Atlanta
(2010-09-23)
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Lisa Marie Petro took her own life six years ago. Lisa's mother, Diane, hopes her daughter's story will help others dealing with suicide.
Courtesy: Diane Petro
This week, Denver Broncos wide receiver Kenny McKinley was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. McKinley was a 2005 graduate of South Cobb High School.
In Georgia, suicides account for more deaths than homicides. It's the third most-common cause of death among Georgia teenagers and young adults.
There aren't always warning signs, and parents are sometimes the last to know their children are in trouble.
As WABE's Jim Burress reports, that's why suicide prevention advocates are empowering peers to be the first line of defense in suicide prevention.
[Sound of a camera click]
A forced smile for the camera masks the pain Diane Petro still holds. As she and other members of the Suicide Prevention Action Network poses for a quick picture with Gov. Perdue, Diane's mind goes back to the day six years ago when she found her daughter dead.
"She took her life by one of the most lethal means--by gunshot," she said just outside the governor's office.
Her daughter, Lisa Marie Petro, killed herself on May 18th, 2004. She was 17, and a junior at Fayette County High School. Her dream was to become a pastry chef. Her mother, Diane, says she misses Lisa Marie's cheesecakes. She misses her daughter.
"I struggle with it. Because as a parent, you feel you want to make everything OK for your children," she said.
For decades, school administrators have grappled with how to prevent suicide. In 1988, Time Magazine singled out Cobb County as having one of the highest suicide rates in the nation. That's the same year Jeff Inman began coordinating suicide prevention efforts in the county's high schools. The original idea was to train teachers how to pick up on warning signs.
"If a kid starts becoming depressed, dressing differently, not doing as well in school, truancy is a big one, truancy with that loss of hope," Inman said, describing some of the signs to watch for in a suicidal person. "The loss of hope is the final thing that leaves a child, or anyone, who commits suicide."
The "Q-P-R" (Question, Persuade and Refer) training Inman applied in Cobb County worked. He said suicide rates declined. But teachers and staffers were sometimes overlooking troubled students, because as Inman said, teenagers are really good at hiding things.
"The problem is they may do different things with different people. That's why it takes a group like Sources of Strength kids to tie things together, to identify these kids who are in need of some help."
More recently, Cobb County adopted a program called Sources of Strength. Now in eight states, the model relies on students to help fellow students. Peer leaders from all walks and backgrounds work to break silence and stigma associated with everything from depression and suicide, to "normal" teenage stress.
"Anything unpleasant, basically," said Harrison High School senior and Sources of Strength peer leader David Lyons. "...just anything that you can't deal with on your own all the time."
Lyons and a handful of other "SOS" members say they've learned a lot about coping skills from the program. Just after completing SOS training, those skills would be put to the test, says junior Mary Kathryn Johnson.
" a few weeks after [the SOS training], we had a girl actually pass away in our chorus," she explained.
The classmate attempted suicide, and later died from complications from her injuries.
"My friends just kind of kept asking, Why, why would she do this to herself?' and What caused this to happen?' and Why weren't we good enough friends?'" recounted Johnson. "I just had to look at them and say You were good enough friends, and this will bring us closer together, and we are each other's strength."
Dr. Nadine Kaslow is a professor and vice-chair of Emory University's Dept. of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. She's also an expert on youth suicide. She agrees that programs like SOS work.
"Peer gate keeping efforts, which is that peers notice other peers and they help them get appropriate help, those programs are really extremely beneficial," she said.
Kaslow added that while effective, teenagers aren't mental health specialists. Adults and professionals are still an important piece of the prevention puzzle.
But the good news is a comprehensive prevention approach is working. While in 1993 24% of Georgia youth reported they "seriously consider[ed] attempting suicide during the past 12-months," that percentage fell to 16% a decade later, according to the state.
And although there's nothing she can now do to help her daughter Lisa, preventing others from taking their own lives is why Diane Petro says she'll keep telling her story, despite having to relive the pain.
"Are you sad? Do you think you're going to take your life? You have to ask those questions," Petro said. "You cannot be afraid. Because if you're afraid, and you don't, it could be too late."
Jim Burress, WABE News.
© Copyright 2012, WABE
