Last Step. About Teenage Suicides - Society

Recently, the topic of teenage suicides has been actively discussed. And there are reasons for that: today in the world, an average of seven per hundred thousand adolescents commit suicide, and in our country this figure is almost three times higher - twenty per hundred thousand. The parents are alarmed and scared. What happens to our children? How to protect a child from attempted suicide?

Dangerous age

It is believed that suicidal tendencies are characteristic of people with mental disabilities - if a child has done something to himself, then he is "sick in the head." But this is not the case. An interesting experiment was conducted at Harvard: doctors were given medical records of people who had committed suicide, and asked to make a diagnosis. At the same time, in some stories, the mention of suicide was removed, while in others they left. And where they left suicide, in 90% of cases, doctors diagnosed a mental illness. And where suicide was removed, only 22% were diagnosed.

Adolescence itself is quite "suicidal". This is one of the most acute and long-lasting crises in life. American psychologist Stanley Hall called this time "a period of storms and onslaught." A sweet, obedient child who studied well, walked with his mother by the hand, suddenly becomes completely uncontrollable.

Suicide: A person killed while trying to escape from himself

Wieslaw Brudziński

In adolescence, the entire body is rebuilt. Bones, muscles, blood vessels, heart grow unevenly, this causes frequent dizziness, weakness, pressure drops. “Hormones are playing”, sexual energy is overwhelming, the endocrine system is ahead of the nervous system in development, excitation processes prevail over inhibition processes.

In adolescence, a child needs love more than ever, although he says the opposite

But the main conflict of the adolescent crisis is between the child's “I” and the outside world. Trying to win the status of an adult, a teenager deliberately exacerbates contradictions, defends his rights, does not tolerate when they invade his personal space. He is overwhelmed by desires, the desire for independence, independence, self-affirmation.

A powerful rise is accompanied by internal instability, a violation of psychological balance - hence stubbornness, negativism, self-will, protest, demonstrative disobedience, quarrels and scandals.

For the young, suicide is a plea for help; among the old, only a plea for death

Anthony Campiński

Reasons and reasons

There is another popular belief: there is no suicide without a reason. And this is not true: suicide is a consequence of a complex of reasons. Those who survived a suicide attempt cannot always explain why they did it.

In addition to the apparent reasons (or reasons) that push children to commit suicide, such as the death of a loved one, rape, unplanned pregnancy, conflicts with parents and at school, unrequited love, there are deep reasons. I would highlight three of the most important: psychological effeminacy, lack of love and lack of intrinsic motivation.

Psychological effeminacy

It would seem that it is impossible to grow up without being hit, pushed, and offended. But we try to do everything so that our child will never face rudeness, injustice or violence. We purposefully create for him the most comfortable, conflict-free environment. They used to say: "Life will teach, temper character." But our children have fewer opportunities to learn and temper. We monitor their every step, we try to foresee everything.

Almost no one leaves without warning. There are signs that should be alarming

As a result, children are not ready for unpleasant surprises and disappointments and therefore experience any failure extremely painfully, elevating it to the rank of a real tragedy. Pampered psychologically, they simply cannot cope with the problems that cause them suffering. And suicide for them means avoiding solving all problems at once, from shame, humiliation, punishment, despair.

Lack of intrinsic motivation

Our children don't know what frustration is. We try to satisfy all their desires, sometimes “on demand”. It's easier for us to buy or authorize something than to explain why we don't want to do it. But when everything is easy, children do not feel the relationship between their own efforts and the result. They have no experience of dissatisfaction, they do not learn to wait, endure, overcome, achieve. And if the parents did not take care to form internal stimuli (the very "wanting" that makes them strive and achieve), children are overcome by boredom, a feeling of emptiness, and then depression is at hand.

When there are no internal stimuli, adolescents resort to external ones, add brightness to them or constantly replace them with something new, exciting, exciting the imagination. These are daily parties, drugs, alcohol, gambling and dangerous entertainment - in fact, "death games" such as picking, skywalking, roofing, etc.

Lack of love and attention

In adolescence, a child more than ever needs our love, although he says the exact opposite: "You don't love me, I hate you …" Accusing us of dislike, he really wants to make sure that he is loved regardless of anything - from learning outcomes, challenging behavior, whether he has acne on his face or if they finally disappeared …

There is a special delight in not succumbing to the urge to commit suicide right now

Emile Michel Cioran

And we, parents, rarely think about what complex processes occur in the body of a teenager and what caused these mood swings, but we focus on external manifestations that annoy us. It is difficult for us to accept this “new” child, and instead of trying to understand, caress and warm him up, we try to put him in his place - by persuasion, lectures, threats: “Have you cleaned the room? Who do you look like? So that at ten was already in bed!"

The child should know that at a critical moment, he may first of all turn to his family for help

But the saddest thing is that we don't take seriously the concerns of our children. Have arranged a boycott at school - "Come on, you will have more friends." The boy went to another girl - "You will fall in love a hundred times, your whole life is ahead." It doesn't even occur to us that "all this nonsense" for a child might be "the end of the world."

Distress signals

If you analyze suicide attempts, it turns out that children always give an SOS signal - subconsciously hoping that they will be stopped or saved in time. For example, they may call someone or leave a pill pack in the bathroom, or try to commit suicide when their parents are at home. Almost no one leaves without warning. Suicide can be prevented. There are signs that should alert parents, and our task is to catch and decipher these signals in time.

Death Talks

The child now and then threatens to commit suicide: "I won't be around soon," "I'm tired of everything, it's better to die." Or posts warnings on the Internet - messages, photos.

Sudden changes in behavior

The child always ate well, but suddenly stops eating, slept well, now does not sleep. I always paid attention to my appearance and suddenly gave up on myself. Or, on the contrary, he suddenly began to smarten up: "Let me be remembered like that."

Escape from reality

Teens today literally live on the internet. Some are hooked on games where heroes are killed, but they come to life over and over again, because they have "spare" lives, and the children get the impression that death is not the end, you can still fix it, resume. Others join dangerous Internet communities that program to commit suicide, so-called death groups such as the Blue Whales.

History of suicide attempt

Children often commit suicide the second time around, so it is very important not to miss and correctly qualify the first attempt. For example, one has strange cuts on his arm, and the other slept all day, swallowing some pills. According to statistics, most often children make a second attempt on the 100-120th day, which means that during the year you need to be as vigilant as possible.

Self destruction

The child begins to drink, take drugs, mix drugs and alcohol. Under the influence of all these substances, he loses control over his own actions, perceives reality in a distorted manner. In this state, suicide may seem like the only possible way out of a difficult situation.

Defense strategy

The transitional age cannot be canceled, it is a test for everyone - both children and parents. How to pass it with dignity and without loss? There are three golden rules.

Set boundaries

The child needs restrictions, prohibitions - so that he understands how to behave. Often, children deliberately act defiantly (theft, damage to other people's things, attempts at suicide) in order to find the "limit of what is acceptable." Their shocking actions are an unconscious appeal to adults: scold, tell them that there is nowhere else! We must extinguish the feeling of permissiveness and impunity. But there should not be many restrictions: for a teenager, for example, coming home no later than 11 pm, an absolute ban on drugs and alcohol.

Give freedom

Within the perimeter of our established boundaries, children should feel free. It is necessary to give the child the opportunity to get bored, to dream, to be idle, not to jerk him over trifles, not to rummage in his things, not to break into his room at any time of the day or night, to respect his choice - books, films, music, friends.

Love and support

When we understand what is happening to our children, than their actions are dictated, we will be less irritated. We may disagree with the child, condemn, punish, but he must know that we always love him - just because he is our child. And the first to whom he can turn at a critical, crisis moment are us, his family.

Of course, we need to be extremely vigilant so as not to miss the SOS signals that the teenager sends us.

But vigilance alone is not enough: we must literally nourish the child with our love, so that he is not afraid of anything, so that he is sure that we are always there. We are used to not sparing money for children, but we must first learn how to spend time and mental strength on them.