Youth suicide rates are increasing in Ky.; Courier Journal does in-depth stories, in hopes of spurring conversation to find out why

The editor of the Louisville Courier Journal posted this note with the package of stories,

Some readers may find one quotation in this story offensive.

In a package of stories, Allison Ross of the Louisville Courier Journal reports on the rising number of youth suicide deaths over the past five years in Kentucky. She tells the tales of four Kentucky youth who died by suicide, and explores the causes and challenges that youth suicide presents.

One of the stories is about Marcus Pryor, a 12-year-old whose mother, Sandy Metzmeier, said he took a full bottle of antidepressant pills because a friend was being mean to him.

Metzmeier, from Flaherty in Meade County, told Ross that her son called for help from his bedroom and she rushed him to the hospital, where he was treated and sent home, but later he began to have seizures and died the next morning. he was one of 10 Kentucky children under the age of 15 to die of suicide in 2017, Ross reports.

Metzmeier said Marcus told her that he didn't want to die: "He did something drastic and stupid to get attention and thought Mommy would fix it."

Kentucky suicide deaths among those who 18 and younger nearly doubled in 2015, to a total of 34, compared to only 18 in 2014. The numbers kept going up and remained high, Ross notes: "In 2016, 36 killed themselves. In 2017, there were 36 more. At least 10 were not yet old enough to drive. And in 2018, preliminary records show 31 children and teens in Kentucky took their own lives. That same year, more Kentucky children and teens died of suicide than by homicide."

Ross reports that Jefferson County has already seen four youth suicides in the first three months of 2019. "If children were dying of the flu like this, it would be in the paper every day," Sara Oliver of Louisville, who lost her 16-year-old daughter to suicide in 2017, told Ross.

Oliver said she thought her daughter's first iPhone was the start of her anxiety, noting that she was "unable to detach herself from her phone and probably had a warped impression of success," even though she was on her school's homecoming court, sang in Ballard High School's madrigal choir, and played lacrosse.

Experts, advocates and families call for more research and resources to prevent youth suicide.

"Doctors say youth and teens don't have enough access to behavioral health services," Ross writes. "Advocates say there's not enough money going to intervention programs such as suicide hotlines, where desperate people must sometimes be put in a queue until they can talk to a counselor. And researchers say they need more grants to better research how influences such as social media and bullying play a role in why some children kill themselves and others do not."

Patti Clark, who oversees substance abuse and suicide prevention programs for the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, told Ross that some of the increase in youth suicide numbers may be attributed to better reporting, because the state has worked to educate county coroners about properly labeling a suicide. But she added that this doesn't entirely explain the uptick.

Clark told Ross that she was particularly concerned about surveys showing increased suicidal thoughts and actions by younger children, a national trend that include Kentucky.

"In the past decade, the U.S. suicide rate for children and teens 18 and younger has grown by more than 90 percent — with 2017 suicide deaths in this age group hitting the highest count since data collection began in 1999," Ross writes, citing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Jefferson County Coroner Barbara Weakley-Jones told Ross that her office saw nine youth suicides last year and has already had four in the first quarter of this year, with some of them very young: "You didn't use to see a 6- or 9-year-old commit suicide."

Ross tells the story of a 10-year-old fifth grader named Seven Bridges who died by suicide in January. His story resonated across the country in part because his mother, Tami Charles of Louisville, alleged that school bullying was to blame.

In response to the increase in youth suicides, Jefferson County Public Schools held its first "Bullying and Suicide Prevention Summit" March 21 for school counselors, principals and administrators to talk about prevention and response strategies, Liz Schlemmer reports for WFPL.

Researchers say that youth suicide is rarely caused by a single factor and that they "have noted that some trends, such as bullying and suicide-related behavior, are closely related and that access to firearms has also been linked to a greater chance of suicide," Ross reports.

The CDC and other organizations note that suicide is not solely a mental health concern and that many people who kill themselves had no previous known mental health conditions.

And experts say that, despite efforts, there are still not enough resources for mental-health and crisis help. Ross writes that other issues include stagnant Medicaid reimbursements and an unfunded mandates to provide suicide prevention training in schools, with no oversight over the types of programming presented.

In telling the story of Alechia Click and her ex-husband Ron Click's son, Ronnie, who was 17 when he killed himself in October, Ross reports on the many unanswered questions that Alechia deals with in her loss, like "Was there anything I could have done?" Ron told Ross that there were no warning signs that his son was considering killing himself.

"I told him I loved the shit out of him, and I was proud of him," he said, his voice cracking. "It still didn't help."

Courier Journal Editor Richard Green, in a special note attached to the story, says the paper chose to write about these individual suicides in "hopes a larger community-wide conversation begins about why death by suicide is happening far too frequently among our youth."

Warning signs that may indicate risk of suicide include:

• Talking about wanting to die or interest in killing oneself
• Looking for a way to kill themselves, like searching online or buying a gun
• Talking about feeling hopeless or having no reason to live
• Talking about feeling trapped or feeling unbearable pain
• Talking about being a burden to others
• Increased use of alcohol or drugs
• Acting anxious or agitated; behaving recklessly
• Sleeping too little or too much
• Withdrawing or isolating oneself
• Showing rage or talking about seeking revenge
• Extreme mood swings

If you are having thoughts of suicide, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 800-273-8255.