Suicide survivor: ‘Things really do get better’
Sam Nicholaisen feels like a different person from the teen who attempted suicide in 2015.
“The whole thing is kind of unreal to me because of where I am now,” the 18-yearold Oakwood High School student said. “I feel like my life is nowhere near where I was back then. Time has really been the ultimate healer.”
Four years ago he was at his lowest point, he said. He was in an unhealthy relationship and hanging with friends who weren’t good for his mental well-being either.
He’d thought about suicide but said he didn’t really plan anything out before he attempted to take his life one night. When he awoke the next morning, he said he was indifferent about having survived.
Weeks of treatment and therapy got him to a place where he knew he wasn’t going to harm himself again.
According to data from Nationwide Children Hospital’s Center for Suicide Prevention and Research in Columbus, nine of 10 people who attempt suicide do not die. Sharing stories of hope and overcoming suicidal thoughts is needed to prevent more deaths, said John Ackerman, suicide prevention coordinator at the center.
Medication and many more months of counseling brought Nicholaisen to the much happier place he’s in now.
“Things really do get better, and I never really believed that,” he said.
He tries to share that message with his peers, although he knows it can be difficult to hear.
“Everyone wants to believe that their problems are unique,” Nicholaisen said. “I really think when people hear other people who have been in their same situation, it gives them someone to relate to.”
He also wants to raise awareness in the community that suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts are prevalent among local teens and more needs to be done to prevent deaths.
Three young people he knew died by suicide in a six-month period this past school year.
“This is becoming almost an epidemic,” he said.
His mom, Debbie Kirschman Klopsch, said suicide prevention is a world her family never expected to be a part of. But she now shares advice for other parents.
“I kind of felt like I had done everything,” she said of raising her three kids.
“I saw Sam was struggling,” she said, and she even got him into counseling before his suicide attempt, but maybe too late. If she could do it all over again, she’d be more direct in addressing the red flags she previously brushed off as normal teenage issues.
“There were things that I chose to think, ‘This is
going to take care of itself,’” Kirschman Klopsch said. “If you see a red flag, it really is.”
Kids learning to connect outside of social media could also help, Kirschman Klopsch and her son agreed.
“They don’t talk. They’re all on their devices. You just text someone a happy face and expect them to feel better,”
she said. “It’s very sterile.”
It’s difficult to show empathy via text, Nicholaisen said, and a lot can get misinterpreted.
One of the things that has helped him the most is getting out and making friends he interacts with in person, like at his job as a lifeguard at Kings Island.
Focusing on a job or a hobby also helps take his mind off of dwelling on bad things, he said.
“Watch who you’re putting yourself around,” Nicholaisen said as advice for other teens. “And don’t be rash about stuff. Sit down and think ... Is this really going to be important to me in three years?”
Nicholaisen will be a senior in the fall and takes classes at both Oakwood and Fairmont. He’s looking forward to applying to college where he wants to study engineering.