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Teenage suicide missing signs missing the signs a mothers story.

On 19 June just two weeks ago, my sons 18
th
birthday, I went to Parkview
Police Station I went because a perfect stranger had left a message on my
Facebook page asking me if I had ever received the post mortem report for
my sons death. He had reminded me and so I went up to the offices where
the detectives sit and spoke to a woman she looked up at me and said I
know why you are here I know about your case before Id even spoken -
she had seen some publicity or other about BOY the book I wrote about my
sons suicide. She was kind and gentle. She told me theres a new detective
on the case. She even phoned him. His office was locked so she couldnt go
and get JPs file for me. Instead she told me that the detective would phone
me later she said that she would personally go and look for JPs file for me.
The detective did phone me and a few days later all the paperwork was ready
for me to collect.

And all the time I was doing this I was wondering why? What will the post
mortem reveal that I dont already know? I was clutching on to magical
thinking as if the reports and test results will fill in the missing gaps will
provide some answers that by looking at his brain and heart the autopsy will
reveal that my son was depressed, deeply depressed, bordering on
psychosis, that he wasnt in his right mind, that he had taken opiates or LSD
and that he was flying, that he didnt really mean to kill himself he was only
messing about, that he was schizophrenic. Or if not answers perhaps a sign.

And then a week ago I got the report not even a scratch on his body no
self-harm marks I suppose thats what I was hoping theyd find the signs
we missed it would all make sense then I had missed it but it was there.
As if an autopsy could reveal feelings of shame, self-loathing, worthlessness
and anger. And then my mind starts churning again well perhaps he didnt
mean to kill himself after all maybe he was just messing about playing the
choking game. My daughter Annie and I talk about it on the phone she says
dont go there Mom remember how he used to ask for dry ice (Dry ice is
made of CO2 and when it "melts", it becomes CO2 gas) Mom if he hadnt

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hanged himself that day he would have walked in front of a car. It was his time
to go she said to me.

My sons full name was John Peter Shand Butler but he was also known as
BOY or simply JP. I will refer to him as JP the name he preferred as he got
older. He was born on 19.6.1996 and he chose to end his life at the age of 14
on 31.3.2011. He was born at home painlessly and he slipped into the world
without a fuss. As a baby and toddler he was so easy. He just used to fit in
and go along with whatever was happening. He had a slightly oriental look to
him and he reminded me of a blonde version of a Tibetan child with those
dark deep eyes. He didnt talk much before the age of three - perhaps in other
families this would have been a sign that something was wrong but we
simply accepted him as he presented himself. He spoke when he needed to.

This talking only when needed continued throughout his short life. He was
always a bit different but every so slightly. Nothing I could pinpoint. Just a bit
at odds with the world. A friend who sometimes gave him a lift home from
primary school would ask him how he is he always answered fine. [He was
always just fine.] Then one day she decided to try get a bit more out of him
and asked him what colour the sky was he said blue paused for a moment
and added with clouds. He was always a bit of a loner, separate, apart, non-
committal. He seemed to prefer his own company. He was without guile
and mostly got caught when he got up to mischief. He was undemanding, shy
and reserved and this manifested in a painfully self-conscious relationship
with the world. He didnt want to be noticed. He never showed off or tried to
impress. Never pushed himself to the front or tried to come first. He was also
gentle, artistic and kind and could draw beautifully, with clear certain outlines
and a totally unique perspective.

A friend remembers JP he was young then, maybe 11- pitching up at an
outdoor t-shirt printing workshop in Newtown Park that her students were
running - and she noticed and watched him even though she had never met
before - because (unlike the other kids rushing all around him) he was bent
over the table working on his designs for his t-shirt with such solemn intensity

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and focus and seriousness. Annie still sleeps in the t-shirt he printed that day
with his initials JP and flames.

JP could swim like a little fish from the age of two and loved being in nature
and outdoors and he was most comfortable there roaming the veld,
swimming in farm dams or the sea, climbing mountains - Murraysburg,
McGregor, Arniston, Onrus, the Waterberg, the Groot Marico, the
Magaliesburg he knew so many of South Africas towns and villages
intimately. In these spaces he could be on his own, uncluttered, unfettered,
unbothered! just a boy in nature. No pressure, no stress, anxiety appeased
for a while. He spent many nights sleeping out on the roof of our house under
the stars or in his tent in the garden.

After a day in the Karroo building a snowman and having snowball fights !
he phoned me Ive just had the best day of my whole life he said. Such
simple needs I remember thinking. He also described his Grade 5 year - when
he attended a very small alternative school as the best year of his life. At
that funny little school full of candles and angels and incense and healing
crystals he could just be who he was.

He never cried or if he did no-one every saw. He didnt even cry when badly
hurt which was quite often. I think Ive hurt myself he would say quietly
with no fuss or drama followed by a rush to the hospital for eight stitches to
a gash in his thigh or a plaster cast for torn ligament! JPs mantra for years
was Mom or Dad! Ive got a problem. It was like he couldnt quite get his
head around overcoming even quite minor obstacles.

There was also his softer side - he would often hold his great big 14 year-old
feet up to me and demand tickle my feet. He was very conscientious about
making birthday cards for family members with great wit and insight he
would capture us - and hed always make sure that gave us carefully
considered birthday and Christmas presents. One year he even tie-dyed t-
shirts for his sisters and cousins.


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My mother remembers Every now and again Joshua (JPs cousin) talks
about JP; He shot up crackers with me - he flew the kite with me. We played
with the guns and shot at targets, we took turns... I think of all that cricket that
was played on your front lawn, with whoever was willing and do you
remember Kate when we took him to the park to kick that ball around. How
energetically he ran to fetch and then kicked it again and again enjoying you
and me watching! And round and round the block on the skateboard - he
enjoyed physical exertion. Up the sand dunes, off on the bike. Wish he could
have had some big long hikes - would have come when he was older....

But despite these seemingly normal boy activities - a perfect storm was
gathering and we were oblivious. It was years in the making. A combination of
his biology, psychology, physiology, biography, geneology, The clouds were
there sometimes we glimpsed them but we just didnt know we had to
decipher them! and suicide is so far removed from our frame of reference as
parents unless of course there is a call for help or an attempt that fails to jolt
us out of our denial. My son didn't shout out to be listened he was so very
quiet with his call for help that I didn't hear.

His father and I parted ways twice in JPs short life creating a chaotic,
unstable and unpredictable home life. But he was loved and adored through it
all. It saddens me that my personal life meant I was unable to provide a calm
home life for him. I believed my love for him (and his sisters) could overcome
the messy, dark corners of my life.

He was bullied at school. He wrote a letter asking us to take him out of
Parkview Senior when he was in Grade 4 because he was being teased so
much. He wrote that if we didnt take him out he would kill himself eerily
foreshadowing his death. When Anam Cara the sanctuary of a school I
mentioned earlier closed down at the end of JPs grade 5 year he asked to be
homeschooled. This wasnt a possibility and his second choice was what he
called a bush school. So I found one in the Waterberg. During his grade 7
year there, he wrote angry pages about wanting to die and putting on a mask
and taking up a sword and killing those who made him angry. He begged to

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come home and eventually got his way after being caught stealing from the
headmasters wife she used to help him with his homework. I found a
therapist and he went to her for the rest of his Grade 7 year but eventually she
said that he only needed to come back if he asked to he never shared much
with her. I went to see her after he died and we both have a strong intuition
that JP was abused in some way while he was there. His increasing anxiety
manifested as eczema on his hands and his face, and smoking dagga was
perhaps a way to self-medicate and manage this stress.

He started smoking dagga as far as I know in Grade 8 and was caught
dealing near the end of the year. A classmate had sent him a message on
mixit asking him if he could get dagga he answered yes. Well she showed a
teacher the message and on the designated day the police were at the school
and JP was searched. He only had a thimble full on him. When his father
came to the school he was sitting in the reception area in full view of all staff
and teachers flanked by two armed policemen. JPs father remembers his
sons demeanour as he sat there he said it was as though JP had shut out
everything that was happening, as though he didnt care. But I think he had
retreated behind his stone wall for protection from the humiliating onslaught.
When eventually taken into an office by the Grade Head the police laughed
and said not enough to prosecute. Why didnt the school phone us on the
day the girl showed the teacher the message both sets of parents clearly
the girl also needed help. We could have all worked together to help our
children. Instead the police were called in. JP was both publicly humiliated
for a boy who didnt want to be noticed he was put on display his shame
made public and ironically then he was celebrated by his school mates. The
girl was reviled by her peers for setting him up. Everyone knew what had
happened. She hanged herself three months after JP. Two 14 year-olds dead.

What happened to him next was almost worse. A substitute teacher who also
happened to be the grade head (same one from the dagga bust) decided on
an impromptu vote for JPs class he got the kids to write down the names of
the children they didnt want in their class the following year. He added up the
names and announced the children who received the most votes JP was

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number 2 on the list. JP told us this story in his usual monotone voice as if
he were describing an incident that happened to another child, not himself.
But it must have been a deeply humiliating and embarrassing experience that
hurt him deeply. JP was a child who already had low self-esteem and who
thought the whole world hated him and was against him.

After he died, Annie found a note JP had carefully glued two pages together
to hide what he had written (on 9 January 2011) What if I were to run away
from everyone and everything: my whole life sucks. Everyone hates me. They
are all fucks ups. Why am I hated by everyone? If only I could die I wouldnt
have to see any of these motherfuckers ever again. No one ever. That would
make my life the best. Seeing no one I know ever again. These bitches. I am
going to run away. I fucking swear.

The storm was moving in. He seemed agitated in the new year 2011 for
the few weeks before he died hed keep checking where his father and I were
going phoning me at work asking if I was going out that night if his dad
was going to go with me for how long would we be away. Every time his
father got up from his chair JP would ask where you going? I sensed that JP
was feeling disconnected and agitated.

On days it stills seem quite impossible to believe that my 14 year-old son
chose to end his life by hanging himself from a low security gate underneath
the stairs of the verandah in the back garden of our then rambling large family
home in Johannesburg. His father had taken him for a drug test hours earlier
at my insistence JP had taken my bankcard the previous night and
withdrawn R800 and bought a bank bag of dagga with it. It wasnt the dagga I
was worried about but rather that I was certain there were harder drugs in his
system. It was the stealing that alerted me but it was also more than that his
behavior the previous few weeks now that I was wide awake had been odd.
Nothing I could put my finger on though just a little bit odd in a nuanced kind
of way. The drug test came up positive for dagga and nothing else. I breathed
a sigh of relief. Only dagga I thought. But a few days previously my oldest
daughter Laine had phoned me at work to say she had something to tell me.

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She said she was really worried about JP. Im sorry I havent told you this
before but I have to tell you now she said. JP is smoking too much weed.
You have to do something. He needs to be watched 24/7 and you need to
take all his privileges away. You have to do something hes smoking too much
hes smoking all the time its too much. Youve got to do something.

I keep thinking of the dagga smokers I know and have known, and under the
influence they are usually incapable of doing much of anything, let alone
killing themselves. Being stoned takes the edge off. But my friend and
publisher Melinda tells me that this isnt strictly true. For people with mood
disorders, getting stoned can make them highly strung out, disturbed and
paranoid. She says that she used to feel suicidal when she was stoned.

JP was clearly self-medicating. I didnt know what to do at the time. I didnt
act. I thought I had time. I thought I had time to work it out. I needed the time
to see and believe that JP had a problem but was smoking dagga really a
problem? I needed time to move from denial to acceptance and from
acceptance to take action. It needed to become a real problem. Stealing from
me on the Wednesday night was a clear sign that there was a problem but
the money was still not for hard drugs, real drugs. So there was time to sort
out what we should do - how we should respond. Except there was no time.
The time was then not later. While I was procrastinating, not acting wondering
what to do, wondering what was wrong with him - JP had already made his
decision.

I read a New Yorker article on Elliot Rodger (the young man who in May this
year opened fire on students in California killing five of them before taking the
gun to his own head) it was about how everyone is looking for the signs the
journalist writes (quote) we want signs to be replicable, accurate and
prescriptive end quote - so that we can avoid such a thing happening again.
But the warning signs are but a feeling that cant be articulated how does
one give language to the unimagineable, the unthinkable. Each child and
each situation is unique, and so the warning signs will be different. Yes we
had warning signs we just didnt know what they were alerting us to. But if Id

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known how unhappy my son was and how desperate he was feeling - if I had
know that he was considering taking his own life to end his misery as the only
solution he could see for his life his life that was just starting if I had known
how pained he was I would have done everything in my power to prevent it.
And so if anything in my story resonates for you if there are any echoes if I
say something and it makes that intuitive part of your tummy churn pay
attention to that churn and go home and start fighting for your childs life.

Missing signs and missing the signs. It seems to me thats that what most of
us do the parents of suicides we look for the signs that we missed. We
ask ourselves what did we miss? We ask ourselves one million times and
then some as we mine our memories scratching away for a sign. Ordinary
teenage behavior transforms into the most obvious signs of suicidal behavior.
And we can drive ourselves mad remembering the proximate causes. We
undertake extensive psychological autopsies that lead to dead end after dead
end because its impossible to understand that which seems so inexplicable
and senseless.

Suicide remains as mysterious to me now as it ever did. I must have read
every book ever written about suicide, grief and death. It is a sad far too long
list of people trying to understand why people kill themselves. I was a sponge
soaking up the words. It helped me not to feel so alone. But it didnt really
leave me any the wiser.

And then last week a book on Amazon caught my eye and I downloaded it to
my Kindle and started devouring it Dying to be Free: a healing guide for
families after suicide yes Im still reading the books, still trying to
understand. Its written by Kurt Cobains aunt a psychiatric nurse Beverly
Cobain. She puts the theories of Shneidmans (an expert on suicide) into plain
language and finally I understand a piece of the puzzle. I get where JPs mind
had gone. Shneidman believes there is no suicide without psycheache or pain
of the mind. Although most of us experience a degree of pyscheache during
our lives most people dont kill themselves. Suicide happens when inner
turmoil becomes intolerable. So psychache with the idea of death to escape it

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= suicide. Cobain makes an important point those who kill themselves do
not want to die rather they see death as the only solution to their pain.

I was watching Mark Hennicks Ted Talk Why we choose suicide - he was
suicidal as a teenager phrases jump out at me
is it a choice if its the only option?
When our perception becomes so contracted its the only choice
Youre not good enough, smart enough, youre not enough
Why hang on? To be that crazy kid?
I just didnt want it to hurt anymore.
When he was about to jump off a bridge he remembered that it felt like he
finally had control over his life for a change. It felt free he said. I had a sense
of that contracted perception. Its why I wanted to take JP away into the wide
open African landscape to Afrika Burn - to give him breathing space a
wide horizon an expanded perception.

In the many relentless discussions we had as a family about why JP killed
himself one of the things we couldnt understand was that he had plans. It
wasnt as though hed given up on life. He didnt speak about dying or wanting
to kill himself. He spoke about the future. We were going to Africa Burn in
April he was looking forward to the trip and we spent hours on the internet
together looking at burning sculptures even investigating how to fire a paper
kiln as an idea for something we could do at the festival. I knew he had to get
out of the city and into a space where we could feel comfortable and at ease.
Cobain in her book explains that a secret dialogue is taking place in the
suicide mind a part of him wishes to live while another part of him wants to
die. In the book Suicide and Attempted Suicide, Erwin Stengel writes about
the ambivalence of suicide. He explains that the act of committing suicide is
about wanting to live and die at the same time its not about either/or. He
writes that those at risk of suicide and under tremendous stress do not know
exactly what they want.

Anne Sexton who killed herself at the age of 45 describes the state of
Anhedonia (lack of pleasure or of the capacity to experience it in other

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words depression or psycheache) as I dont want to live. ! Now listen, life is
lovely, but I Cant Live It. I cant even explain. I know how silly it sounds ! but
if you knew how it Felt. To be alive, yes, alive, but not be able to live it. Ay
thats the rub. I am like a stone that lives ! locked outside of all thats real. !
I wish, or think I wish, that I were dying of something for then I could be brave,
but to be not dying, and yet ! and yet to [be] behind a wall, watching
everyone fit in where I cant, to talk behind a gray foggy wall, to live but to not
reach or to reach wrong ! to do it all wrong ! believe me, (can you?) !
whats wrong. I want to belong. ! Im not a part. Im not a member. Im
frozen.

A friend who was suicidal as a young teenager wrote to me: As for me, the
main give-away when I was troubled, was listlessness. And what nearly killed
me was shyness, and it feels even now that the lack of self-worth was so
powerful as to have been inherited from the soul that was born into my body.
As from a previous life. I seemed powerless against it.

The only way to end the pain is to kill it. Beverly Cobain writes that many
survivors report a strange or empty look in the persons eyes before the
suicide. JP had that look to him and I thought it was drugs Ruby Wax (the
well-known comedian and depressive in her recent show in Joburg Out of her
Mind) describes it as shark eyes. She says when you see those shark eyes
its a warning sign do something. Cobain (start quote) At the time of
suicide, the persons mind is quiet. No more emotional agony. The war is
over. There is no fear, only a deep inner peace. Now, by whatever means he
has devised, he ends his suffering.

But JP had devised another way to end his pain to run away my mother
found a list in his jacket pocket he had written!
Hunting knife (NB)
Pellet gun
Duct tape
First aid kit
Water purryifyer system (NB)

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Fire starting things
Vegetable seeds
Rope
The day after he died we found a bag hed packed to run away a packet of
rice, a tin of beans, rope, matches, nails, a blanket and sleeping bag, a pot
and hed sewn an eagle a belt buckle decoration to the outside of the bag.
He was leaving. It just didnt work out that way.

According to SADAG 9.5 % of teenage deaths in SA are as a result of suicide
and for every suicide there are twenty attempts. Suicide happens, teenage
suicide is a fact of life, and it doesnt just happen over there. It doesnt just
happen to other people.

Since writing BOY I have been inundated with emails parents sharing their
stories -

Rayel had just received a scholarship to an international school in Wynberg.
In 2011 he started cutting himself he said he didnt know how to process his
feelings regarding his father and his stepmother. The sudden loss of his
grandfather led to several counseling sessions. Last year his scars from
cutting were disappearing. He seemed happy with life. He was visiting his
grandmother and went into the bedroom and shot himself. Rayel was 14
years old.

Matthew gassed himself on an empty plot near his home. His mother Debbie
says that wasnt surprised the night they found him but still it was a great
shock. He was SO unhappy and hated being on this earth. He smoked grass
and did various drugs although the drugs were only right at the end and
although his mother suspected she never confronted him. He was also cutting
himself she said. Matthew was 19 years old.

Yiorgos was an over achiever in sports, with provincial and national colours.
He had no time for academics. He was a social butterfly who loved everyone
and whom everyone loved. He could light up a room. But for the last 3 weeks

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he was not himself and every day complained of stomach pains, in hindsight
his mother thinks it was anxiety. They had a screaming fight about the stupid
things like tidy your room, stop being a slob, do as you are asked etc and she
left the house to fetch his brother. She returned to his dead body. He had
tidied his room, packed everything away, written a suicide note but giving no
reason. Gone into the garden and shot himself. None of his friends knew
anything was wrong, nor his 2 brothers. There is no explanation. Only the
assumed anxiety. Yiorgos was 15 years old.

Jake did not leave a suicide note. His mother has gone over and over (and
sometimes still does, although not often) events and possible causes,
triggers! but ultimately she says it is too painful to consider, and what would
it change? The only thing that becomes clearer she says is that Jake was
severely depressed. It destroys her that she didnt recognise it; and that he
was so depressed makes her incredibly sad. Jake was 19 years old.

I asked Fiona about the signs missed or the signs missing. She said to me -
Regarding the signs missed! yes, there were signs I missed, or DISmissed,
or that I didnt understand as being A sign, or that I didnt understand as
being a sign OF SUICIDE'.

Annes son Sebastian killed himself about ten days after JP hed gone to
JPs funeral. He left a note saying he wasnt strong enough for this world and
wanted to be with his little sister who had died eight years previously. When I
told Anne I was giving this talk and that I was exploring teenage suicide from
the perspective of missing signs and missing the signs. She said to me
without a moments hesitation there were no signs. Sebastian was 17 years
old.

I heard a story of a mother who had her son on 24 hour a day suicide watch
he took out a gun and shot himself in the head in front of her. Kurt Cobain
wore a t-shirt for the world to see it said I hate myself and I want to die.


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Why dont we know? The answer is simple - because were not looking for it.
Blind to the wake up call we dont trust our intuition until its too late. Often
what they say with teenage suicide its luck whether you catch them in time.
Thats the only warning sign with a teenage suicide if you find them
attempting to kill themselves! The signs are so oblique because of the nature
of being a teenager teenagers mostly exist in a bubble you cant read
because being a typical teenager is to be withdrawn, sullen, moody, sleeping
a lot, etc . The father of Elliot Rodger says the most unbelievable thing is we
didnt see this coming. What parents sees the unimagineable coming?

Lisa Schenke whose 18 year old Tim jumped in front of a train after leaving
the house saying Im not coming back wrote a book Without Tim a sons fall
to suicide and a mothers rise from grief - she gives many public talks about
suicide prevention and she wrote to me that she always states that suicide is
the 3
rd
leading cause of death for boys age 15 to 24. She also says that for
those with depression, Marijuana is known to increase depression symptoms
by 40%. Part of what she always aims for in her talks is to emphasise the
importance of finding someone trustworthy to talk to and to keep moving on
until you find the person who is right for you. Mental illnesses such as
schizophrenia and bipolar disorder can begin in adolescence and contribute to
high rates of teenage suicide. As parents we need to be vigilant and monitor
our teens behaviours so we can intervene if it seems called for (Lisa
concludes).

In a recent article Why teenagers act crazy in the New York Times I read that
Adolescents are not just carefree novelty seekers and risk takers; they are
uniquely vulnerable to anxiety and have a hard time learning to be unafraid of
passing dangers. Its all in the timing of their brain development.

In a video about A Boy called Henry (a young man who died from his
addiction at 18) his mother said ! Henry started smoking dagga when he
was fourteen years old! it was sort of like a slow drip-drip-drip and I couldnt
get a handle on what was going on! it seemed like he was just getting up to
mischief and at the start it was not the problem it was to become!! slowly it

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seems like all the things you are doing are going to stop it, and slowly it turns
into a situation where you realise oh my goodness, not only did it not stop, it
has escalated! I didnt understand what was going on! I did not know what
to do!

I asked my daughter Laine what has she learned from her brothers death
does she have advice for parents? She was very clear. Talk about suicide to
your kids, talk about depression, what feeling depressed makes you feel. The
safe sex talk you have with your kids the talk about depression should be
the same kind of talk kind of like safe living. Teenagers hide it all they hide
that they are smoking dope, they hide that they having sex, they hide smoking
cigarettes, they hide that they are bunking school and they are masterful at
hiding what they get up to thats the point of being a teenager they also
are able to hide that they are depressed. Parents mustnt be scared if their
children feel like this there are solutions there is medication, therapy. It
should happen in schools and homes. And thats perhaps what we are
scared of as parents is this its hard to face the truth of our children when
how they feel and what they do is not only contrary to what we want for them,
but that also leaves us feeling helpless and desperate and angry but above all
SCARED.

Do I have advice not really but if I had the time back and if I could do things
differently it would be to ACT not wait. Dont think about it do something
about it. I would listen to my intuition trust my gut. I think we don't act on our
intuition we push it aside because it could be inconvenient it could get in
the way of life unfolding as we think it should and because sometimes we
can't imagine the alternative/s. If you think theres a problem there is one I
read that somewhere. Get professional help if you think theres a problem
get a diagnosis and therapy and if needs be medication. And if you discover
your child is using drugs, alcohol of self-harming get him or her into a
programme ASAP. Sit down regularly for family suppers, have conversations
with your children regularly and learn to listen to them. And some
understanding my friend who was suicidal as a teen wonders if his parents
had said to him you are in a terrible long war, but it will end, and you will

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survive would it have helped? But they never said anything. Kindness we
all need to be kinder. Dont assume schools have necessary capacity to pick
up and respond to the signs. As parents we must start exerting pressure on
governing bodies of schools to develop informed policies for suicide
prevention. We need to work together schools, home and community.

And even if you do all of this it may not help.

The mother of Dylan one of the two boys responsible for the Columbine
killings when asked what would she say to Dylan if she could speak to him
now - I would ask him to forgive me, for being his mother and never knowing
what was going on inside his head, for not being able to help him, for not
being the person that he could confide in. Later she said, Ive had thousands
of dreams about Dylan where Im talking to him and trying to get him to tell me
how he feels. I dreamed that I was getting him ready for bed, and I lifted up
his shirt, and he was covered with cuts. And he was in all this pain, and I
didnt see it; it was hidden.

I will never have definitive answers about JPs suicide. Not in a rational,
logical sense anyway. Sometimes there just arent answers.

But I do get messages all the time they may not be answers but they do
seem to be signposts of a kind. A few months ago I got a message on
Facebook !
(Devin): Oky sooo i started reading ur book last night, and just finished it... I
couldn't put it down... My mom gave it to me, i can't stop crying... U'r book
really changed m life right now... I tried to commit suicide twice already, last
attemp was a week ago, but after reading ur book i won't be able to even let
that thought cross m mind... To have to read what u have gone through, i
can't imagine putting m mom through it.... I just wana thank you so much... U
touched me! God Bless xxx

I hold onto that message from Devin, it means that writing BOY means
something it means JPs life continues to have meaning. It means that by

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speaking and sharing our story, and not hiding our grief and not being
ashamed about the decision JP made to end his life, maybe we can make a
difference.

If you need more information, there are organisations that provide help and
support BOYs Facebook page has information on useful websites and I
post links to it from time to time. Alternatively SADAG has a good website
www.sadag.org.

Kate Shand
Grahamstown
July 2014