because one bad thing happens, their life should just be over, that there is nothing that can fix it.”
Madison Ambrose, Taylor’s older sister, 2007 FFHS graduate and current student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said that the natural phases teens go through contribute to the high suicide rate for this age group.
“I think it’s so high because during those years you are changing so much and trying to figure out who you are (and) growing up,” she said. “And with my brother, he was always a popular kid, he wasn’t like ‘depressed.’ He was just normal.”
Mitchell Bateman, a psychologist that has been working with Dare County Schools for 31 years, attributes an increase in teen suicide to a greater sense of responsibility.
“Young people today are having to make some very consequential decisions about their lives at a much younger age than ever before,” he said.
In addition, statistics show that when teens are expressing suicidal feelings, actions are often not taken to prevent rash decisions. According to Mental Health America, 80 percent of teens who were thinking about suicide communicated their thoughts to a friend, family member or doctor before attempting suicide.
“Parents don’t want to accept that their kids feel like that, and they just don’t want to see it,” Madison said. “It needs to be an open conversation where people feel comfortable talking about it and coming to adults or teachers with it.”
Others see that the tools to help suicidal teens are in place but said that they are not always being used appropriately or to their full extent.
“I think the resources are out there but (schools) are not doing a good job of finding the students that need the resources,” said Sophia (name changed) whose father committed suicide when she was 7 years old.
Sophia said that her father’s suicide was directly connected to a drug addiction. The National Institute of Mental Health reported that 90 percent of people who commit suicide possess some symptoms of a mental disorder, and Bateman said that one of the most obvious signs is depression.
“I think probably the number one thing would be depression, and depression can be caused by lots of different things,” he said. “Probably one of the most obvious signs is any significant change in behavior. It can be elevated behavior or suppressed behavior. Usually depression, though, is a withdrawal. You see negative behavior. You see apathy, hostility, lack of respect for themselves and others, a general pervasive mood of sadness.”
However, Madison also recognized that in some situations, like her brother’s, the decision to take one’s own life is so rash and unexpected that warning signs have not developed.
“(Sometimes) there aren’t signs,” she said. “(People think) that if you are suicidal, or if you are depressed, ‘this is what you should look like,’ and then they are only looking for the most severe forms of (depression or warning signs,) rather than the small changes in character. People just need to be aware that it doesn’t have to be (a certain) way.”
“I never expected that Taylor was suicidal. He never acted in the way you would think someone who was suicidal would act,” Ange said. “He was always very happy and would do anything to cheer someone up.”
Although Sophia said peers need to look for warning signs in their friends and family members, she also recognizes that people who find themselves contemplating suicide need to consider the magnitude of their actions.
“I feel like it’s selfish, because they’re thinking about themselves, about getting themselves out of a miserable situation,” she said. “I feel like they’re not really thinking about how it affects people once they are gone.”
Madison emphasized the finality of suicide. Her brother’s class will graduate from high school on June 12, but Taylor will not.
“I guess now, this is the year he would have been graduating and I guess that’s the most recent rough time for us. The biggest thing I would say is that (suicide) is a permanent solution to a temporary problem,” Madison said. “You can fix things, and (suicide) changes so many people.”