Teen suicide rates up 70% from 2006 to 2016
Spotty mental health and addiction treatment might share the blame
J.C. Ruf, 16, was a Cincinnati-area pitcher who died by suicide in the laundry room of his house. Tayler Schmid, 17, was an avid pilot and hiker who chose the family garage in Upstate New York. Josh Anderson, 17, of Vienna, Va., was a football player who killed himself the day before a school disciplinary hearing.
The young men were as different as the areas of the country where they lived. But they shared one thing: a despair so deep they thought suicide was the only way out.
A study of pediatric hospitals released last May found admissions of patients ages 5 to 17 for suicidal thoughts and actions more than doubled from 2008 to 2015. The group at highest risk for suicide were white males ages 14 to 21.
Experts and teens cite myriad reasons, including spotty mental health screening, poor access to mental health services and resistance among young men and people of color to admit they have a problem and seek care. There’s a host of societal factors, including opioid-addicted parents, a polarized political environment and poverty that persists in many areas despite a nearrecord-low unemployment rate.
“With this population, it’s the perfect storm for life to be extra-difficult,” says Lauren Anderson, executive director of the Josh Anderson Foundation in Vienna, Va., named after her 17-year-old brother who killed himself in 2009. “Based on the development of the brain, they are more inclined to risky behavior, to decide in that moment.”
That’s very different from how a depressed adult might weigh the downsides of suicide, especially how it would affect those left behind.
Carmen Garner, 40, used to walk across busy streets near his home in Springfield, Mass., when he was a teen, hoping to get hit by a car to escape life with drug-addicted parents.
“Our students are dying because they are not equipped to handle situations created by adults — situations that leave a child feeling abandoned and with a broken heart,” says Garner, an elementary school art teacher in Washington. “Our students today face the same obstacles I faced 30 years ago.”
In the weeks before he took his life the day before Thanksgiving 2014, Tayler Schmid seemed sullen, but his family chalked it up to “teenage angst and boredom and laziness.” He was probably “masking his depression he was dealing with the last few years of his life,” says his mother, Laurie.
As her son moved through his teenage years, Laurie Schmid says, she became less focused on getting her son in to see his pediatrician every year, because he didn’t need shots and wasn’t as comfortable with a female doctor. Besides, he got annual physicals at school to compete on the school soccer and track teams. Among the “what ifs” that plague her is the question of whether the primary care doctor who had treated Tayler would have picked up on cues about depression a new doctor missed.
She tried to get Tayler to see a mental health counselor, though finding one in their area of Upstate New York wasn’t easy. But Once Schmid and her husband, Hans, settled on one, Tayler refused to go.
One positive has risen out of the pain. There are more resources and awareness about mental health and the need for counseling in her area, thanks in part to the family’s advocacy through the Eskimo Strong group it started. A counseling center has an office at the high school. Schmid speaks to schools and parents about signs of depression to encourage counseling and provide information for suicide hotlines and text lines. Her oft-repeated mottoes are “Say Something” and “Talk to Someone.”
Mental illness needs to be covered by insurance at the same level as physical illness, says psychiatrist Joe Parks, Missouri’s former medical director for mental health services. There should be more psychiatrists, and they need to be part of primary care clinics, Parks says. At his community health center in Columbia, Mo., he screens those who may be suicidal and taught others to do so. Such “accountable care” was envisioned but not fully realized under the Affordable Care Act.
Children and teens who aren’t covered by their parents’ insurance can turn to Medicaid’s Children’s Health Insurance Program, though that’s hampered by low reimbursement rates, so few psychiatrists accept it.
Even if children receive mental health treatment, Parks says, they may be in environments dominated by family members who have drug or alcohol problems or who face domestic abuse.
Teens regularly post on social media about hating their lives and wanting to kill themselves, so much that Parks says it’s almost like a “race to the bottom.”
Anderson wonders, “If everyone is commiserating over everyone, is it really helpful?”