"All teenagers are at risk of suicide"

According to statistics announced last week by the Investigative Committee, 730 children and teenagers committed suicide in Russia in 2012—19 more than in 2011. In just the last two years, more than 2.5 thousand teenagers have tried to die. Alexander Bastrykin stated that “illegal distribution of products containing information that encourages children to commit actions that pose a threat to their life or health, or suicide” will be subject to criminal penalties. Rospotrebnadzor has been tasked with monitoring the appearance of materials promoting suicide online.

PublicPost found out from psychiatrist, candidate of medical sciences, head of the laboratory at the Institute of Psychological and Pedagogical Problems of Childhood, Elena Vrono, what provokes child and adolescent suicides and whether the Investigative Committee and Rospotrebnadzor can improve the statistics.

Reference

Elena Vrono is a child psychiatrist, suicidologist, psychotherapist, candidate of medical sciences. Head of a laboratory that supports the activities of the Institute for the Development of Preschool Education of the Russian Academy of Education. Board member of the Society of Family Consultants and Psychotherapists. Member of the International Family Therapy Association (IFTA). Member of the Russian Psychotherapeutic League.

— The Investigative Committee and Rospotrebnadzor report new data on child suicides almost every month and are already removing “dangerous videos” from the network. Is it really that bad?

We must be aware that officials are least concerned about reducing the number of child suicides. A law to restrict the Internet should be adopted and ratified. And as a means of putting pressure on public opinion, child suicides are very suitable. After all, the suicide of a child or teenager is an event that sharply reduces the level of public optimism. The very subject of speculation is such that no one will even argue that it is necessary to censor everything that is possible if it in any way affects the spread and increase in suicide among children and adolescents. So all this activity is a social order, rhetoric, speculation and nothing more.

— And speaking to the point, what influences suicidal behavior? How does it relate to the situation in society as a whole?

Peaks of suicidal activity - not only in Russia, all over the world - are found in adolescents and the elderly. And it doesn’t matter at all whether these children and old people live in good social conditions or in terrible ones. This rule does not apply except to primitive societies - there suicides are of a completely different nature, for example, ritual. In general, the numbers that could somehow characterize suicidal behavior are influenced by factors that cannot be tracked over the course of one generation.

— Is the increase in child and adolescent suicides really happening?

An increasing trend in suicide among adolescents has been detected in the last two decades throughout the world. We maintain a “good” pace in suicides, but have not yet overtaken the United States. Americans tend to blame drugs for many negative social manifestations. Of course, people who use various psychoactive substances attempt suicide more often than those who do not use. And in adolescents and especially children, drug addiction develops earlier and faster. And they choose specific methods of obtaining narcotic pleasure: they breathe in vapors of glue or gasoline, they squeeze their chest or neck so that brain hypoxia causes hallucinations - they watch “cartoons”.

About 10 years ago I took part in a correspondence examination in Perm. There they recorded the fact of an epidemic of child suicides in the city - more than 10 of them happened in total. Almost all of the dead studied in closed institutions - boarding schools. We examined each case separately and found that out of all the episodes, only one was actually a suicide. And the boy who committed it was not from a boarding school. He had very cruel, controlling parents, and he literally did not survive the D in the quarter - he hanged himself due to the threat of punishment. For the remaining cases, it turned out that this was not suicide at all, but a fashion for self-destructive games that infected children throughout the city. According to the terms of this game, the teenager put a noose with a slip knot around his neck and squeezed his neck...

— It seems that this game has an erotic context.

In adolescence, little happens without an erotic context. It is indeed known that adults play the same “games” to enhance orgasm.

What is most interesting is that it turned out that the boy who made a true suicide attempt also played this game. Apparently, then he learned how to make a slip knot, which is not so easy to tie without experience. And all the other deaths occurred due to negligence during the game, that is, they were accidental.

— Are teenagers generally designed in such a way that they are prone to self-destruction?

Yes, teenagers are very impulsive, very inducible, that is, suggestible, and poorly calculate the consequences of their actions. You work with a teenager after such an attempt, you read his card and see that he, for example, “attempted suicide with the help of a highly toxic drug.” You ask him: why did you choose these particular pills? He replies: “They are yellow, sweet, like vitamins. What harm can they do?”

The teenager did not want to die, but only to demonstrate his suicidal intent in order to influence others. Today, even the most toxic drugs are produced in a colored wafer that tastes sweet.

— How would an adult behave in the same situation?

An adult would create an imitation of a suicide attempt, but would not harm himself: he would scatter the packages around the apartment, flush the medicine into the toilet and write a heartbreaking note. A teenager, while performing a performance, does not pretend even to himself and sheds real blood, not tomato juice. The main feature of the teenage psyche is that teenagers easily risk their lives.

Teenagers have not formed an idea of ​​the value of human life - both their own and that of others. On a personal level, teenagers who attempt suicide are very similar to those who commit aggressive acts: they fight, they behave antisocially. Studies have been conducted that have proven this.

— Being a teenager means already being at risk. What risk factors exist within the group itself? Which teenagers are more likely to commit suicide?

First of all, you need to understand that not all teenagers make true suicide attempts - that is, those whose goal is to once and for all end their suffering along with life. Among the mass of suicidal teenagers, such people are just a minority. Most often, teenagers commit what is called parasuicide in English literature. The medical consequences of these actions are not so fatal, and this allows adults to remain in the illusion that nothing threatens teenagers. The emotional experiences of a teenager are usually the same as those of adults. A broken heart, extreme humiliation, very often fear of punishment and, of course, a reaction to domestic violence.

If we talk about the risk group among teenagers, then, first of all, it includes those people who consider themselves completely alone. And it doesn’t matter whether this teenager lives in the family or not. You can live in a very large family and be absolutely alone there. In addition, there are mental disorders on the spectrum of depression that teenagers suffer from much more often than we think. Often the feeling of being isolated, of being unable to reach anyone, is simply a symptom of a mental disorder. Moreover, adults can formulate their problems in this state, but teenagers very often suffer from alexithymia - they simply do not have enough words to express their feelings. In adults, this symptom appears when they are experiencing a psychological crisis: in a state of psychological trauma, in a disaster zone. Imagine: not only do teenagers feel like they are not being heard, but they also don’t have the tools to speak—they are simply torn apart from the inside.

— Is there a fashion for suicide? Is Werther Syndrome a Myth?

Suicide is very easy to glorify because it has an element of self-sacrifice. Therefore, as soon as an idol commits suicide, a wave of child and adolescent suicides occurs. This was the case before the Internet - after Yesenin’s death, for example. This happens all over the world, and it is impossible to influence it.

On the other hand, teenagers are very suggestible. And they can do a lot to maintain what is called group conformism. Recently I saw a 13-year-old boy who makes self-cuts of varying depths. His mother, of course, cried in my office, but it turned out that this was not the first time the boy had injured his hands. How could you not notice that the child’s wrists were cut by a razor? This boy is part of an online community that loves the idea and symbolism of self-destruction and death. They harm themselves, take pictures of them and post them online. Communication with them is the life of this boy. What does this mean? That he has nothing else.

All teenagers are at risk of suicide, but especially those left to their own devices. Most of all, suicide threatens those who are not sure that they are absolutely necessary for their parents, that they are an important person in the family. To someone whose so-called basic trust has been undermined.

— Poor relationships with parents often become the cause of teenage suicides?

When a teenager comes to me after a suicide attempt, I begin to understand the situation - intrafamily dysfunction is almost always discovered. But we must understand that if there is no real torture in the family, then any mother is better than the most wonderful director of an orphanage. Research was conducted on how young children removed from dysfunctional families develop - all of them, eating and going to bed by the hour in an orphanage, lost weight.

The typical mother of a suicidal child is usually not a cruel mother, but a mother who is unable to protect the child from the cruelty of life. A depressed or cold, too rational and even too correct mother.

- That is, she does not perform the main function of a mother.

Yes, she can't take care of a teenager. And we are not talking about material manifestations of care - feeding, clothing, combing your hair - but about emotional ones.

— Violent films, computer games and videos on YouTube, which are prohibited by Rospotrebnadzor, influence child and adolescent suicides less than parental neglect?

Yes, sure. The child perfectly feels the difference between the screen and life. Remember the old Woody Allen film "The Purple Rose of Cairo", where the heroine from the audience ends up on the screen? So this doesn’t happen to a child. Children know very well what “make-believe” is.

As for games and everything that can be on the Internet: fellow parents, filter! All over the world, a variety of procedures are being developed to help filter content on the Internet. Raising a child is the personal responsibility of the parent, and not the general responsibility of the kindergarten, school and state.

But we must not forget that teenage depression is very poorly diagnosed - most often only after the child has made a suicide attempt. Previously, every such child was immediately hospitalized and received help in a psychiatric hospital. Being there in itself could have been very traumatic. In Russia in the 90s, a lot was done (including by me) to change this. Indeed, of those who attempt suicide, only a third suffer from mental disorders and require treatment. Everyone else is going through different stages of a psychological crisis, and everyone needs an individual approach. After all, suicide is a very individual act and is not regulated by general laws.

— What does it take to truly fight child suicide?

There are a lot of people trained in the basics of suicide care. Every person who in one way or another has contact with children and adolescents should at least have an idea of ​​what the predictors are, that is, what should alert him or her in the child’s behavior. This is why we need a government program, which does not exist. Measures are being taken in a hurry, and the infrastructure has not been created. Children experiencing domestic violence have nowhere to hide - there are no shelters or temporary foster families. This is when we talk about the prevention of secondary suicide.

And preventing suicide as a phenomenon is a task for the state and the church, and for no one else. In addition to the instinct of self-preservation, which, unfortunately, does not always work and not for everyone, there must be some ideas that would keep a person from encroaching on his life. Religious considerations stop people from committing suicide even in the most severe conditions. The more people who have refuge in a church of their own denomination, the less alone they feel.

— Do you think that lessons on the “basics of Orthodoxy,” which were recently introduced in schools, can prevent teenage suicides?

I doubt. More likely, some events held together with the church, Sunday schools. Society must provide something that a teenager can rely on. This problem has not been solved throughout the world. A certain number of people in society die every year. Emile Durkheim described these patterns back in the mid-19th century, which are still relevant today.

— Actively protecting children from harmful information, removing videos, all this pressure can do harm?

When you take away, you must offer something in return. When they simply take it away and leave a person with nothing, they only make things worse. Now we have a negative program, but no positive program - that’s the point.