Amanda Christian
“I drove there and it was too late. I was screaming. I saw her lying on the motorway.” Amanda Christian reaches for the tissues. She has shared this story often as a facilitator for Waves, a grief support programme for adults bereaved by suicide on Auckland’s North Shore. She’s talking about rushing to stop her daughter Amelia taking her life in 2009, five weeks before her 17th birthday.
Amanda hurled herself down a steep bank to get to her daughter. “I’ve got to live with that scene. Services rarely respond to that need. No one thinks of the violent, traumatic visual imagery that people have to carry in their minds. I wake up on the motorway and my husband wakes up in the ICU unit.”
In the ambulance Amanda told her daughter she loved her. “They said to keep her talking. I said: ‘What’s your boyfriend’s name? She said: ‘Shut-up.’ Those were her last words. We later found that a text message of her boyfriend dumping her preceded the suicide.” Amelia died after four days in intensive care.
Amanda is a registered psychologist, wife and mother of three children. Helping others bereaved by suicide emerged from finding, after the funeral and initial support from family and friends, that there was nothing to help her through the trauma.
She’s speaking out because not talking isn’t working. “Young people need to know the ripple effect of a suicidal act on the family, friends and others. Also families need to know that it can happen in anyone’s family.”
At her home at Torbay Amanda introduces Amelia through a collection of family photos. In every one she’s laughing. “That’s how everyone remembers her, just completely fun-loving and exuberant,” says the proud mother. “We mostly talk about suicide in terms of people who are severely depressed. Amelia misses all that screening. She’s very popular. She’s athletic, still getting up at 6am and playing premier basketball for her school. She didn’t fit any of the traditional screening criteria for depression, but went down very quickly.”
Suicide always holds the question of why unto itself. The family got some answers from her last few weeks of text messages. “It gave us lots of indication of problems that were unmanageable in her mind – she was swallowed up.”
She was also being secretive. “Amelia always led us to believe she was talking to us about everything. She would make you believe she was in control and she knew all the answers.”
Her parents did know about the boy at school who has been writing obsessional letters to Amelia professing his undying love laced with suicidal ideation – “I won’t be able to live, unless you are in my life”. They contacted the school and the boy’s parents and ensured he got some help.
They found out later Amelia’s relationship with her boyfriend, an older boy, not at school, was much more intense than they had realised. Amelia was also still talking to the other boy at school. “She got herself into a situation where she had agreed to go with two boys to the school ball and she couldn’t manage a way through it.”
Her parents learned she was having suicidal thoughts. “We have seven to ten days of walking on eggshells. We are very confused and still can’t believe she wants to kill herself. It doesn’t fit with the girl we know. I was convinced that if we could help her through this glitch she would be OK.”
There was a meeting with their DHB’s youth mental health services. “She was drop dead beautiful, swanned in looking gorgeous and wanted to make friends with them,” says her mother. “She was asked: “Do you still want to be a part of this world?”. She told them, ‘Of course I want to live in this world.’ I now realise she had made her mind up. She knew what she was going to do and she was acting.”
It’s this sort of information that Amanda, believes it’s vital for others to know – to read the signs, and to realise suicide doesn’t always present as stereotypes. Similar knowledge emerges from the eight-week Waves programme developed by Victoria University lecturer Chris Bowden and run in conjunction with Skylight. “When the bereaved get together and tell their stories it’s incredibly powerful. It’s full of horror and tragedy, but they can tell you what type of support they need, what is lacking for them. They feel relief at being able to express themselves without burdening family.” Their biggest concern is how to talk to their children or their grandchildren. “If you’ve had a teen/parent suicide, you become hyper vigilant about the future of your children.”
She’d like to see a clinicians recognise the needs of the bereaved and engage in a process of psychological autopsy. “We need a regular forum for parents to sit down with clinicians and have a look at all the preceding behaviours, to get a bit of insight into what was going on in the person’s mind leading up to suicide.”
SHARING THE CONVERSATION
SPEAKING OUT
This feature was first published in North & South magazine. Chris Barton completed this feature with the assistance of a media grant awarded by the Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand and the Frozen Funds Charitable Trust. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent the views of the Mental Health Foundation or the Frozen Funds Charitable Trust.
Amanda hurled herself down a steep bank to get to her daughter. “I’ve got to live with that scene. Services rarely respond to that need. No one thinks of the violent, traumatic visual imagery that people have to carry in their minds. I wake up on the motorway and my husband wakes up in the ICU unit.”
In the ambulance Amanda told her daughter she loved her. “They said to keep her talking. I said: ‘What’s your boyfriend’s name? She said: ‘Shut-up.’ Those were her last words. We later found that a text message of her boyfriend dumping her preceded the suicide.” Amelia died after four days in intensive care.
Amanda is a registered psychologist, wife and mother of three children. Helping others bereaved by suicide emerged from finding, after the funeral and initial support from family and friends, that there was nothing to help her through the trauma.
She’s speaking out because not talking isn’t working. “Young people need to know the ripple effect of a suicidal act on the family, friends and others. Also families need to know that it can happen in anyone’s family.”
At her home at Torbay Amanda introduces Amelia through a collection of family photos. In every one she’s laughing. “That’s how everyone remembers her, just completely fun-loving and exuberant,” says the proud mother. “We mostly talk about suicide in terms of people who are severely depressed. Amelia misses all that screening. She’s very popular. She’s athletic, still getting up at 6am and playing premier basketball for her school. She didn’t fit any of the traditional screening criteria for depression, but went down very quickly.”
Suicide always holds the question of why unto itself. The family got some answers from her last few weeks of text messages. “It gave us lots of indication of problems that were unmanageable in her mind – she was swallowed up.”
She was also being secretive. “Amelia always led us to believe she was talking to us about everything. She would make you believe she was in control and she knew all the answers.”
Her parents did know about the boy at school who has been writing obsessional letters to Amelia professing his undying love laced with suicidal ideation – “I won’t be able to live, unless you are in my life”. They contacted the school and the boy’s parents and ensured he got some help.
They found out later Amelia’s relationship with her boyfriend, an older boy, not at school, was much more intense than they had realised. Amelia was also still talking to the other boy at school. “She got herself into a situation where she had agreed to go with two boys to the school ball and she couldn’t manage a way through it.”
Her parents learned she was having suicidal thoughts. “We have seven to ten days of walking on eggshells. We are very confused and still can’t believe she wants to kill herself. It doesn’t fit with the girl we know. I was convinced that if we could help her through this glitch she would be OK.”
There was a meeting with their DHB’s youth mental health services. “She was drop dead beautiful, swanned in looking gorgeous and wanted to make friends with them,” says her mother. “She was asked: “Do you still want to be a part of this world?”. She told them, ‘Of course I want to live in this world.’ I now realise she had made her mind up. She knew what she was going to do and she was acting.”
It’s this sort of information that Amanda, believes it’s vital for others to know – to read the signs, and to realise suicide doesn’t always present as stereotypes. Similar knowledge emerges from the eight-week Waves programme developed by Victoria University lecturer Chris Bowden and run in conjunction with Skylight. “When the bereaved get together and tell their stories it’s incredibly powerful. It’s full of horror and tragedy, but they can tell you what type of support they need, what is lacking for them. They feel relief at being able to express themselves without burdening family.” Their biggest concern is how to talk to their children or their grandchildren. “If you’ve had a teen/parent suicide, you become hyper vigilant about the future of your children.”
She’d like to see a clinicians recognise the needs of the bereaved and engage in a process of psychological autopsy. “We need a regular forum for parents to sit down with clinicians and have a look at all the preceding behaviours, to get a bit of insight into what was going on in the person’s mind leading up to suicide.”
SHARING THE CONVERSATION
SPEAKING OUT
This feature was first published in North & South magazine. Chris Barton completed this feature with the assistance of a media grant awarded by the Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand and the Frozen Funds Charitable Trust. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent the views of the Mental Health Foundation or the Frozen Funds Charitable Trust.