When Hope Dies (child suicide & self harm – part 1)

 KARA reports on the issues impacting abused and neglected children.

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Children denied a childhood and forced to rebuild their lives after years of abuse and trauma need our help to gain the skills they need to live a good life.

Young minds are not able to process the things that have happened to them. They have so much to deal with from the past and so much asked of them in the moment.

Communities and children suffer when we fail to recognize the depth and scope of the problems they face and the needs they have. Mental health services have not been available for most of them for many years. Childhood trauma can last forever if left untreated. The children I worked with in child protection found limited and sporadic access to mental health resources and too much psychotropic medicating of their trauma.

Kendrea (6) and Gabriel (7) successfully hung themselves a few years ago.  They came from different states but suffered the same afflictions.  Kendrea lived not far from me.

Only one out a 150 very young children are successful in their suicide attempts as…

the mechanics of successful suicide are complex for young minds.

Traumatized by severe neglect, rape, beatings and other tortures in their birth homes and forced onto mind numbing Prozac like drugs in foster care (1/3 of State Ward children are made to take them).

Gabriel wrote very articulately about killing himself because he despised being forced onto Prozac like drugs. Kendrea’s suicide note was written in crayon.

One of my CASA Guardian ad Litem case boys was tied to a bed, beaten starved and raped (repeatedly over four years) after he was returned to his biological father even though there was a court order forbidding the man to be around young boys and dad was in prison when he requested custody.

The last time I remember crying (about 10 years ago) was when this boy told me about his plan to suicide by cop.

He had already tried multiple times to kill himself as my case child.  What’s it like to be that cop?  What’s it like to be that teacher, social worker or guardian ad Litem?  One in four pre-teen suicides may be LGBTQ youth.  Suicide is the second leading cause of death among young people 10-24 and growing rapidly in children 5-11.

Child suicide attempts, cutting and a dozen other forms of self-harm are almost never known outside of child protection. COVID lockdowns have made growing up in toxic homes more common and more traumatizing.

With almost no public reporting or transparency, very few people ever know about how hard state ward children exhibit self-hate, practice self-harm and try to kill themselves.

Child abuse lasts forever – this suicide note explains it pretty well.

Eric, John, Mary & thousands of children just like them have been and are being raped, beaten and tortured every month.

KARA has followed and reported their stories HERE since the early 2000’s.

Childhood & Adolescent Suicide & Abuse: In Current Literature

The National Poison Data System, researchers found more than 1.6 million cases of 10- to 24-year-olds attempting to kill themselves by poisoning from 2000 to 2018. More than 70% of the suicide attempts by poisoning were in young women.

U.S. youth emergency psychiatric hospitalizations and suicide attempts are escalating at alarming rates.

Among children between the ages of 5 and 17, annual emergency department encounters for suicidal ideations and attempts have more than doubled from 2008 (0.66%) to 2015 (1.82%)⁷. That equates to an increase of 35,266 encounters for SI or SA during the period of 2008-11 to 80,590 encounters from 2012-2015.

Thank you Alex Carsel for your research and writing for this article.

1. Shepard DS, Gurewich D, Lwin AK, Reed GA, Silverman MM. Suicide and Suicidal Attempts in the United States: Costs and Policy Implications. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior. 2015;46(3):352-362.
2. Steele IH, Thrower N, Noroian P, Saleh FM. Understanding Suicide Across the Lifespan: A United States Perspective of Suicide Risk Factors, Assessment & Management. Journal of Forensic Sciences. 2017;63(1):162-171.

 

1. Yurtoğlu N. http://www.historystudies.net/dergi//birinci-dunya-savasinda-bir-asayis-sorunu-sebinkarahisar-ermeni-isyani20181092a4a8f.pdf. History Studies International Journal of History. 2018;10(7):241-264.
2. Heim C, Shugart M, Craighead EW, Nemeroff C. Neurobiological and psychiatric consequences of child abuse and neglect. Developmental Psychobiology. 2010;52(7):671-690.
3. Heim C, Newport JD, Mletzko T, Miller AH, Nemeroff CB. The link between childhood trauma and depression: Insights from HPA axis studies in humans. Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2008;33:693-710.
4. Ng QX, Yong BZJ, Ho CYX, Lim DY, Yeo W-S. Early life sexual abuse is associated with increased suicide attempts: An update meta-analysis. Journal of Psychiatric Research. 2018;99:129-141.

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1. Pfuntner A, Weir LM, Steiner C. Costs for Hospital Stays in the United States, 2010. Statistical Brief #146. https://www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov/reports/statbriefs/sb146.jsp. Published January 2013. Accessed April 5, 2019.
2. Piemmons G, Hall M, Doupnik S, et al. Hospitalization for Suicide Ideation or Attempt: 2008–2015. Pediatrics. 2018;141(6).
3. Carbone JT, Holzer KJ, Vaughn MG. Child and Adolescent Suicidal Ideation and Suicide Attempts: Evidence from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project. The Journal of Pediatrics. 2019;206:225-231.
4. Anderson HD. Suicide ideation, depressive symptoms, and out-of-home placement among youth in the U.S. child welfare system. Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology. 2012;40(6):790-796.