12-year-old girl’s suicide marks end of innocence
My 12-year-old granddaughter and I live hundreds of miles apart but have always been especially close, likely because in our time together during those bi-yearly visits, we’d lie together before she fell asleep at night, snuggling, reading bedtime stories, singing songs and mostly, just sharing our feelings.
On a recent visit I decided to tape one of those conversations so that I could capture the sweet melody of her sleepy-time voice as well as the innocence of her end-ofday thoughts. As eager as she was to grow up, my granddaughter knew childhood was fleeting. She knew it was special, and that once it was gone, there would be no going back.
Letting go would be hard, she told me, because all those things that once meant so much, including that baby pillow she no longer used and the dolls she no longer played with, seemed so, well, childish.
Yet she also recognized the warm feelings that come when life is simple. The joy that comes from playing with a cheap bouncy ball or even clutching a plastic princess figurine in the palm of a small hand.
Now, technology such as computers and smartphones have pretty much replaced those toys, she admitted. And indeed, a few months after we had this conversation, she got her first iPhone, which, I knew from watching her older sister, would change the dynamics of her life.
“Just don’t let it change your personality,” I had warned her with a smile.
How different that conversation was from our most recent one, where we discussed her thoughts on the tragic death of a classmate.
The 12-year-old friend hanged herself in the restroom of their middle school. She was discovered by two eighth-graders, both on my older granddaughter’s cheer squad. So you can imagine how this sad scenario, which resulted in a school lockdown, affected the kids who attended this school, as well as the quiet suburban community as a whole.
The girl, after a short time on life support, died last weekend.
And my granddaughters? They are struggling. Sleep comes harder. Nightmares are more frequent.
My granddaughter and I had a long discussion about what could have been going on in a 12-year-old’s life to feel such hopelessness. Could this very public act have been a desperate cry for help? What could my granddaughter or her peers do to not feel so powerless?
Both have lost a chunk of innocence. Abruptly. To an epidemic that shows no signs of slowing down.
Between 2009 and 2017, rates of depression among kids ages 14 to 17 increased by more than 60%, according to a study published earlier this year in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology. And those increases were nearly as steep among kids ages 12 to 13, with those trends holding true for data on suicides and attempted suicides.
As unimaginable as it is for most of us, young kids attempting suicide is not all that rare. In fact, notes Stephanie Weber, executive director of the Batavia-based Suicide Prevention Services, “the numbers are rising as the ages are dropping.”
And they are occurring in all communities, including here in the Fox Valley, where kids as young as 8 or 9 believe the only way to escape the dark despair they feel is to end a life that’s not yet gotten off the ground.
Experts note various reasons for the uptick in youth depression and suicidal thoughts, including dysfunctional homes and drug abuse. But most studies consistently point to the rise in technology, smartphones and digital media as undisputed culprits exposing our youngest to too much too soon and making it far tougher for kids to be kids.
My granddaughter and I had a long discussion about what could have been going on in a 12-year-old’s life to feel such hopelessness. Could this very public act have been a desperate cry for help? What could my granddaughter or her peers do to not feel so powerless?
I tried to draw on everything I’ve ever written on this topic over the years, much of it gleaned from conversations with Weber, who later told me the best thing to do is “let them talk about their feelings,” then, “if they ask questions, turn it around and ask what they think the answer is.”
The good news is that, because youth depression and suicide have become such issues, states have mandated school districts to provide programs that meet the social and emotional needs of students. Suicide Prevention Services is not only in many middle and high schools but a growing number of elementary schools, with kids as young as kindergarten being encouraged to talk about their feelings, said Weber. And right now, her nonprofit is even working with School District 131 to implement a program for the parents of preschoolers.
But in addition to awareness, pointed out Weber, we also need to raise the number of resources that are available for kids to get help.
These are tragedies, by the way, that almost never turn into headlines, unless a grieving family at some point decides to go public as a way of raising the alarm about how vulnerable our children are. Weber has long believed it’s time to take “suicide out of the closet.” But for now, we tend to read the statistics and what the experts have to say with a detachment that declares “not in my world.” Until, of course, it is.
When I spoke with my 12-year-old granddaughter again this week, she admitted she and her classmates “all used to be on our phones” during those anti-bullying assemblies instead of listening to the speakers.
“We knew about suicide but just didn’t think it would affect us,” she told me. “Now everyone is paying attention, and trying to be kinder to others.”
While this child with the eternally-optimistic outlook admitted she’s not sure how long that change would last, one thing is for sure, she announced in a far more grownup voice that made me yearn for those precious discussions about baby dolls and bouncy balls.
“I feel different,” she said. “I kind of think this closed the door on my childhood.”