Parents’ nonprofit educates, cuts through stigma
Jeffrey Boczenowski was a University of Massachusetts Lowell student and a drummer in a band. He had a disarming smile and kind eyes, and he always gave his friends the right advice.
His parents remember having that Jeffrey for about 10 days in November of 2009 when the depression he had long-battled seemed to be waning.
Then, one night, he left home and never came back.
“I was shocked. I woke up my wife and we were just kind of speechless,” remembers his dad, Steve Boczenowski. “We didn’t expect it.”
Jeffrey was 21 when he took his life with heroin — his parents didn’t know it was intentional until they found a note in his belongings.
The Groton native’s struggle began in middle school, but it wasn’t until after he died that they identified it as depression. It came on slowly and the signs were vague. He became more anxious in social situations, didn’t find as much joy in the activities he once loved.
“It creeps up on you,” Steve said. “You think your kid is going through a phase.”
A growing body of research shows Jeffrey was far from alone. About half of children 11-17 report thoughts of suicide or selfharm, according to a new study from nonprofit Mental Health America.
The group found that during five years, the rate of severe depression among youth increased from 5.9 percent to 8.2 percent. And 76 percent of kids struggling with the condition — about 1.7 million — aren’t receiving the treatment they need.
Suicide has edged out homicide as the leading cause of death among people 14-25.
“We have a lot of treatments that work and kids just aren’t getting access to them,” said Dr. Anthony Sossong, and medical director of community-based treatment at Franciscan Children’s. “A lot of parents have questions in retrospect. When should I have known this was a problem?”
The main barriers are proper diagnosis and detection, along with the stigma of mental illness, Sossong said.
“Nobody wants a disease. Nobody wants an illness or a diagnosis or a label,” Sossong said. “The label gets in the way of treatment.”
Depression symptoms among children and adolescents can range from physical complaints like stomach aches to separation anxiety and sleep problems.
Periods of transition — such as changing schools, going to college or any type of loss — can often be the catalyst of a depressive episode, he said.
For Steve and his wife, Deb, Jeffrey’s death inspired them to start TADS — Teenage Anxiety and Depression Solutions — a nonprofit to help educate other parents and cut through the stigma.
“We recognize it’s stigma that prevents people from getting treatment, and the only way to ease it is to talk about it as a normal thing,” he said. “It’s not abnormal for a kid to struggle with anxiety and depression, just like it’s not abnormal when a kid wears eyeglasses. And it’s really, really treatable.”