For two weeks, a community waited and hoped. Close friends Rachel Crites, 18, and Rachel Smith, 16, dubbed by their families “The Rachels,” left the Crites’ Gaithersburg home on Jan. 19 to see a movie in Georgetown. But instead of making their way to D.C. and coming straight home, as they had told their parents they would, the Montgomery County teens disappeared. Their bodies were found Feb. 2 lying side by side in a Subaru station wagon on a remote trail in Loudoun County near the West Virginia border.
Their deaths have been ruled suicides, the result of carbon monoxide poisoning in a tragedy that captured media attention from around the nation.
Now, the hope of many experts is that their deaths will draw attention to a problem that is often ignored but that has become a scourge among the nation’s youth.
Acts of desperation
Suicide is the second most–frequent cause of death for teens, cutting across socioeconomic and racial lines.
According to the 2005 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, one out of 13 teens attempted suicide that year, and one out of six seriously thought about causing their own death.
Of greater concern to Dr. Alex Crosby of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, though, is that the number of teens actually committing suicide keeps rising.
It’s never truly possible to know what thoughts run through the head of a teen set to take his or her own life. But scientists know that suicide is an act of desperation committed when hope seems gone.
Crosby said studies of suicide attempts by teens spared by medical intervention give the best insight into the motivations of suicidal young people.
More than anything, they tend to act compulsively if they have a ready way to take their own lives.
“When these patients were asked how long they had waited between the time they thought about killing themselves and actually trying to do it, about 20 percent said less than five minutes,” Crosby said. “That’s why easy means to a lethal weapon plays such a big risk in whether a suicide is carried out.”
Nancy Carlson, high school counselor specialist for Montgomery County Public Schools — the district where both Rachels attended school either presently or in the past — said four out of five times suicide victims gave warning signs.
The difficulty is that teens on the edge communicate their distress in ways that often aren’t picked up by their loved ones.
Carlson said that’s why a suggestion of suicide should be taken seriously.
“In many cases, it’s not so clear-cut,” Carlson said. “When students say ‘I want to die,’ maybe they’re saying it for attention. But you have to give them that attention.”
Can suicide be prevented?
What the Rachels’ suicides have in common with the general trends for teen suicides is that there was a history of mental illness, at least in one of the young women.
Rachel Crites’ father has said his 18-year-old daughter was being treated for depression and had attempted suicide before.
In an e-mail following the discovery of the teens, he said he “wished things had turned out so differently.”
“As we mourn the loss of both Rachels, we only ask that you be aware of the true risks of depression in your children, and most importantly, that you hug your child today for we cannot,” Troy Crites wrote.
That Rachel Smith and Rachel Crites reportedly ended their lives together, though, is rare.
So-called cluster suicides occur only 5 percent of the time. Most of the time, Crosby said, suicide is a solitary act that can be averted if teens get the right attention.
“Those that do research on suicide really do believe suicide can be prevented,” he said. “The public still sees it as this very nebulous thing, but we can do something about it.”
WARNING SIGNS
What to watch for if you suspect an adolescent loved one is suicidal:
» Changes in eating or sleeping patterns
» Being extra self-critical
» Involvement in substance abuse
» School performance deterioration
» Irrational, bizarre behavior
» A loss of interest in activities and in the future
» Isolating themselves
» Threats of suicide conveyed out loud or in writing
» Suddenly giving away their belongings
Other factors that put teens at increased risk to commit or think about suicide:
» Family dysfunction
» Loss of a parent at an early age, either because of separation or death
» Family history of violence
» Depression or other forms of mental illness
Sources: Montgomery County Public Schools counselors, Montgomery County Crisis Center, CDC researchers
