Another
statistical and meaningless article on teen suicide.* “It will never happen to
me!” I thought, reading it. No, I’ve never known a teen client to commit suicide.
But a 16-year-old girl finished her sixth session in a friendly and warm mood,
and seven days later short twenty-five minutes, beset with moribund feeling and
in lieu of keeping her appointment with me, had her mother take her to the
psychiatric hospital.
Who are all
these kids? Who was my client? She lived with her mother, mother’s boyfriend
and the boyfriend’s parents. She described the latter as “fuckin’ assholes:
They make fun of me for taking meds.” Mom’s boyfriend was “a drunk, doesn’t
have a job, and doesn’t care about anybody but himself.” Why, I asked, does her
mother stay with him? “She has no money,” my client chirped. There had been sexual
abuse by the biological father, long gone, prior to age ten. She had tried to kill herself once or twice before I met her.
Let’s say, because we can’t rule it out, that she’s a broad template, the suicidal adolescent.
Porous from earlier childhood; helpless and “personalitied” parent. Needing
real love but alas . . . so, promiscuous of sex to the point of being
faux matter-of-fact, dismissive. The Adult World of Caregiving is unfulfilling and
depressing so their ground becomes teen, kids. Then social media is the firing
squad: Many more holes are put in them to where they crave extreme friend
fixes, reputation fixes, drug or alcohol fixes, sex fixes just to stay upright
and lips above the waves.
These suicidal
teenagers don’t have a normal home, a normal life.
They are among
the elite of vulnerable populations, along with lonely old men. Their present
is stressed and as said, their ballast is other lost teens. They cannot see
a future of a different still-troubled adult self. Don’t ask them to look or
sink into their past. Don’t ask them to cling to their mommy and daddy.
What do they
have? Welcome the therapist, who either reparents them (in secret – to them
and the parent) or fritters away hours in sisterly affection, making collages,
and life lessons.
Wouldn’t it be
a kick in the head if frittering away all those therapy hours was the best way
to lull them and help them pass time until they became adults?
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Comments are welcome, but I'd suggest you first read "Feeling-centered therapy" and "Ocean and boat" for a basic introduction to my kind of theory and therapy.