Pound Pup Legacy

A suicide attempt is often seen as the very depressed person's version of "seeking closure" to a very hopeless and helpless desperate situation.  It's the permanant answer to a temporary condition that needs to be recognized sooner (than later) by friends, adults and intimate partners so appropraite assitance can be given to the life that does not have to be lost.

I have asked many para-professionals familiar with adoption issues, "How many Adoptees or Foster Kids are committing suicide each year?"  The answer given to me was:  "Census questions do not ask those types of questions and children are listed as minors within a home; no child is classified as 'adopted' ".   So, unless a foster or adoptive family member was directly related to the cause of death by suicide, there is no reason to believe the adoption process or child-placement issues would cause serious depression in an individual. 

Yet, we have well-documented cases of foster children on medications that have known links to suicidal ideation, and there is an ever growing population of children with Reactive Attachment Disorder, as noted by adoption website communities.

So much for follow-up studies and observations done by the governing bodies protecting our children...

I found an article that states there is a surprising spike in suicide rates in the UK.

 By Michelle Kosinski, NBC News Correspondent

LONDON – "Everyone around here is doing it."

"It has become a trend."

"I have thought about doing it myself."

Somehow, these are all quotes from teenagers, talking about – suicide.

Since the start of 2007, 19 teenagers and young adults have taken their own lives in the tiny towns scattered through the southern Welsh county of Bridgend, where people have been living along the Ogmore River for centuries. Total population: around 130,000. 

The rash of suicides has been an unsettling story, to say the least, here in the U.K.

To see the faces of victims, sweetly smiling in photos all in a row, leaves an empty feeling – they are so many, and so young.

The most recent suicide was less than a week ago. Sean Rees, 19 years old, was found hanging from a tree in the woods near his house. His friends described him as happy, and doing well – he had just gotten his driver’s license and a car. 

Only about a week before, Michelle Sheldon, 23, died in the hospital three days after she was found hanged.

One by one, young people have suddenly taken their own lives here – some right on the heels of another death. And as staggering as these numbers are, there have been attempted suicides as well.

In January, the day after one 17-year-old girl hanged herself in her bedroom, her 15-year-old friend tried to do the exact same thing. She survived, but spent days in intensive care after her father found her and managed to cut her down in time. That same weekend, another of her friends also attempted to kill herself.

Internet connection

Police have formed a special task force, and have been investigating various scenarios including a rumored suicide pact among as many as six of the recent victims. Still, it all remains an eerie, terribly sad mystery.

One thing many experts seem certain of: it is a copycat or cluster phenomenon. And many believe that social networking sites on the Internet have raised teens’ interest in, and even fascination or obsession with, the cases, and may even be influencing the spate of suicides. 

A number of the victims’ friends have left elaborate tributes Internet networking sites, and the idea that some of the messages may be glamorizing the deaths, has police and counselors worried. When suicide equals instant "fame" and shocking attention, there is the risk, oddly, of attraction to it. Counselors say the teens who fixate on the deaths could be at greater risk of following that same dark path.

Some investigators think the only link among all of these tragic cases might be those Web sites.

Anne Marie, a Welsh seventeen-year-old, told her local newspaper, "It has become a cool thing to do in our area – I have thought about doing it myself."

Cool? As much as psychologists and experts have tried to make some sense of the string of deaths, for many it seems almost impossible to grasp.

No explanation

When you look at the town of Bridgend, it's industrial, has its share of economic problems, but unemployment there isn't any worse than other similar towns in that region. But those other towns don't have a suicide rate as high as Bridgend.

It's rate has jumped to 43 per 100,000, among males 15 to 24, over the last decade. That's more than double the Welsh national rate of 19 per 100,000 for that group – even though Wales' rate is already twice that of the U.K. as a whole. 

No one seems confident enough in any specific theory to make grand pronouncements or explanations. Maybe there never will be a way to comprehend this fully. One teen in the area who had tried to kill herself, after the death of one of her friends, told her parents she didn't really know why she, too, attempted it.

Counselors in school are working on prevention. They’re warning teenagers about what they call the "dangers" of the social networking sites – and warning parents to monitor them closely.

Still, the little county of Bridgend, dotted by ancient castles, is at a loss. The suicides keep happening. Nineteen of its young people, gone – in just over a year.

Is there some statement on society here, on death and extremes and publicity and fame? Or on hopelessness among people this young, with such possibilities ahead of them?

It seems unfathomable that something as irreversible, as final, as suicide could "catch on" among kids, as if it were another simply another destructive habit like binge drinking.

"Happy well-adjusted kids".  "Always with a smile".  Certainly a smiling child can't feel anything but peace, bliss and happines.  Not unless that child is coached to do so, at least.

Has any authority thought to ask:  "Were any of these suicides related to the long-term effects of poor child placement services?"

Whether there is a linking connection to these particular deaths or not, shouldn't there at least be a universal awareness that firmly states, "a child displaced by a negligent legal system is a child at risk for depression and suicide".

How many mother's children need to be lost because health-care and law professionals are not asking the correct questions, at the appropriate time?  Who's responsibility should it be to follow the countless cases that keep getting lost and shuffled among the mounting piles?