Teen Suicide, A Mother's Story

[Geoff_M]

This month our county was hit with the news of a young teenage girl who committed suicide. Suicides "happen", but this one seemed even more "tragic" than most. In the hours after her school's winter formal dance, a rather attractive seemingly talented 4.0 student decided to hang herself in the middle of the night at home... still wearing the formal dress from the previous evening. It wasn't triggered by a tramatic event... there was no breakup with a boyfriend, etc. Unlike is often the case, they girl's family is being very public about what happened to their daughter so that others might be helped. After reading this story, you'll see that the situation is even more emotionally maddening... She did it because in her mind, she was a "failure".

Uncovering a daughter's pain
Sunday, December 18, 2005

Mom tries to understand her 15-year-old's suicide

Sometime early in the morning of Dec. 4, 15-year-old Kristina Calco of Portage ended her young life.

Usually the Kalamazoo Gazette does not report on private citizens who commit suicide in private. But Kristina's mother contacted us and asked to tell about her daughter's life and death in hopes someone might be helped by her story.

"This could have been anybody,'' her mother, Michelle, said. "Kristina just happened to be a little more sensitive and perhaps a little more naive than many others her age.''

Michelle said she knew her daughter had been suffering for weeks. But neither Michelle nor others to whom she reached out for help thought Kristina was on the verge of taking her own life.

What follows is what Michelle wrote and read at the visitation held for Kristina on Dec. 8.

In this powerful eulogy, Michelle sought to explain what happened and give insight into Kristina's sensitivity and inner turmoil.

By Michelle Calco

My daughter was a very sensitive young girl of 15 who sadly was just never meant to make it to her 16th birthday, which would have been Dec. 26th.

To us and everyone else, Dec. 3 seemed not much different from any other Saturday. Kristina slept in, ate breakfast, showered and dressed. She asked to go to the library to get books for a project she was working on about John F. Kennedy. I dropped her off at the library while I drove to pick up my other daughter from dance class. After that, I drove Kristina to the mall to do some shopping. She helped her friend get ready for the dance and decided that she'd like to go after all. When she came home, she went directly upstairs to fix her hair. When she was done with her hair and makeup, we drove to get a dress at Marshall Fields. She chose the dress she wanted, we paid and we just cut the tags so she could wear it out. We drove home to get the $10 entrance fee and my husband.

Kristina asked me how she looked, to which I replied that she looked great, which of course wasn't what she wanted to hear.

She had wanted me to tell her that she looked beautiful, which of course she did.

Kristina told us the dance was over at 11 p.m., so my husband arrived shortly after that to pick her up. He called her cell phone at which time she told him she'd made an error and that it was really over at 11:30. She came out sometime around 11:40 p.m., came home, showed the other kids her dress, and proceeded to get on instant messaging on her computer.

I must have told her six times to take off her dress and get ready for bed. She asked me to take her picture first, which didn't seem an unusual request as she did this for every dance she had. I took her picture and then went up to bed. That's the last time I saw Kristina alive. We later found out that she had been on IM and myspace.com until at least 2 a.m., maybe longer.

In an effort to try to give you a perspective into Kristina's inner turmoil, I'm going to skip to the last few years of Kristina's life, which had become particularly trying.

Kristina was maturing and going through puberty, as well as dealing with the pressures of getting good grades at school, peer pressure, and of course dealing with boys. In addition to these typical pressures that every teenager has, Kristina placed a lot of additional pressure on herself. We found in her journal that she had a goal for herself ... that before she was 16 "everything would be perfect ... I would be gorgeous & have perfect hair & teeth & clothes & I'd have a boyfriend & I would have had my 1st kiss & I would be popular & have awesome shoes & be really thin & tall and all of the boys would wanna get with me & I'd be on Varsity Cheerleading & do Volleyball and have sweet abs & skinny thighs & fit into Abercrombie pants and be rich and ya know I'd be sooo happy & have a 4.0 still, and ya know if that doesn't happen I told myself I'd have to kill myself. I know how I'm gonna do it too ... but nevermind for now ...''

Kristina mentioned suicide in her journals many times, dating back at least as far back as January 2005.

Outwardly, Kristina put on a happy face. She had the kindest, biggest heart, and in her journal expressed that she could never be cruel to anyone and could never understand in her sweet 15-year-old mind how people could be so mean to other people. She said it actually "caused her pain'' to see that. She told me about going to parties where everyone seemed so out of control. She told me about how she tried drinking and how she hated the feeling, and swore she'd never do it again. She told me that she felt guilty. I told her that nearly everyone tries it and that she didn't have to participate in anything she didn't feel was right. After all, everything in life is a choice.

She so wanted to be the "good girl'' that she thought she ought to be. She had such high expectations for herself. But, on the other hand, she would never fault other people for the choices that they made. She would never judge anyone else. So she just simply chose to extract herself from those situations. She had standards for herself as well as standards that she imagined others had of her.

Paired with these high standards was Kristina's extremely low self-esteem. She wrote in her journal about a girl that she admired. Some girl that was "really pretty and really nice, too'' and how every time that she saw her, the girl would smile at her. "Isn't that nice,'' she wrote. "Everyone likes her. I wish I was like that.'' Kristina didn't realize that, to everyone else, she was that girl.

Kristina never saw the gorgeous, bright, brilliant, intelligent, special person that she was. She couldn't stand looking into mirrors because all she ever saw looking back at herself was ugliness and fat. "So I don't look. I just pretend I look really good, sometimes it's really hard though because I don't like being ... thinking ... that I'm pretty when I'm not.''

In addition to having feelings of being horribly unattractive, Kristina wrote, too, that she was extremely sad and alone and hurt. But Kristina would never want anyone to take on any of her pain. Even in her suicide note, she felt the need to constantly reiterate how sorry she was and that she didn't want anyone to have to live with any sort of guilt. This was going to be her decision, her choice and her fault. She wanted everyone to know that they had all touched her life in ways that she would never ever forget. She wanted everyone to know that she loved them all so very much and that they were all such wonderful and amazing people. She wanted to let everyone know that she would always be with them and be in their hearts. She was thankful that everyone had been so good to her.

In the last few weeks, a lot had happened in Kristina's life. Things that were on her "to-do'' list, just weren't materializing the way that she had so hoped they would. In her eyes, everything wasn't perfect ... she wasn't gorgeous, she didn't have perfect hair and teeth and clothes and she didn't have a boyfriend. She wasn't popular and didn't have awesome shoes and wasn't really thin and tall and couldn't see that all of the boys probably did wanna get with her and she hadn't made the varsity cheerleading team and she hadn't made the volleyball team and she didn't have sweet abs and skinny thighs and she didn't fit into Abercrombie pants and she wasn't rich and she definitely wasn't happy. In her mind's eye, about the only thing she did have was the 4.0. She didn't see the treasure of Kristina that she really was.

For Kristina, typical teenage pressures, combined with her self-imposed pressures, eventually consumed her. If you can imagine trying to focus on reading a book and, in the background, you hear a lawn mower getting progressively louder and louder and louder until you can't focus and even forget that you are supposed to be reading a book at all.

For whatever reason, in the wee morning hours of Sunday, Dec. 4, Kristina lost her focus. The stage had been set and, with such a frail and sensitive soul, she just couldn't bear the pain that had consumed her. In that one tiny infinitesimal instant, Kristina made the choice to kill herself. Suicide seemed her only escape ... her only way out ... her only way to end the pain.

You see, in Kristina's mind ... life was like a test where there was supposed to be a perfect outcome. She was always looking for a certain set of steps to follow ... a clear and precise beginning, middle and end. And life just doesn't conform to those rules, despite all the wishful thinking in the world. For Kristina, it was like trying to solve a math equation for which she'd been given the wrong formula from the start. No matter what she did, she just couldn't get the correct answer.

I wanted to be sure to stress to all of you that had Kristina truly known the devastation that her death would bring, she would never, ever have done it. And I'm just as certain that she couldn't possibly have really wanted what ended up happening to have actually happened. This young, naïve 15-year-old girl with a romantic image of what she had by this point trivialized -- suicide -- made a truly fateful decision in what seems to be the heat of a single solitary moment in time that will never be forgotten by anyone who she ever loved or who loved her. She wanted her pain to end and as she saw it this was her only way out. You see, Kristina was such a bright girl and she had set her goals so very, very high that they were simply unattainable by anyone, including herself.

In closing I want you all to know that Kristina could never have understood the finality of what she did. She wrote about it so often as if she could have done it any day or time, just as you or I would take a breath. I know that, in her mind, she imagined it would be like simply walking away down a long road and just not coming back. In my heart, I know that she couldn't possibly have fully realized how one person's life could touch so many, many other people's lives. She didn't understand that, once you are gone, you can never, never ever come back.

Link To Story

 

[Tiggeroo]

that is so sad, awful, terrible.

 

[Miss Jasmine]

My heart just broke reading that. We forget just how trying the teenage years can be. Thank you for posting that.

 

[stinkerbelle]

She didn't understand that, once you are gone, you can never, never ever come back.

such a simple sentence...yet so powerful.

so sad...thank you for sharing.

 

[KathyFP]

This is truly a tragic story. Ten years ago, my 17 year old cousin killed himself. We still do not know why. His note only said he couldn't take the pressure, he loved everyone and he made peace with God. For the family, the pain will never go away.

 

[MickeysMommy]

So sad.

 

[monsterkitty]

A former student committed suicide in 1994. His parents founded the Yellow Ribbon International Suicide Prevention Program

Like Kristina's parents, they did not want to bury their heads in the sand; instead they wanted to make society aware.

hugs to all.

 

[caitycaity]

so sad.

i went to a very competitive high school and while i was there we had a suicide every year. actually, one year we had two. most of them were for the same reason as this girl.

 

[thelionqueen]

I hope someone, anyone will read this and not do what happened to this sweet girl.

 

[cepmom]

thanks for posting...what a true tragedy. My heart is breaking for that family.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

My dd is dealing with a friend who is bi-polar and was on suicide watch last week. The parents are clueless.

They just told him they might move. So he locked himself in his room.

I don't have much hope for this kid making it.

So sad. Thanks for sharing the story.

 

[msdznyduck]

So sad........I have tears in my eyes right now, as I also have a 15 yr old DD, and can't imagine what that family has been through. The mother is stronger than I am.

 

[Geoff_M]

...and can't imagine what that family has been through.

My heart really goes out to the younger siblings. She was the oldest child. Stuff like this can really screw up the kids left behind.

 

[Stitchfans]

So very sad. Really scares me to think that thoughts like that are going through beautiful young minds like that. The pain her parents are going through is I'm sure undescribeable.

 

[Geoff_M]

Found her Life Story The more you read, the more you want to go pound a wall.

 

[Colleen456]

This is so sad and unfortunate. I lived in Kzoo for a few years and this hits close to home. My friend who still lives there shared this story with me and it just seems so senseless. I pray that the family manages to find some peace to go on.

 

[barkley]

tragic situation. i had a friend whose son committed suicide at about age 15. there had been a rash of teen suicides in the town with no rhyme or reason, nothing apparantly similar between the kids except that each had gotten a good deal of press coverage. he had actualy entered into a suicide pact with his girlfirend-fortunatly they got to her in time (she may have ultimatly succeeded she had tremendous "survivor guilt").

unfortunatly, in my opinion-my friend's mechanism for dealing with his grief was to publicly memorialize this boy at every opportunity (quoted in newspaper articles, yearly memorials in the newspaper, having a tree with a plaque at the boy's school, special page in the yearbook...) his thinking was that it would make people aware of teen suicide and hopefully prevent more. sadly, he put out of his mind that his son had been a "negative attention seeker" for years (a kid that did'nt believe he had to work for anything-just that everything and all should be focused on him "just because") and had participated in many mean spirited and manipulative public displays against others. the kid became the area "poster child" for teen suicide awareness-if he could have seen it he would have been thrilled, it was exactly what he wanted (some speculated that the reason he had entered into the suicide pact was to "set his death apart" and garner greater coverage).

this said-there was greater awareness in the area, unfortunatly the awareness was among some like him who opted to take a similar path ("they wanted to be cool like x-nobody will ever forget him now"). the town and the schools had to do intensive theraputic education in hopes of stopping the trend.

i hope for this family's sake and the sake of all that knew this young woman, that they get the appropriate counseling they will need to deal with the emotions they will encounter for the rest of their lives.

 

[Horizons16]

Found her Life Story The more you read, the more you want to go pound a wall.

Yes, indeed.

 

[ClarabelleCowFan]

How tragic! DD11 told me this weekend that a friend of hers from Elementary School attempted to kill herself by hanging from a tree in her yard. The Mother had already left for work but came back home and found her before it was too late. I can't imagine what would drive an 11 year old to those lengths!

Prayers going out to this family.

 

[Towncrier]

This story sounds hauntingly like what happened to a girl whose family used to live at the end of our street. Her suicide shocked everyone in our community. The Sunday following her death, I asked our pastor if I could have a moment to speak to the congregation. I stood before my fellow parishoners and told them something that my dad (a retired minister) once told me:

"Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem."

I asked everyone to carefully consider that statement and, that if they were ever at a point in their life where suicide seemed to be the only answer, to seek help from a friend. And if that friend would not listen, to find someone else to talk to. And keep on going until you found someone who could convince you that better days are coming.

It was important for me to say this because there have been dark and desparate times in my own life where I just did not want to go on living. And if I had ended my own life those thirty odd years ago, I would have never met my darling wife and had two of the most wonderful children in the world. I would have cheated myself out of those better days all for the sake of that short time when it seemed that the world was closing in on me.

My prayers go out to all of those who have suffered the loss of a loved one due to suicide, and especially to those still living who may be contemplating suicide as a solution.