Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 23, 1995 TAG: 9502230057
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RICHARD FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The latest, a 13-year-old girl in seventh grade, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound this past weekend.
Just two months before, another middle school student, a 15-year-old girl in eighth grade, killed herself. And last fall, a high school boy killed himself.
Eleven teens between the ages of 13 and 18, including the three from Bedford, have committed suicide in Western Virginia since January 1994, according to Dr. David Oxley, deputy chief medical examiner for Western Virginia.
Nine were boys.
Of the eleven, nine used guns, one tied a plastic bag over his or her head and another jumped.
Eighteen school-age teens killed themselves in Western Virginia the year before.
The Bedford County school system hadn't had a student suicide in years, and the recent deaths have school administrators and counselors scrambling to help students cope.
They're also trying to answer the question asked whenever someone takes his or her life: Why?
"We find it tragic and we do our best to provide counseling in the schools and make it available to the children at any time," said Amy Smith, spokeswoman for the school system.
"We take everything the children say very seriously," she said, and - although the three suicides were not related - "we do worry about the domino effect. That's why we put psychologists in the schools as quickly as possible, as well as to help [the students] deal with the grieving process."
John Kent, the county school superintendent, said, "I'm having a hard time trying to understand it and I'm not sure anybody has the answers.
"It's a combination of things. We're told one situation was a boyfriend-girlfriend [dispute], another one was a dysfunctional situation, custody battles and family fights."
But overall, Kent said, the problem probably can be linked to a decline in family support and the desensitization of children to violent acts portrayed on television and in movies and songs.
"In your formative years, a lot of your traits and values are set. We've got generations of kids out there that we've used the television to raise them. Before they even enter school, these children have more exposure to the television than their parents.
"In the USA, how much time do you think the average 4-year-old spends with their father? Forty-two minutes a day," he said, citing a study by the International Association for Educational Achievement.
"We're dealing with the aftermath," Smith said. "None of these [suicides] happened on school property or during school time and none of the kids gave any warning signals. There was a question about something one of them said, but [the suicides] all happened away from anyone who could intervene.
"It makes it very frustrating for us."
Daryl Holt, a senior probation counselor with the county's juvenile court services, worked closely with the high school youth who killed himself last fall.
"He thought the world was a terrible place to live in," Holt said. "He didn't realize that he had it better than he thought. He was a good kid; all he needed was a couple of breaks, and he decided to end it all before he could get any.
"A lot of it is pressure - the pressure the kids go through these days, feeling rejection among their peers, feeling they don't fit in, that nobody loves them - even though they do have people who care about them deeply.
"It's very tragic. You never get over it," Holt said. "You say you should have seen it coming, but a lot of times, you don't see the signs and the symptoms, even as a professional.
"And parents don't always know what to look for, either. Parents hear their child say, 'Life's not worth living,' and they don't take it seriously."
The counselor said most teen-agers don't understand the permanence of death when they decide to end their life - they just know the pain they're feeling at the moment and they don't see an end to it.
As far as so many young people taking their lives this year in Bedford County, Holt said the unpleasant truth is that there probably is no reason for it.
"This year it just happened that these particular children decided it was the only way to end their pain. It's not something happening in the world or in this community. It was just a random thing.
"Some of these kids come from dysfunctional homes and some came from loving homes and they still committed suicide.
"You can be rich, you can be poor, you can be middle income, a professional or a blue-collar worker.
"Suicide has no boundaries for kids."
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB