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People here are working to prevent suicides and stop stigma

Free Lance-Star - 10/9/2016

Oct. 09--Sue Lutz wonders what she would have done in the aftermath of her son's suicide if a stranger-- a hotel maintenance man--hadn't offered help.

Almost two years ago, Lutz's son shot himself in his Delaware home as authorities closed in on him. At least his mother assumes the gun didn't go off accidentally in the chaos; her son didn't leave a note.

Earlier, he had grabbed a rifle, then he and his wife argued as she tried to wrestle it from him. Neighbors called the police, SWAT teams surrounded the house, and Brandon Wheeler's lifetime of mental-health problems ended with the 33-year-old in a puddle of blood on his bedroom floor.

"When you lose a child, it's devastating enough, but when you lose a child to suicide, it puts you in a different group," the Caroline County woman said. "It affects how people look at you, how they perceive you, how they think of you. And you start to think, What should I have done? What could I have done?"

Lutz faced more than unanswered questions. She also had the daunting task of cleaning up his ravaged bedroom so his wife and three children could get back into the house. The police put yellow tape around the home and declared it a biohazard site--but no one could offer advice on how to proceed.

Lutz and her husband, Eddie, were staying in a nearby hotel, and word spread quickly about their situation as people saw the distraught mother walking the hallways. A hotel maintenance man, who'd lost a family member to suicide, told her about a company that could clean up and repair the room. The floor was so contaminated from the incident, it had to be replaced.

Lutz got through the ordeal, then came home and got connected with Mental Health America of Fredericksburg. She immediately threw herself into raising money to support the group's suicide prevention programs in local schools.

"She has jumped into it like a Mack truck," said Amy Jones, a mental health professional who also supports MHA of Fredericksburg programs. "That's the commonality of the majority of people. They just want to do something and they don't know how to help or what to do."

Lutz holds events throughout the year and is always looking for restaurants to support the cause or businesses to donate items for auctions. Having something to do helps her focus in the midst of grief, and Lutz eventually would like to become the go-to person for local families facing a similar situation after suicide.

"I know how it feels to be helpless," Lutz said. "Death by suicide is the hardest to overcome because you have to go through all of the other emotions" of loss as well as the stigma of suicide. "Society is not always a kind place."

'EPIDEMIC' NUMBERS

Suicide deaths have been slowly increasing in Virginia since the turn of the century. There were 1,146 suicides in 2014, according to the Virginia Department of Health, and 70 of those were in the Fredericksburg region. That includes the city of Fredericksburg and the counties of Caroline, Culpeper, King George, Orange, Spotsylvania, Stafford and Westmoreland.

Locally, 503 people took their own lives from 2006 to 2014, according to the state report.

Suicide claims more lives than war, murder and natural disasters combined. It's the fourth leading cause of death for adults between the ages of 15 and 64 years, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

Even more staggering are suicide attempts. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports 5,400 attempts every day by young people in grades seven through 12 in the United States.

"The numbers are epidemic, they keep growing," said Rita Girard, executive director of MHA of Fredericksburg.

In light of the alarming statistics, local organizations have stepped up efforts to raise awareness--and to raise money to educate others. More than 600 walkers attended the AFSP's 10th annual Greater Fredericksburg Out of the Darkness walk Sept. 25 in Fredericksburg. They raised $61,000, and some of the money will be used locally for the AFSP's annual Survivor Day on Nov. 19, said Laura Ellis, co-chair of the walk. That's when survivors gather to share stories of healing and hope, she added.

Meanwhile, Mental Health America of Fredericksburg is gearing up for Another Day, its annual suicide prevention walk, on Saturday at Spotsylvania Courthouse Village. Organizers stress that all money raised is put into local education, which has grown to include 90-minute classes for seventh- and ninth-grade health students in Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania.

The educational effort started in Spotsylvania, where students wanted to do something to stem the losses, said Jones, who organizes the Another Day walk. In the last decade, there's been a suicide in every Spotsylvania high school, she added.

"It's very appropriate we bring it back full circle because the high schoolers are the ones who brought it to the community in the first place," Jones said.

But even when providing prevention programs about suicide, Jones said officials encounter the same kind of stigma as Sue Lutz and other survivors face.

"It's so much easier to talk about people dying of natural causes, like cancer or something else like that, than to talk about people dying from suicide," Lutz said.

REDUCING THE STIGMA

For three years, the local school curriculum was called "More Than Sad" and focused primarily on depression and mental-health issues. Girard and Jones pushed for a campaign that specifically aimed at recognizing suicidal behavior and what classmates who observed it--or individuals going through it--could do. Their answer came with a program, Signs of Suicide, that started this school year.

"You have to reduce the stigma," Jones said. "It baffles me how we could continue to talk about suicide education and not use the word suicide. Switching to 'Signs of Suicide' is a major step in the right direction.

The Free Lance-Star asked if a photographer and reporter could observe a local class, but because of the topic's sensitivity, school officials wouldn't allow photos or interviews with students. Likewise, mental-health officials were guarded about discussing the prevalence of suicide among Fredericksburg-area students. Girard and Jones said they haven't kept any local statistics--and the state report doesn't break down local suicides by age.

But as more people of all ages start to talk openly about suicide, even the terminology associated with the act is changing.

"When you say someone committed suicide," Girard said, "you think, 'OK, that's a crime,' and that increases the stigma."

"The politically correct way to say it is completed suicides," Jones said.

'HELP IS AVAILABLE'

No matter which organization sponsors a walk or local campaign, the whole point of the effort is to educate people about the problems that can lead to suicide.

"The one thing I want to stress is that mental health is treatable, and suicide is preventable," said Ellis, who helps the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention efforts.

The Spotsylvania County woman faced her own battles--and then saw similar problems with her young son. She was 31 when her anxiety and depression spiraled out of control in 2012 and she "came very close to carrying out my suicide plan."

Then last fall, her 8-year-old son was hospitalized with the same issues--after he also contemplated suicide.

Both mother and son were lucky in that their issues were identified, and they got the medication and treatment they needed. By contrast, the school years of Lutz's son, Brandon, were marred by fights and outbursts of rage, followed by adult years filled with bouts of unemployment and jail time. His bipolar depression wasn't diagnosed until adulthood, and by then, he either couldn't afford the treatment or didn't like the way being medicated made him feel, his mother said.

Ellis wishes her own child could worry about things like which friend to play with or what video game to get, "not his next panic attack and thinking up how to end his life."

But the pain she's felt for him has fueled her attempts to help others, just as it's done for those who've lost loved ones to suicide.

"We no longer want people to suffer in silence," Ellis said. "We want to encourage conversations and make people aware that help is available."

Cathy Dyson: 540/374-5425

cdyson@freelancestar.com

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(c)2016 The Free Lance-Star (Fredericksburg, Va.)

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