Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 24, 1993 TAG: 9301240114
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: D1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KEVIN KITTREDGE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Long
TWO SUICIDES LEAVE RESIDENTS IN FEAR
COUNSELORS, SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS and others are marshaling forces to help Christiansburg Middle School students cope with the suicides of two classmates and to help parents recognize signs of depression in their children.The suicides of two middle-school students in 10 weeks have left many residents of this usually peaceful town feeling bruised and scared.
Two 12-year-old Christiansburg Middle School students recently shot themselves to death in their homes, for unknown and probably unknowable reasons - a boy in late October, a girl early this month.
The second death came despite immediate efforts by the school system and the community to provide ample love and professional counseling in the wake of the first.
The school had a crisis team ready to talk to and work with students within 12 hours of the boy's death on Oct. 27, said PTA President Connie Lowe. In addition, trained counselors staffed the school phones after hours.
When the second child shot herself to death on Jan. 2, it left many here groping for answers.
"They're concerned," said Lowe, when asked how local parents are coping with the second suicide. "They're confused. We're all scared. We're not sure what's going on and why. I talk to my child and everything may be fine - but I'm sure their parents did, too . . . .
"The unknown scares you to death," Lowe said. "I think everybody's walking on eggshells, because they don't known what might set them off."
Angie Knowles echoed Lowe's fears.
"You grieve for the first child - and I guess you fool yourself into thinking, `Everything's OK now,' " said Knowles, who has a child at the middle school and three other school-aged children.
Now that there has been a second suicide, "It leaves me with a feeling I don't have as much control as I thought I did," Knowles said. "That's the scariest part of the situation."
Knowles and others said Christiansburg parents talk often about the suicides.
"Tragedy brings people together," Knowles said. "I think they're looking to each other for support and encouragement and hope."
The parents' biggest fear, of course, is that there will be another suicide.
Montgomery County Superintendent of Schools Harold Dodge said he knew of no other suicide attempts besides the two completed ones.
Dodge also said Montgomery County schools are working with a number of children who are troubled by the suicides. Christiansburg is the county seat for Montgomery County.
At least one student is in counseling now and school officials are concerned about several others in the wake of the suicides, Dodge said. "The system is working with a group of children that have shown some signs of depression and stress."
The superintendent said some students are having a hard time with the suicides because it is their first encounter with death.
Knowles' sixth-grade son was acquainted with the boy who killed himself.
"It's very hard [for him] to comprehend. Young people aren't supposed to die. When he thinks of death, it's always been an elderly person. That's the way it's always been presented to him," Knowles said.
She explained to her son that "by suicide being the answer, you don't allow yourself to find any solution."
Still, kids aren't the only ones confused about the deaths.
"I'm having a hard time with it, too," Dodge said. "I don't understand it. It's got to be a problem with the whole culture. It's got to be homes, churches, schools."
The schools and others in the area have marshaled forces to keep it from happening again. Crisis intervention counselors have visited Montgomery County schools to talk to children, parents and teachers in the wake of the two deaths, school officials said.
At Christiansburg Middle School, officials are "walking a fine line" between making sure school goes on but that kids who need special help get some, said Jim Sellers, Montgomery County's assistant superintendent for instruction.
The school system has temporarily hired an additional assistant principal at the middle school so Principal Bill Fletcher and Assistant Principal Barbara Clark can spend more time in the halls with students. Bob Dodson, who retired as principal at the school, is filling that job.
Carol Roop, a clinical psychologist working at Shawsville High School, has been moved to Christiansburg Middle School temporarily to help the school's guidance counselors, Sellers said. Psychologists from St. Albans and in private practice have also helped.
"The school's main emphasis at this time is making sure we've identified any student who, for whatever reason, may be at risk," Fletcher said.
"Certainly the close friends [of the victim] are affected more and we take them under our wing and give them extra love and care," Fletcher said.
The school has notified the parents of children who teachers and counselors believe may be having problems dealing with the suicide, and has offered counseling for those students.
The best thing that parents who have concerns can do is to listen to their children, Fletcher said. "Talk to them and listen."
"The school has been a lot more active than anybody would know," said Knowles. "I feel they did above and beyond. . . . I could not be happier," with the school's response.
Local PTA members have decided to pitch in as well, by setting up a question-and-answer session with a panel of psychologists and counselors 7 p.m. Monday in the middle-school cafeteria. Health-care professionals will also be available to talk to children if need be, and day care will be provided, said Lowe.
"I hope we can get lots of parents," Lowe said. "If we can get to just one parent, it's worth it to protect that child."
It is not the first public meeting about suicide here in recent weeks. Saint Albans Psychiatric Hospital near Radford held a free presentation on adolescent depression and suicide Jan. 13.
The presentation, run by David Hamilton, director of the Child and Adolescent Program, was attended by 75-80 people. Hamilton assured the collected school counselors, parents and a smattering of teen-agers that most adolescents typically make it through the turmoil of their teen-age years just fine.
"Most adolescents do real well. It's not a time of psychosis, craziness or desperation," he said. "It is a time when emotions are all over the place."
Adolescent depression - a major risk factor in suicide - can be spurred by a number of things, Hamilton said. One is the loss of someone the teen-ager is close to, even through divorce or separation.
The breakup of a romantic relationship or other problems in interpersonal relationship can lead to adolescent depression as well, Hamilton said. So can guilt, or fear of consequences - as in a youth who has run afoul of the law, and is worried how his parents will react. Substance abuse also is associated with adolescent suicide. (For warning signs of suicide, see accompanying graphic).
Hamilton told the adolescents in the audience if they have a friend with suicidal thoughts, not to keep it a secret out of a misplaced sense of loyalty.
Should that person really commit suicide, Hamilton said, "It leads to a tremendous amount of guilt and questioning for a long, long, long time."
Hamilton also said in an interview he would advise any young person with suicidal thoughts "To talk to someone they trust, and to talk to a trusted adult. To not be afraid to seek professional help. And that there is hope the situation may improve."
He said worried parents should get rid of their guns.
"If you know someone you're concerned about, get the guns out of the house," Hamilton advised. "Don't lock them up. Get them out of the house."
Guns were twice as likely to be found in the homes of adolescents who had completed suicide than in the homes of those who attempted but failed, found a study published in the Dec. 4, 1991 Journal of the American Medical Association.
Even guns locked up or stored separately from ammunition were associated with completed suicides, the study found. "Physicians should make a clear and firm recommendation that firearms be removed from the homes of adolescents judged to be at suicidal risk," the study concluded.
Statistics drive home the grim possibilities of combining guns and children: 13 juveniles died from guns in Western Virginia in 1992. Four of the deaths were suicides, five were accidents and four were homicides, said Dr. David Oxley, deputy chief medical examiner for Western Virginia.
At the heart of the community's fears is the possibility of a developing suicide "cluster" here - in which adolescents who might not otherwise have committed suicide could follow the example of others.
Some experts believe suicide can be transmitted from person to person like any infectious disease - and that adolescents and young adults are especially vulnerable to suicide "contagion."
"I think the worry would be the fear of the carrying out of suicides - because there's been a couple, there might be more," said Hamilton. "When they [adolescents] know someone who has done it, it makes it more possible. I certainly think that increases the concern about it."
"Clusters" are groups of suicides or suicide attempts that are linked more closely in time and space than would normally be expected in a community.
In Plano, Texas, eight teen-agers between the ages of 14 and 18 killed themselves between February 1983 and May 1984.
And in Wind River, Wyo., nine people between the ages of 14-25 hanged themselves within an eight-week period in 1985.
"There is no clear cut pattern, but it appears that teen-age [suicide] clusters are more common in recent years," said a recent report in the American Journal of Epidemiology.
All in all, the suicide rate for 15- to 19-year-olds increased from 2.3 per 100,000 in 1950 to above 11 per 100,000 in 1989, said Alex Crosby, a medical epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.
Why?
"It's still a little bit hazy," Crosby said. He said one reason could be the increased availability of handguns.
There also is more stress on adolescents, Crosby said. Studies have shown adolescents discussing problems at school a generation ago pointed to such things as gum chewing and talking in class.
Now many students are faced with pregnancy, drugs, violence and homicide, Crosby noted. "It does seem like the teen-agers of 30 or 40 years later are dealing with more serious subjects."
The highest suicide rates are still found among the elderly.
There is debate about the role publicity plays in suicides, but some studies have drawn a correlation between media coverage of suicides and increased suicide rates.
Asked if the community could do itself harm by dwelling too much on the suicides, Crosby said "I don't think it's inappropriate for a community to be concerned . . . ."
Counselors with the New River Valley Community Services Board said it is important for parents to talk to their children about the suicides. "People think if you're going to talk about it, someone will try it," said Kathy Kenley, a prevention specialist. She said it isn't true.
Knowles, the parent of four schoolchildren, noted young adolescents may not articulate their thoughts well - and that it can take some art to get at what's bothering them. "I call it tooth pulling. Sometimes you have to be a little creative."
To Connie Lowe, avoiding the issue is no answer at all.
"I would handle it head on, like AIDS or sex," she said. "To me, if you don't talk about it, the kids are wondering."
After the first suicide, "We sat down with both the kids, and talked about what happened and why." Lowe stressed to her children that "We can fix anything, we can work through anything."
"Kids are very resilient," Lowe said. "They bounce back. Of course, some of them don't."
Staff writers Greg Edwards and Kathy Loan also contributed to this story.