Teenagers often tell me that they do not like to talk with their parents about their suicidal thoughts. Some teens do not tell their parents at all.
There are many reasons why teens lock parents out. The biggest reason that teens give me for not talking to their parents about their suicidal thoughts is a conviction that their parents will “freak out.”
While extreme fear, sadness, and concern (what teens might call “freaking out”) are natural responses for parents who learn that their child wants to end their life, teens need to know that they are safe, even welcome, to share their innermost thoughts about this most important topic.
Below are 10 more reasons why teens may not turn to their parents for help at a time when they most need help from their parents. The list aplies to parents of a teen who thinks of suicide but is not in immediate danger of acting on their thoughts. If a teen is in immediate or extreme danger, they need to be taken to an emergency room for safety and help.
Also, keep in mind that when a teen tells a parent about suicidal thoughts, almost everyone does something, perhaps many things, on this list. Most of these responses are instinctual and understandable. Yet they also are not so helpful for a teen who desperately needs to be listened to, understood, and in many cases taken for help afterward:
- Some parents offer reassurance or encouragement without first listening to what their child has to say. The parents may immediately say something along the lines of, “You don’t have any reason to think about suicide.” Teens who hear this often feel even more alone and misunderstood.
- Some parents become so overwhelmed with sadness and fear that the child ends up consoling them, without ever feeling heard.
- Some parents get angry with their child for thinking of (or attempting) suicide. “How could you do this to me?” they might ask.
- Some parents take personally their child’s suicidal thoughts: “If you really loved me, you would never think of suicide.”
- Some parents do not recognize that suicidal thoughts and behaviors frequently are a symptom of a mental illness like depression. These parents may blame their child, rather than the illness, for the suicidal thoughts and behaviors.
- Some parents do not take seriously their teen’s crisis. They may refuse to take their child for counseling or, if the situation is especially dire, to a hospital. Or they may choose to keep loaded firearms in the house. These inactions can make the teen feel uncared for or unimportant.
- On the other end of the spectrum, some parents overreact. They immediately rush their child to a hospital for evaluation without first listening to their child about their pain and plans.
- Some parents dismiss their child’s statements or actions as manipulative. “You just want attention,” they might say. (Even when suicidal statements or attempts are, in fact, a cry for help, that shows the person does need help! What a terribly dangerous way to seek help from others.)
- Some parents become impatient. They may ask the teen repeatedly, multiple times a day, if the teen is still thinking of suicide. This may cause the teen to say “no, no, I’m not” to stop being asked.
- Some parents become overprotective. After their teen discloses suicidal thoughts, the parents do not want to let their child out of their sight. If the teen is especially unsafe, this might be appropriate (although if they are that unsafe, a hospital may be even safer).
What Should Parents Do if Their Child Discloses Suicidal Thoughts?
First and foremost, it is important to listen. Really listen.
It is a natural response to want to talk your teen out of suicide, to react with fear and anguish, to do anything to keep your child safe. And there is a time and place for all of those. But what teens need first is nonjudgmental listening and exploration of their pain.
With that in mind, for advice on what parents can say and do to help if their child is thinking of suicide, see my post “If You Suspect a Friend or Loved One is Thinking of Suicide,” in particular the section on listening and exploration.
You may also find useful the posts, 10 Things Not to Say to a Suicidal Person and 10 Things to Say to a Suicidal Person.
EDITED: 4/24/2016
© Copyright 2013 Stacey Freedenthal, PhD, LCSW, All rights Reserved. Written For: Speaking of Suicide. Photo purchased from Fotolia.com
I just told my mom about how I don’t want to be alive and she brought up that it was because of physical things (one of my coping mechanisms; guitar) and how me not having it is not a good reason to kill myself. the thing is, That isn’t the reason. I mean, it’s harder trying to keep myself coping healthily without it, but I have been through a lot in the past two months and she knows. This is not the first time I’ve brought this up. The first time (around a year ago) she told me that other people have it worse. I can’t talk to her about this because she only makes me feel worse. I don’t want to burden anyone else with my problems.
Some adults – and not just parents – seem to forget that teenagers can have strong feelings over anything except the most trivial, superficial problems. Time goes faster for middle-aged people than it does for younger people (because ten years is a smaller chunk of a 45-year-old’s life than of a 15-year-old’s life), so parents sometimes forget that their offspring aren’t babies any more, and that a teenager worrying about whether his/her life has any meaning – or a seven-year-old worrying about climate change, for that matter – is different from a toddler crying at having lost his/her favourite toy.
I don’t know what in particular you’ve been through in the past two months, but everyone, including you, has had a tough time in the past couple of years, and everyone’s problems are different. There’s no point in your mother dismissing your problems because ‘other people have it worse’ unless there are specific things that you can do to help those who are worse off – otherwise, she’s just piling unnecessary guilt onto all your other problems. My mum does the same occasionally, pointing out that my uncle has chronic pins-and-needles as an after-effect of cancer, and if he can decide not to let it get in the way of his getting on with his life, why can’t I do the same with my depression? Which of course isn’t helpful to me, and I’m sure it isn’t to you either.
Please don’t worry about ‘burdening’ someone with your problems. Humans are social animals – we NEED to be able to interact and share problems. If your mother isn’t able to understand your problems, I hope you can find someone who can – whether someone close to you, or an anonymous/pseudonymous website like this.
I feel horrible. When I get emotional I tend to spill everything. My parents and I( mostly dad) were talking about politics, racism, sexism and then eventually topics that involved them saying what I perceived as hurtful. Such as comments from my mom that I was fat or looked better skinnier. Keep in mind that these were made during quarantine, 14, 5’3 and 115 pounds. They made me hate myself more and I tried to explain to my parents that these comments make me feel bad, feel like my body was ugly but they only reacted by saying I was too dramatic as usual and couldn’t take a joke. Everything just boiled up and I just couldn’t control the tears or emotions so I suddenly burst out (loudly) wailing and saying I want to kill myself and I didn’t want to live anymore. Strangely after that I no longer felt the need to cry, my voice was calm, no hiccups no nothing. Maybe I realized I had messed up. We were on a family trip and everything was good for 9 days, the day we were heading home, tomorrow was my fathers birthday and all I could think of was how horrible it must be for him. I didn’t have a plan for I was going to deal with this. I was never going to tell them and god did I fuck up. My parents are lovely people, they love us I love them back, but sometimes they just do fucked up things and I can’t look at my dad without thinking about he had thrown a bowl at me and told me to shut up. He’s the reason I don’t want to get married.
Dear Jejevikki,
I feel for you! Older people, like parents and teachers, often don’t realise how hurtful their comments can be to teenagers (or younger children), because either they know what they mean and don’t think about how it could sound to someone else, or they just don’t believe their children will ever listen to them or take them seriously. My father likes saying extreme things just to get a reaction (sometimes it feels as if he’s still a teenager himself), and when I was younger, I used to take him WAY too seriously, and obsess over things he’d said that he himself didn’t even remember that he’d said. If I asked him about them, sometimes years later, he would say, ‘I’d never have said that, because I’ve never believed that,’ when the truth was that he didn’t believe it, but had said it anyway, just as a joke or as a put-down in an argument or whatever.
In the same way, it must also be hard for parents to tell when teenagers are really serious in what they say. When I was thirteen, sometimes I burst out with things like ‘I hate you!’ just in a moment of frustration, when I didn’t really mean them. But other times, when I seriously thought that I was worthless and ought to kill myself, I talked about it and my parents just assumed I was joking.
You sound a very caring, thoughtful person who is usually kind and considerate of other people’s feelings, or you wouldn’t feel so horrible when you do occasionally say something hurtful. As you say, you love your parents and they love you but sometimes they make a mess of things, and sometimes so do you. If you can accept that about them, I hope they can accept it about you, too.
When I was younger, I used to look at my parents’ marriage and think, ‘I don’t want to get married.’ Even though my parents loved each other and were very loyal to each other, I just didn’t think I could stand being married to someone like my father (mainly because I am very like him, and two people as impossible as us in one relationship would be too many!). I didn’t really start to be interested in dating until I was in my thirties, and then I met a man who is most of the things I like about my father (intelligent, loves science fiction and country walks) but the opposite of all the things I found difficult to live with in my father. We’ve been married for four years now and still can’t believe how lucky we are to have found each other. So, as long as you don’t want to get married, then don’t, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll feel the same way forever.
I’m going through this right now as I don’t know how to tell my parents about my self harming problems and my suicide thoughts. I’m scared as they might freak out or call me crazy and not love me anymore because of this.
Dear Andrea,
I realise you posted this six months ago, so I don’t know whether you’ve talked to your parents about your problems or not. If not, I don’t know whether it’s helpful to say this, but: if they do freak out, it will probably be because they DO love you and are frightened at the thought of your coming to any harm.
Of course, I don’t know your parents, so I can’t predict how they might react. But if your parents love you (and most parents, unless there is something badly wrong with them, do love their offspring), then I don’t think they are likely to stop loving you at a time like this, even if they panic or shout or whatever. If anything, knowing that they might lose you might be likely to make them realise just how much they do love you.
If you can’t talk to your parents about this, is there anyone you can talk to? A friend, your doctor, a member of staff at school, a phone helpline, or anyone? Well, you’ve already talked to someone by posting your comment here, so that shows that you do have the courage to express your problems. I know it could be harder to talk to someone who knows you than to an internet forum, but someone who knows you might be better able to help. I hope you’ve been able to do this by now.
I used to self-harm until about six years ago, when I realised that I needed to stop. To keep myself from self-harming, I needed to stop doing certain things for the time being (not reading certain books or going to certain places that stressed me out – other than ones I couldn’t avoid, like work, obviously!) and start doing other things (talking to my doctor about my problems, being referred to a therapist). I kept a diary of how long it had been since I had self-harmed. When I managed to go a year without self-harming, I invited my friends to a party to celebrate.
But mainly, as I was working as a carer, I reminded myself that my body was as defenceless against me as were the elderly people I looked after, and that, just as I wouldn’t hit them, so I shouldn’t hit myself. Sometimes it even helped to pretend to myself that inanimate objects could feel pain – if I felt like kicking a wall, instead of telling myself, ‘It’ll hurt my foot, and I might break a bone and have to take time off work,’ I pretended that the wall could feel pain, and patted it reassuringly instead of kicking it. It would have looked daft if anyone had been watching, but at least it was better than hurting myself.
I don’t know what techniques will work for you, but you are the expert on being you, so I expect you can find some. Experiment until you find out what works.
I’ve struggled with suicidal thoughts since I was 7, tried committing suicide multiple times when I was younger (until the age of 11) but my brother stopped me. I would tell my mom but she’d threaten me by saying “If I’m truly suicidal it’s fine but then I’d need to go to a hospital for multiple days and have many people testing me and wouldn’t get to see family” and at 8-10 that was very scary to hear so when I’d say nevermind she’d say “Then you’re just dramatic”. Later at 15 I told her I cut myself and she said “That’s fine, but when you have sex someone will judge you” Now I’m just waiting till I’m 18 so I can see a psychiatrist. I know it’s hard but I just want to say please don’t give up on your life. Find something that keeps you going, for me it’s my dog. Because she’s around I know I can never ever kill myself and leave her and also that if I did then it would be unfair for my grandpa to see from heaven.
Also when I’ve told her I think I have depression she tells me I have ‘no reason to be depressed’ but you don’t need a reason right? But also if you did, my father was abusive, physically and emotionally and a tad sexually (would kinda grope me a bit or make comments, now he’s out of my life) So wouldn’t she be contradicting herself? Cause in her eyes I’d say I have a reason, but I don’t even think you need a reason to have a mental illness
Dear Lexie,
It’s appalling that your mother refuses to take your problems seriously, but I’m impressed that you are holding onto life and not giving up. You sound like a very brave, very mature and very independent person.
Are you really not allowed to see a psychiatrist until you’re 18? Is this about parental permission, or about money? I don’t know what country you live in, or whether it has publicly-funded healthcare that includes psychiatry and psychotherapy.
I’m glad that you have found a reason to keep going, as long as this doesn’t turn into the trap of thinking, ‘My dog is my only reason for living, so when she dies, I can kill myself.’ But if you’ve got her for now, I hope she can give you the confidence to make other friends (whether human or animal). We all matter as individuals, not just in relationship to others, but equally we evolved/were created to be a social species, and are most fully ourselves when we are friends with other beings (whether pets or humans).
You are absolutely right that you don’t need a ‘reason’ to have a mental illness. That is as absurd as if, when I had first started having seizures, someone had told me, ‘We can’t find an obvious cause, as you don’t use drugs and don’t have a head injury, therefore you don’t have epilepsy and must be faking it.’ But then, with physical conditions, it is more clear-cut what is or isn’t an illness, whereas depression can be somewhere in the grey area between being an illness and a rational response to having had bad experiences. It sounds as though your mother doesn’t want to believe that you have had bad experiences (because this would make her feel bad about having failed to protect you) but doesn’t want to believe in mental illness either. My father’s attitude is a bit like that (mercifully, my mother is a lot more realistic).
But the important thing is that YOU know that your mother’s attitude doesn’t make sense, and you’re working at surviving. You sound like the sort of person the world needs – please live!
I’m so scared to tell my parents what if they tell me I shouldn’t feel this way or it’s my fault..
What you’re going through is real. I was a teacher working with high school students feeling the same way. I felt same thing as you when I was your age…my mom is not a mother…never was & never will be. It was difficult going through the steps accepting the sad truth. My mother has both a drug addiction & an alcoholic. She has pushed away everyone in our family…her children(2), grandchildren (5), husband (my dad…who is wonderful, loving & has always been there for all of us but at same time my mom (narcissist) has continued to threaten my dad if he has relationship with us. She has gone so far as to “choke herself” with red marks around her neck (when drunk) then call police saying my dad did & had him arrested. This has happened several times. She does this out of spite when she has overdosed & my dad had to call 911. This has happened (overdose) at least 20 times that I know of & sure there’s more that I don’t know. My mom doctor shops, finds drugs on internet in addition to all her doctor appointments. I now know she is a narcissist thanks to therapy sessions. Our entire family (including my dad) have come to terms with knowing she will NEVER change…it’s been over 30 years…the first 25 years was wishful thinking, several interventions (with no success), begging, young 5 grandchildren wondering what happened & heartbreaking since at one point had a normal relationship with their “Babcia” (polish for grandma) and extremely difficult for my sister & I along w/my husband & brother in law attempting to “cover” her erratic behavior. For everyone reading this…with similar story…
*you are not alone
*rest assure it’s not hereditary
*you can break the cycle” as I did with your own life/family
*I was always told I was the “black sheep” and I’ll never forget my dear friend saying “you’re not the black sheep…you’re the white sheep” hearing that stuck with me & always share this story to others bc it put things in perspective. My husband and I made a pack our daughter’s would never go through what I did. I’ve always felt before, during & currently, there’s nothing more important than family, watching your children grow, being involved parents which is the biggest reward. Although my mother never had the same feeling & difficult to understand as a young child….I thank God knowing/having natural intuition & desire for having raised our 3 beautiful, smart, caring, responsible, ethical daughters. Nothing more important than family. Unfortunately, my drug addicted mom is missing out on something we know she’ll regret. We have all learned that you can’t change someone unless they want to themselves. After 20 years of trying, it was time to finally accept her decisions & have mourned her already since it’s only a matter of time. Sad but her choice.
That’s what my mom said to me. I wish I’d never told her at all. Hope it goes differently for you.
I have no idea what to do and its getting worst each day and I can’t handle life no more I’m so sorry if I ever give up on life. It’s just so hard to tell my parents or anyone because they don’t understand. I have no one to tell my problems about I need to keep it to myself and when I tried opening up to my parents they told me I was just sad and it was a one time thing, so I went along with it even though I didn’t really agree with them. Now I can’t with life as they keep bringing me down with their “jokes” about my problems I know they don’t know about my self harming problem, but I guess it is my fault for not speaking out. I hope it gets better and for now I hate it here.
I want you to live.