YOUNG PEOPLE UNDER PRESSURE
students are among the most vulnerable to depression – the American College Health Association reported last year that one in five had anxiety or depression. And according to the SA Medical Research Council, suicide is one of the leading causes of death among young people aged 15–24.
Reasons given range from pressure to succeed (from themselves and family) to financial pressure, social media insecurities and a related sense of isolation, and escape into drugs and alcohol. Yet, even knowing the risks from writing about mental health, I failed to notice the signs in my son. A quiet, intelligent, caring boy, he matriculated with straight As and chalked up Dean’s Commendations as he pursued a demanding degree. In his third year he was invited to travel abroad in June, based on his ‘outstanding performance’ as a member of an international collegiate honour society.
But one morning in March 2015 I found my beautiful 1.8m boy curled up in a foetal position on his bedroom floor, sobbing – overwhelmed with helplessness and despair.
He was diagnosed with severe major depression and generalised anxiety disorder. Doctors linked this to plummeting haemoglobin levels from an inherited blood disorder diagnosed some years earlier that sapped his energy levels, ability to focus and mood.
He withdrew from varsity and socially and slept most of the time. But as his HB levels slowly stabilised with iron treatments, he began teaching part-time. He enrolled again the following year.
Then, one night in April 2016, he disappeared. A security guard recalled seeing a boy on foot with a small bag. What followed was a nightmare week. Calling his friends, having his computer searched fruitlessly for clues to what he may have done or where he might have gone, filing a missing persons report.
By day his dad, brother and I frantically scoured local parks and beaches, joined by his wonderful friends, and put up posters in bus and railways stations. By night I sleeplessly wandered the neighbourhood or simply stood under our old avo tree, howling like an animal.
My son is an intensely private person, but we reluctantly turned to social media and were contacted by The Pink Ladies Missing Minors group. They posted his details, and calls flooded in of support and sightings, most too far afield or too far-fetched.
Five days later I got the call I was living for: ‘We have your son, but he is not sure how to get home. Where are you?’
A mother and daughter had recognised him from the Pink Ladies’ postings and picked him up near Umhlanga. Some 20 minutes later they’d pulled up at our gate, and I was grasping my boy in an embrace I wanted never to end.
He’d been sleeping rough in a patch of coastal bush above a lagoon. When his meagre supplies ran out he had planned to disappear into it – ‘no mess, no fuss’.
Today, CBT and a cocktail of medications have taken the edge off his anxiety and despair, and he is studying again and teaching, though his energy is still low.
His greatest comfort? Words from a friend who herself attempted suicide some years ago: ‘Take one day at a time. You don’t need to be anything – it’s enough just to be.’
Some 20 minutes later they’d pulled up at our gate, and I was grasping my boy in an embrace I wanted never to end.