Usually when I sit down to write I don’t have to think too much about it. It just kind of comes right out of my heart, through my fingertips, and onto my computer screen. Most of what I write is purely driven by emotion (which I seem to have a lot of these days) so it just comes easily to me. That hasn’t been the case this time. I have been promising this piece on mental health and our education system for weeks. I have sat down over a dozen times to write it and I keep either walking away or deleting it altogether and starting over. Finally it dawned on me that the reason I was having such a hard time writing this particular piece is because this is the first time I am actually afraid of offending someone. So, let me say (again) that I know I am not an expert on any of the topics that I write about. I know that I haven’t worked as an educator or in the mental health industry. I am not here to start a debate on either one. So, please, be kind even if you don’t agree with a single word I say.

In the aftermath of Jamie’s suicide we have found ourselves hashing and rehashing every single minute of his life. We have talked about his suicide and the circumstances around it approximately 1,984,598 times since he chose to leave us. We have literally turned things upside down and inside out and talked ourselves right into complete and utter exhaustion. We know we will never have the answers to our questions. We know we will never figure out exactly how or when things went so wrong, but that doesn’t stop us from talking ourselves in circles. The need to talk about it has become as essential to our survival as breathing.

We all know the great debate about the chicken or the egg, right? Which came first? Does anyone really even have the answer? I have no idea. I suppose I don’t really give a shit. My point is, in all of this talking I have actually started questioning everything I ever believed to be true about Jamie. Was he, in fact, truly an alcoholic that ultimately catapulted himself into mental illness/depression? OR, was he always mentally ill and simply learned at a very young age to self-medicate with alcohol? Maybe, just maybe, we always had this all wrong. Which one really came first; the alcoholism or the mental illness??

This is where my I started driving myself mad thinking about mental health and our children. I kept thinking of the little boy I grew up with. This is Jamie around the age of 7.

I can’t help but wonder if maybe the signs were always there and we just weren’t educated enough on mental health. Maybe we just didn’t have the information or the tools back then to recognize mental illness or depression stirring in his young life. I know obsessing over it won’t rewind time or bring him back. But that doesn’t mean that I won’t worry about my own children (or your children) and do my part in making sure that we all start communicating with one another about this silent epidemic that is literally destroying lives.

Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not trying to push all responsibility for our children’s mental wellbeing onto our teachers and educators. Not even for a minute. However, the truth is as a full time working mother, I have always felt like my children’s teachers spend more time with them than I do. I trust them to help me with their education, their social development, their safety, and YES, now, more than ever, their mental health.

My curiosity was keeping me awake at night. I wanted to learn more about what kind of mental health education/awareness, if any, that we are equipping our teachers with. In addition, what kind of mental health education are we are providing to our children in our school system. I didn’t really know where to start in my quest to answer some of these questions. My first thought was that maybe I should talk to the school psychologists at my girls’ schools. And then it hit me… get ready for it (and to any Mt Pleasant educators reading this, don’t be offended - I am just being 100% real here). I had NO IDEA who the school psychologists even are in the Mt Pleasant Community School District where my own children attend school. NO CLUE! My shock at this realization quickly turned into rage and I had myself a nice little tantrum over it. HOW in the actual hell do I have children in the 7th and 5th grades and have NO idea the name of the person(s) they (or I) are supposed to turn to in our school district if they need guidance or help with their mental health???? Is that truly how uninvolved they are in my children’s lives on a day to day basis at school??? Or, is it my fault for not knowing?? Am I the one failing here as a parent?

At the time I was too outraged to worry about trying to figure out who to speak with in the MPCSD. (Keep in mind my new grief and my own mental health at that point was taking every emotion I felt to a level that was off the charts. So, I was admittedly more upset about that at the time than maybe I should have been). Instead, I turned to a more obvious resource, Kent Strabala. Kent is a dear family friend and to say my family loves Kent is an understatement. We adore him. In fact, in the immediate 48 hours following Jamie’s suicide he helped save us as a family more than he will ever know. He sat with us in my parent’s family room for many hours and used his training and knowledge as a psychologist to talk us through the darkest hours of our lives. We are eternally grateful for him and for the compassion and empathy he showed to my family during that time. Kent worked in education for 30 years and retired just recently. He was a teacher, an administrator, and for the last 22 years of his career he was a school psychologist in the Burlington Community School District. He was a wealth of information and what I learned from him was both enlightening and humbling.

First, Kent helped me to understand his role as a school psychologist. He said that he worked hand and hand with the school nurse. He explained it to me the same way that they explain it to their students. He said the school nurse is there to help with physical pain; things like tummy aches, headaches, cuts, bumps, and bruises, etc. His job as the school’s psychologist was to help students with things that are bothering them on the inside (their feelings). He worked with students between the ages of 5 and 14. On average, each school year he received 10-12 suicide threats. Ok. Stop right there. Are you kidding me?? Read that again. He worked with children between the ages of 5 and 14, and on average, 10-12 students a year (in his school alone) threatened suicide. PEOPLE!!!! These are our babies we are talking about!!! If that doesn’t shock you the same way it does me then I honestly don’t know what will.

So, what are our schools doing to be prepared for this? Among my first questions for Kent was how much training/education on mental health is provided to teachers and staff? Are they required to take a course on mental health in order to even become a teacher? Are they trained to recognize the signs of mental distress in the children that they are teaching? What I learned from Kent (and I also asked my cousin that recently graduated from ISU and is a second year teacher in Johnston, IA) is that while teachers are required to take a course in child psychology in order to get their teaching degree, it touches very little on the actual subject of mental health. Shocking? Yes. Shocking. However, he said that in his district (and he is guessing in other districts as well) workshops are provided to equip teachers with some training and awareness. With that said, he noted that it is entirely up to the teachers to actually use and apply the information given to them.

What about our students, our CHILDREN? Are we teaching them anything in school about their own mental health? Answer - very little and more honestly, not really. And, why is that? Well, according to Kent there are several reasons. First being regulations from state and federal governments about what is allowed in the school curriculum. Second being funding. I mean, everything revolves around the almighty dollar, right? Even the wellbeing of our children’s lives. Third being resistance from parents and our society. There continues to be such a stigma and a fear attached to talking about mental health. Kent compared it to sex education. Years ago when they brought sex education into health classes there was an outrage and pushback from parents. The fear of teaching our children about safe sex was real. The fear was that if we taught them about it, then they would all go out and have tons of wild crazy sex with each other. He said the same fear exists now for allowing schools to teach our kids about mental health. The fear is that if we talk about it and teach them about it, then suddenly there will be an influx of children claiming they are mentally ill. And, God forbid, we slap a label on anyone’s child. Guess what? I’m not afraid to say it. Wake the fuck up, parents. Mental illness is happening in our children whether we want to admit it or not, whether we want to call it what it is or not, and whether you like it or not. It’s time to TEACH them about it so that they can find their voice and use it to ask for help before it it’s too late. We have to be proactive with our children, not reactive.

Here’s the truth. I am failing as a parent too. I want to share something that happened in my own home recently with my 13 year old. In September our school district brought in a motivational speaker, Chad Varga. Emma was excited about it for days ahead of time and really looked forward to hearing him speak. That night when we got home from her volleyball game I couldn’t wait to ask her about it. She told me “Oh, Mom. He was really good. He just talked about things like being a leader, being nice to each other, and following your dreams. You know, stuff like that, Mom”. Ok. Sounded good. She seemed like she really enjoyed it and I got busy with the nightly routine of cooking dinner, starting laundry, working out, etc. and I didn’t really push for more information about him.

The next day at work the Mt Pleasant Newspaper landed on my desk as it does every afternoon. Right there on the front page was a huge article about Chad Varga and the motivational speaking he did the day before. So, naturally, I read it. The article explained how Varga had talked to the children about all the things Emma described to me. BUT, he also talked to them about being raised by a drug-addicted mother and how he battled depression and suicidal thoughts as a teenager. Wait, what? My heart came up through my throat and I honest to God almost threw up right then and there in my trash can at my desk. Why in the world didn’t Emma mention any of that to me when I asked her about him the night before?

The rest of that afternoon was painfully slow at work. I couldn’t wait to get home and talk to Emma. I waited until after she had done her homework and showered. She asked me to French braid her hair, so I figured that was a great time to talk to her about this Varga guy. She sat on the floor of her bedroom and I sat on the edge of her bed. As I was braiding her hair I said, “So, Emma. The Mt Pleasant Newspaper had a wonderful write up today on the motivational speaker that came to your school yesterday”. Her shoulders raised clear up to her ears as she took a huge deep breath in, and then immediately as she exhaled her shoulders dropped and her entire body just kind of fell into a slump. She knew exactly what I was going to ask her. “Emma, why in the world did you leave out the fact that Chad Varga talked about addiction, depression, and suicide”? She burst into tears and explained to me that she just couldn’t do it. She had watched me cry every day for 6 months and she just couldn’t bring herself to talk about it with me because she knew it would make me too sad. Talk about a punch right in the stomach. It felt like somebody had sucked all the oxygen right out the room.

I scooped my baby girl up off the floor and held her tight while we both cried. I explained to her that first of all, I will never stop crying about my brother. I will cry for him every single day for the rest of my life. And, I am SO SORRY, for her and Myah that they have to see their Mom be broken like this, but it is a harsh reality of suicide’s aftermath. I also assured her, that it is NOT her fault, or my fault, or anyone's fault. It just is what it is and, unfortunately, we have to learn to live with it whether it is fair to us or not. Second, I explained to her that all my writing, and all my work, and all my hopes and dreams for The JBR Foundation mean nothing if my own children don’t feel comfortable coming to me to talk openly about these things. If she can’t talk to me about a motivational speaker, then how I can trust that she will come to me if, God forbid, she ever feels depression or anxiety or any other form of mental illness stirring inside of her. Oh, my friends, it was quite an eye opener and it happened right here in my own home, with my own child.

My point is we have to educate our children. I give huge kudos to the MPCDS for bringing in a speaker like Chad Varga. I only wish it was something that could be done every week or even every month. We have to open the lines of communication with our children and teach them about this epidemic that is literally taking lives. We can’t just rely on our schools though. We have to do it in our homes too. My own daughter showed me that. So, please. Sit down with your children. Talk about it. Visit a therapist together. Do something. Just make sure your kids know where to turn for help if they need it. We can’t just go about our lives thinking that it won’t happen to us. I am here to tell you that it can happen to you. If it happened in my family, it can happen in yours.

XOXO – Jennifer

National Hotline for Suicide Prevention – 1-800-273-TALK (8255)