Mother seeks to offer hope to suicidal young people after daughter’s death

The numbers are grim: Two teenagers kill themselves each week in Washington. Miranda Smith is among that group. The 15-year-old stepped in front of a train in Spokane Valley on New Year’s Day. Her mother, Cynthia Smith, says her family and friends didn’t have any warning; they saw a happy girl with a contagious laugh who didn’t ever want her friends to hurt.

Miranda “literally lived to make people happy,” her mother said.

Smith, of Sandpoint, doesn’t want Miranda’s death to be reduced to a mere statistic. So she already has begun speaking out, trying to send a message of hope. To teach others.

“We are not designed to handle this world alone,” Smith said. “We need people to reach out to, talk to and express our pain and sadness. If people feel sad, they need to get help.”

Washington has been a leader in training health care workers and school nurses, social workers, psychologists and counselors in suicide prevention. Teachers now are being trained before receiving their state certification.

“The more we talk about it, the more teachers, parents and people know what to look for, and I think that aligns with more public policy being made,” said Victoria Wagner, Youth Suicide Prevention Program executive director.

Part of the push for more awareness is that suicide is the second-leading cause of death for young people between the ages of 10 and 24 in Washington and Idaho.

Washington ranks second in the nation for youth suicides, while Idaho is sixth. The reasons for the higher-than-average suicide rates are unclear.

Miranda’s mother is left to conclude that despite her daughter’s outward signs of happiness, “she secretly lived her life in pain.”

Had she known how much sadness her death would cause others, she wouldn’t have done it, Cynthia Smith said.

Teens are too immature to understand the depth of what they are doing, said Dave Crump, Spokane Public Schools’ clinical mental health director.

“The real travesty is that those that are left behind will have questions that will never be answered,” he said.

Schools respond with crisis teams

Miranda grew up in Spokane Valley, attending East Farms Elementary from kindergarten through eighth grade. She and her mother moved to Sandpoint last summer.

“I’ll be honest, she wasn’t happy with me about the move,” Smith said.

Still, her circle of friends at Sandpoint High School had grown quickly.

“On her third day in school, Miranda was walking behind a girl who had tripped and dropped her schoolbooks and binder, papers spreading all over the hall,” Smith said. “Miranda threw down her books, did a belly slide across them and said: ‘Is this how we do it?’ ”

Her death was a shock to her friends in Spokane and Sandpoint.

“People are so overwhelmed because they didn’t know,” Smith said.

When a student dies, school districts in Washington and Idaho put together crisis teams – counselors, teachers, law enforcement, mental health workers and administrators – who can help children work through whatever has happened.

“How the team interacts with the students unfolds differently depending on the family’s wishes and how the students are responding,” East Valley Superintendent Tom Gresch said. “You don’t know what you need until something like this happens. And each day, you reassess: What else do we need to do?”

After Miranda’s death, students streamed into offices to talk on the first day back to classes.

“We also had counselors reaching out to kids we knew would be most affected,” Gresch said.

15 percent of sixth-graders say they’ve considered suicide

Miranda’s father, Jeromy Smith, also committed suicide, in 2011. The girl had talked to a therapist nearly every week since then as she struggled with the loss, her mother said. The two were inseparable; Miranda was his only daughter.

Crump said one of the questions counselors ask when assessing suicide risk is whether there’s been a suicide in the family because it “does increase the possibility.”

Depression is the root of most teen suicides.

“It’s a mental illness,” said Cindy Albertson, Sandpoint High School’s head counselor. “Teenagers can hide depression because they want to fit in; at the same time they feel like they don’t fit in.”

Albertson tells teenagers that depression is “like being in the thickest fog you can ever imagine and not seeing a way out.” Sadly, she adds, many teenagers who are suffering from depression “truly believe their loved ones would be better off without them.”

The statistics are startling: One in seven K-12 students in Idaho reported seriously considering suicide in 2013. One in 14 reported making at least one attempt, according to Idaho’s Suicide Prevention Action Network. Between 2008 and 2012, 83 Idaho schoolchildren died by suicide. Sixteen of them were ages 15 and younger.

Close to 400 young people committed suicide in Washington between 2009 and 2013, state officials said. Recent data also show 15 percent of sixth-graders say they’ve considered suicide. In 10th grade, the share is 19 percent, and in 12th grade, it’s 17 percent.

Knowing the signs of suicide can help reduce those numbers.

Sabrina Votava, Spokane-area field coordinator for the Youth Suicide Prevention Program, leads five to 10 training sessions every month, including for education leaders.

Suicide risk assessment is difficult in teenagers, she said. Teenagers normally can be moody, withdrawn from their families and touchy if asked too many questions. That behavior becomes a potential warning sign when teens push away from friends and family; are moody for two or three weeks; withdraw from activities; don’t care about their appearance; or let their grades slip. Other possible troubling behavior might be giving away cherished things like an iPhone or a pet, or making art or writing about death, Votava said.

“Have they said something indirect like, ‘You won’t have to worry about me much longer,’ or ‘I won’t be a burden anymore’ ?” Votava said. Another risk factor is situational – has there been a recent crisis of some kind that might act like a trigger?

“I think kids are a little more in tune with what’s happening with each other,” she said, which is why it’s important to teach young people about suicide prevention.

Youth Suicide Prevention Program advocated for the bill that required education professionals to learn about suicide prevention.

School nurses were included in the law because depression often manifests itself in health issues.

“There was some pushback, because it’s just one more thing to put on the schools,” Votava said. “But we want to give them the tools to deal with the issues that are already there.”

Suicide a public health issue

Idaho educators aren’t required to learn about youth suicide prevention, but Sandpoint High School’s lead counselor thinks it would be welcomed.

“Talking about it does the opposite of what people think,” Albertson said. “If you address suicide openly and with respect, it helps students seek help openly. If it’s not addressed, the kids don’t know that they can or should seek help.”

Miranda’s mother posted pleas on a Facebook page memorializing her daughter for anyone feeling sad to seek help immediately.

She included the phone number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline along with the words: “You’re not alone. Take the step. Make a call.”

She also made her late daughter a promise: “Your legacy will live on to teach people about awareness of suicide, depression and bullying. I will do everything in my power to continue your work.”

Washington lawmakers recalled former U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher’s words as they pushed for laws on youth suicide prevention: “Suicide is a national public health problem. Suicide is our most preventable form of death.”

Students today consider suicide as an option to cope with pain, said Crump, who oversees Spokane Public Schools’ mental health services.

“The legislators with these new laws are helping children,” he said. “It’s forcing people who didn’t know what to do to get some training.”

Miranda’s mother hopes she can help, too.

But first, “I need to walk the talk,” she said. “I need to grieve. I need to get counseling.”

Then, Smith hopes to speak to kids in schools.

“I want to make people understand no matter how dark the world is, there are people out there that can help, people that love you. I want to get them to reach out and get help.

“My goal is to save at least one person.”