James, continued.

This year has been remarkably better than last year with James. He can still be an ass to teachers, but overall, those situations are much fewer and farther between. Last week, one of our counselors came in and said she heard a rumor that James tried to commit suicide the previous weekend. I was very concerned and emailed his dad:

Jeff,

I heard through the grapevine that James tried to commit suicide this weekend. I pray that isn’t true, but wanted to check to see what, if anything, we can be doing here to support him.

Please let me know.

~Susan

He responded right away with:

Susan,

Thanks for your concern. The grapevine was not all accurate. He did, while out with friends, take about 4-6 anti-anxiety pills, to what he says try and calm him down. He has the inner frustration he is trying to get a grip on and his friends said, “Hey take these it will work.”

To make a long story short, his mother ended up taking him to the hospital where they made him swallow charcoal. He spent the night there, and now he is doing fine. It all boils down to very bad decisions with a very bad group of kids. We can say it, as parents, to not hang out with him or her, but in the end they will do what they want.

He did not try to commit suicide, though the hospital must treat it that way. He merely made a very bad decision, that seem to be getting more and more as of late. I appreciate all that you and your staff can do. He is trying, but has a crappy group of friends, with a crappy bad attitude.

Thanks,

Jeff

I was very relieved that the rumor was incorrect, but I still had a nagging feeling in the back of my mind. Parents (thankfully) want to think the best of their kids… but most of the time when we get information through the rumor mill, it’s pretty accurate…

Three days after our email exchange, I got a call from his dad letting me know James has been taken to a residential psychiatric treatment facility. He doesn’t know how long he will be there, but he’s hoping it will be for a short time. I'm hoping they can help him find a way to cope AND I am hoping dad can use these incidences to get James permanently removed from his mom's residence.

My heart breaks for kids today. There are so many pressures on them, it shouldn’t surprise any of us that the suicide rate for this age group is soaring, and drug and alcohol problems are getting worse and worse. Kids this age spend so much of their time self-medicating that they never get a chance to develop the coping skills needed to survive the hard stuff.