Help NM’s young people get through pandemic

Fastest-growing group to commit suicide is people age 10-24

I read in The Sunday Journal (Nov. 15) about the tragic death of Hannah Marie Colton. This young woman’s obituary said she took her own life after suffering from depression and further isolation due to COVID-19. In July, Landon Fuller, an 11-year-old boy from Hobbs, got a gun, walked to a field by his house and shot and killed himself. He was upset about not being able to see his friends and felt like he was going mad. (Journal, July 5).

The kids are not all right. A lot of people are not all right. While adults fight over masks and restrictions, over restaurants and schools opening and closing, some children and young adults are in crisis.

To a child, they are not just “at home.” Their forced confinement has a scary name — “quarantine.” Some children feel contaminated somehow and dangerous to others. They hear about children getting the virus and carrying it home to grandparents who may die. They may feel guilty and confused about wanting to see friends and go to school. They may feel isolation is a form of punishment and that they did something wrong. Now we are learning children do get the virus and die from it. They hear the number of daily deaths on the news every night.

Some children will regress, starting to act like a younger child. Achievements may disappear, as baby talk or potty training difficulties may reemerge. Sleep and appetite may change. Moods, including anxiety, depression, aggression and impulsiveness, may increase. Some children have no symptoms at all: some of these young people are OK; some are not.

Children experience the passage of time differently from adults. A month can seem like a year. Children have little control over their daily lives, making them feel helpless. When the economy is bad, children suffer more. Services, such as therapies, are restricted or inaccessible. Their support group of friends and family is limited or totally unavailable.

Adults need to be talking to children, helping them to feel a sense of security and mastery, answering their questions and looking at their behavior to see what they might be feeling that they are not saying.

1) Young people need age-appropriate information and a context to place it in. Here are the facts, and we will get through this together. We can stay safe. We don’t need to be afraid if we take the steps to protect ourselves.

2) Children need a sense of community. They are not physically with their friends, but we can help them be creative in making a new social group. We can emphasize the future reopenings and convey a sense of hope.

3) Children can benefit from having a way to feel a sense of control over their lives. Make a project out of helping the elderly or disabled, support health care workers, teachers, police, firefighters, anyone performing their duties to help the rest of us. Children enjoy feeling a part of something bigger — knowing they can make a difference for someone else.

Katrina Fuller, Landon’s mother, said she wanted to do anything she could so another family doesn’t have to suffer like her family is suffering. We are strongly committed to bringing support and resources to the new families that join the grieving community. It is our hope that, with comprehensive community support, we can work together to prevent future deaths.

This subject is not political and should not be made so. It is not a criticism of any administrative policy or decision. This is about listening and attending to the children, and the fact that New Mexico has the highest suicide rate in the country, with the fastest-growing demographic belonging to young people ages 10-24. Our young people are more likely to die by their own hands than by the hands of someone else. We cannot ignore this.