Trinity's Choice

"You can do something.

Your choice is not made for you.

You are not your choices.

You CAN make a different choice."

    Today I met with a woman who works for a local non-profit.  The goals of this non-profit are to provide girls with a healthy, safe, and empowering environment that nurtures strengths based skills and therapy practices and raises awareness of issues that effect girls and teens.   One of the ways they do this is through education in schools 5th-12 grades. Topics for the school based curriculum include: Bullying, sexting, sexual harassment, healthy dating relationships, domestic violence prevention, media and body image, and any other issues schools ask to be discussed.

    If you have been following my blog, you know that self-harm and suicide have touched my life recently.  In light of the suicide of my niece Trinity, and that of another area student in recent months, I asked if the organization ever educated on self-harm and suicide.  The response I was given not only left me frustrated and shocked but ignited what I can only call a righteous indignation.

    My source said while the issues were often addressed in groups and individual therapy at the site, the schools had never asked for those topics to be covered in educational presentations.  I had to ask more than once if I had heard correctly. I was stunned.  It made no sense to me.  If schools in an area with a population with 170,000 people didn't see suicide or self-harm as topics that should be and needed to be addressed, how could they hope to prevent the future loss of life?  How could they give students the best tools to survive a world filled with body shaming, bullying, abuse, neglect and so many other issues that young girls and teens face?  They were preparing them for everything but the choice that no one comes back from.

    I don't have a solution to the problem for my community.  Presenters and educators can only speak on topics the schools approve and feel are relevant to their student populations.

    For a long time mental illness and depression have been stigmatized.  People seem to think if they talk about the problem, especially when it concerns self harm and suicide, this will trigger a wave of attempts.  But the longer we turn a blind eye to the issues that affect our youth, the more of them we will lose to completed suicides or accidental deaths from self-harm or substance abuse.  We, as people who love young girls and teens, need to not let this go unchecked.  Our schools need this education and the resources that come from the education of staff, students and parents on the topics of self harm and suicide.

    My niece made a choice.  It was the last choice she ever made. She made it because she felt there was no other way to escape the silent hell she was experiencing in her teenage world.  She chose suicide. Please don't sit by while other young people make that choice.  Show them they have a voice. Give them the tools they need.  Make the school boards listen and don't give up until there is an education/prevention program that addresses self-harm and suicide in your schools.  Give our girls and teens a different choice than Trinity's choice.

**I have intentionally left out identifying details of the city and organization I wrote about.**