Sitting in the cafeteria, Titus* inhaled the smells of greasy pizza wafting through the air. The boy sitting directly across from him was talking animatedly with his hands moving around, as if to articulate his point. A couple seconds later the table filled with teenagers laughing loudly, attracting curious and envious stares from those sitting close by.
Jealous whispers of “Oh my God, look at them,” floated around although it hardly seemed to register to them. As his smile slowly faded from his face, Titus looked around at his friends sitting on the hard plastic chairs and leaned back, seeming completely at ease.
Later, shuffling through textbooks at his standard green locker, Titus tried to push certain thoughts out of his mind. With nothing else to concentrate on, however, he couldn’t help those thoughts from swimming around his head. Anger exploded through him as he thought about his life and how much he wanted to escape it. As Titus shoved his sea-blue binder into his locker forcefully, Mary Jane* walked up to him.
“Titus, my classes are so hard. I’ve got like, so much homework,” she complained, droning on about school as Titus closed his eyes and tried to redirect his emotions.
Smoothing his face straight, he looked up at the girl and monotonously said, “Maybe it’s because you’re just stupid.”
Banging his locker shut, Titus strutted away from the insulted girl, regret and fury radiating off of him.
Later that night, safely at home, Titus was stood in front of his mother’s medicine cabinet. He grabbed one of the plastic cylinder containers labeled Vicodin. He spilled out three smooth white pills into his sun-tanned hand.
Titus put the rest of the Vicodin back in exactly the right spot and sprinted to the liqueur cabinet in his house. He moved quickly, before he could change his mind and reach for a knife instead. His hand closed around a glass bottle of vodka, the clear liquid sloshing around inside. He threw each pill into his mouth and washed it down with the burning alcohol.
Making sure he put everything away, Titus threw open the heavy maroon front door and walked outside of his gleaming white house. The fiery sun shined into his frequently complimented blue eyes as he looked down the street of his neighborhood. Titus shuffled snail-like down the concrete sidewalk, passing the friendly looking suburban houses with perfectly trimmed green lawns.
As the drugs kicked in, his thoughts of hopelessness, anger, and suicide slowly ebbed away.
After that day, Titus’ thoughts of killing himself began to become more frequent. Detailed and researched plans were worked out and sitting on the sidelines of his head, waiting for him to put them in motion: leaving the car running in his garage and inhaling the toxic fumes, overdosing on pills, and shooting himself.
Popular. Athletic. Intelligent.
Depressed.
“It’s impossible to explain how it feels.” Titus said, shaking his head slightly. “Imagine you’re outside in the snow all alone without any chance of things changing.”
He paused for a moment, and then moved on, “All the while all of your friends are in a house nearby, laughing and having fun and all warm and everything seems to be perfect but you can’t join them. Imagine you’re that person feeling hopeless. You might start to think about what’s the point to just sit here feeling terrible. You just want it to stop.”
“And the only way to do that is kill yourself,” Titus said, his face becoming more intense with each word he spoke.
What he wasn’t aware at the time was that according to a study done by the National Institute of Mental Health, 8.3% of adolescents also deal with depression.
Last year, a student at Millard West tragically committed suicide. Counselor Maureen Zohlen said that although the school guidance counselors do not diagnose depression in adolescents they are, “familiar with the symptoms of depression which include feelings of hopelessness, sadness, loss of interest or pleasure in nearly all activities, and a noticeable change in one’s level of functioning.”
At that point, Titus’ life revolved around his depression.
He put his hand in a horizontal position near his stomach and said, “Level one is down here. It means you’re okay.”
He thrust his hand above his head this time, and said “Level ten is up here. It means you really want to die.” Titus ended up being on level seven to level eight on the depression scale.
By the time he knew there was something truly wrong, a month had passed by and Titus still hadn’t told anyone about his depression.
His mother pulled Titus into her room one day to talk about religion and to try to convince him to be a Christian. His face completely stoic, Titus didn’t want to listen to his mother’s ideals about God.
Struggling to find a reason to live, religion was the last thing on his mind. Trying to find the words to explain to his mother how life seemed “dumb and pointless,” Titus sighed and began to speak, “Mom, I need to tell you something….”
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