SUICIDE - Why Do Teens Commit Suicide?

DR. WALLACE: A month ago, my cousin and his girlfriend overdosed on drugs and both of them died. We know it was suicide because they left suicide notes to their parents. I went to the funeral, and it was the saddest moment of my life. They were buried side by side. Friends and relatives of both teens were in total shock and grief. He was a star athlete, and she was a senior homecoming princess. They were the perfect couple and seemed to have everything to live for.

I can understand people killing themselves when they are sick or old or have huge financial problems. However, it is difficult to comprehend why two young adults who seem to have the world by the tail would commit suicide. Since you are an expert on teenagers, I'm hoping you can shed light on this very complex issue of teen suicide. Why does this happen? —Carla, San Francisco, Calif.

CARLA: Suicide is an enormous tragedy that leaves a family filled with grief and guilt, but when a young person is involved, emotions are compounded. According to the American Mental Health Association, suicide is the 10th leading cause of death for adults, but for teens it's the third leading cause. Every day, an estimated 18 teens take their own lives and another 57 teens and preteens attempt suicide. For many, the teen years are the most trying and painful of their lives. There seems to be no middle ground. It's either happiness or despair.

Teens are trying to establish an identity, learning to operate independently, growing physically and intellectually, choosing a career and developing relationships.

In a period when family instability is on the rise, some teenagers find they cannot cope with life. Parents may contribute by making impossible demands on teens and by rejecting them for failing to live up to Mom and Dad's expectations, or by making the teen feel worthless.

When a teen commits suicide, family factors are the most commonly cited cause. Death, divorce, alcoholism, drug abuse and child abuse — any of these — add to loneliness and depression. Researchers at the University of Southern California interviewed 6,000 teens who had attempted suicide and compared their life histories with those of a group of teens who had never tried suicide. The self-destructive teens had a much higher percentage of parents who had divorced, separated or remarried within the past five years. Multiple separations — being shunted from relatives to foster homes, missing the support of parents — deprived the suicide-prone teens of the necessary love every child needs.

The study traced the path to suicide from family problems to a second stage, school failures, truancy, loneliness and depression. In the third and final phase, the teen tries to fasten onto someone. It is so clinging, so smothering, that it can't last. When this relationship fails, the teen feels hopeless and isolated. He or she thinks the only solution left is self-destruction.