Youths seek a louder conversation about suicide

CHICAGO — The topic of suicide makes many people squirm. It's something we've been told we're not supposed to talk about. If you speak it, someone might do it.

But there's a growing conversation about suicide that's happening on college campuses, in high school auditoriums and online — even among youth some might think are too young to consider suicide. The hope is that a public discussion between young people and the teachers and counselors who work with them could inspire peers in distress to get help.

"It's kind of like the sex talk with your children. I think that we should have that talk," says Brittany Langstaff, a 14-year-old ninth-grader in Georgetown, Ontario. She's on the girls editorial board of New Moon Girl Media, a magazine with an online site aimed at teen and "tween" girls that recently took on the topic of suicide. Features on the site include advice from experts about how to deal with suicidal thoughts and a chance for young readers to discuss the topic online in a moderated space.

Nancy Gruver, New Moon's Minnesota-based founder and CEO, knew that addressing suicide with this age group might raise a few eyebrows. But she often sees the topic come up in the site's online chat and in letters, poetry and artwork submitted by its young members, prompting a policy that requires staff to contact a parent when that happens.

"This should not be taboo. It should be talked about because it is something that affects kids in this age range," Gruver says.

It wasn't always that way. Sixty years ago, World Health Organization statistics show that suicide was much more common among the elderly. Since then, it has shifted to become a much more common cause of death among younger populations — and the third leading cause of death among 10- to 14-year-olds in this country by 1997, according to one report in the medical journal Pediatrics.

In a Centers for Disease Control survey of high school students from 2007, the most recent federal data of its kind, researchers found that 16 percent had seriously considered suicide in the months preceding the survey. Similarly, a University of Minnesota study released this year found that nearly 15 percent of teens think they're going to die young, leading many to attempt suicide, use drugs and engage in other unsafe behaviors.

Bryce Mackie, a 21-year-old student at Columbia College in Chicago, knows all about that. In high school, he made a film about his own experience with bipolar disorder and suicidal thoughts. He first showed the film to his parents and teachers and ended up getting help, and now speaks to other young people across the country about his experience.