tragic

Teen suicide: Hidden pain leads to tragic action
Imagine coming home from work, greeting the
dog, and walking upstairs to find your son or
daughter dead by their own hands.
The suicide of a child is a very sensitive and
sometimes divisive subject for families.
But suicide is a growing concern.
Adults, it's fair to say, know what the
consequences are.
A teenager might not. They are not as mature and
are more impulsive. They may not realize the
scope or full impact of their tragic actions.
Suicide leaves a wake of victims.
Not long ago, 14-year-old Sydney Sanders killed
herself. Her mother found her.
For Sydney's mom and sister, the range of
emotions is raw. They can't bear even to go back
to their home. They shared their story so other
families can avoid the pain they are experiencing.
"It hurts and it's hard," said Sydney's mother,
Laura Lane. "But I was blessed to have her in my
life for 14 years. And she would say to me,
'Mama, suck it up.'"
"Sucking it up" isn't so easy for a grieving mom.
Lane said that her daughter called her that day
and talked to her on the phone.
"'I love you, Mama. I promise you I am going to
be all right. I am going to read my Bible. I love
you and I will see you when you get home,'" Lane
recalls Sydney saying.
Those were Sydney's last words to her mother.
Lane discovered Sydney dead in her bedroom. It
was a scene which forced her to abandon her
home, the culmination of a family crisis that
started three months ago.
"There were no signs," Lane says. "None. Never.
Not even for the first attempt. None."
The first attempt was the red flag for Lane. It was
Valentine's Day morning. Sydney's 17-year-old
sister Caleigh walked in on her younger sister.
"I tried to open her door and it was locked,"
Caleigh recalls. "She never locks her doors and it
scared me. I went through the bathroom. She had
Band-Aids all over her. She took her Bands-Aids
off and showed me the holes. She had all cuts all
over her neck. Marks all over, and I was scared."
Caleigh says she yelled at her sister. "[I] told her
she was crazy," Caleigh recalls. "She just sat
there, just as calm as she could be and said she
didn't know what happened."
Sydney's family took her to the hospital, where the
truth was revealed. She came home 10 days later.
"She had gotten into some medication," Lane
says. "She tried to cut her throat many times and
had stabbed herself in areas of her body."
"They told me she did it to herself. I broke down.
I was devastated," Caleigh says. "Something was
wrong. You don't just wake up out of the blue and
do that. Something was going on."
"She never spoke about it again. Didn't discuss it
again. She told her close friends about it and
never talked about it again," Lane says.
"She told me some things she didn't want Mom to
know and she looked me straight in the face and
said, 'I love you and always will, but I didn't want
to wake up the next morning. I was praying to
God I would be gone before you all woke up,'"
Caleigh says.
Lane took Sydney to counseling. She says that
Sydney was angry and that she made her go back.
"After she talked to the counselor, she said 'Thank
you. It's nice to have someone I can speak to. To
just talk,'" Lane remembers. "I had doctors tell me
she would never do it again. I had therapists tell
me she would never do it again."
Caleigh, however, wasn't so sure and left home.
"I just had to get out of there," she explains. "I
didn't want to wake up and have my sister be
gone and me see it. I don't know what would have
happened to me if I saw that. I was scared she
would hurt me or my mom or she would do it
again. I told her that over and over again and no
one listened to me."
On April 5, Lane found Sydney. She had hanged
herself from the attic in her bedroom.
Lane was devastated. "Even if I got there
immediately, I have been told I would not be able
to save my daughter's life," she says.
"I was more angry at the time when I found out
than I was hurt, because running through my mind
I knew my mom was going to be the first person
to find her," Caleigh says. "I just didn't know how
she could do this to my mom at all."
The pain and confusion lead to the question
everyone is still asking. Why? 14 years old.
Beautiful. Athletic. Popular.
"She had everything going for her. From my eyes
she did," Caleigh says.
The answer, however, is not black and white.
"She did not have any symptoms of anything. She
was not clinically depressed. No medications. No
drugs. She was a typical teenager," Lane says. "In
the beginning, she was isolated a little bit and
things had been going on and circumstances. She
told me everything and got through it."
"There's only two people who know and that's
God and her," she continues.
"She obviously didn't want anyone to know and
kept it to herself," Caleigh adds. "It hurts losing
someone you love. I don't want anyone to go
through that at all."
Lane says finding the reason why is not going to
fix what happened to her daughter, or explain her
daughter's actions.
"If we can use her life as an example to fix the
ones who are still here, in my daughter's death I
hope and pray there will be many changes and
there will be lives saved and something wonderful
will come out of something so tragic," Lane says.
She is working on a non-profit foundation called
Forever 4 Change to promote suicide awareness
and counseling.
The bottom line: Know your children, get them to
talk and get help. It does get better.