When a Gun Cuts Silence

A friend of mine's brother shot himself last week. I was in Dayton when I got the news, on a stunning day waiting for a flight after a successful talk for Eastway Services. Texts from my assistant Kelly, my husband and another friend pierced the illusion that all my efforts might protect the people in my sphere of influence from suicide.

Kelly had dinner with this young man, Gil, less than 24 hours before he killed himself. Help waited inches away, next to his barbecue, but Gil did not give a sign of his intention. Kelly has listened to the "hopeful story" of my depression dozens of times, has helped compile resource lists that we've posted on the website and knows the local crisis lines by heart. Why didn't he talk to her? In tears, Kelly berated herself for not sensing his condition. She replayed conversations, kicked her conscience with the ferocity she once knocked a soccer ball. "I should have known," she said.

I tried to reassure her. I reminded her that I played with my children in the pool the day before I tried to kill myself. The difference between Gil and I is that I have a well-ventilated garage. Gil had a gun.

The stats tell the story on a large scale. 75% of the nearly 34,000 people who kill themselves on an annual basis in the US are male. 60% of those men use a gun, by far the most common method to end one's life. An alarming amount of these shots to end life are by young white males, ages 15-34. When I hear from a family who as lost a son to suicide I try not to blurt the words before they tell me. There was a gun in the house. Of course. A gun makes death far too easy.

I'm not an anti-gun advocate. Being from Texas, where many of my male friends hunt, owning a gun is part of the culture, part of manhood. However I am now on a mission to get these friends to lock up their guns, if not store them at a site other than their homes. One friend paled when I mentioned this suicide and then point blank asked if he had guns in his home. Are they locked? No. Do you have teenagers? Yes. You are asking for trouble. He gulped his wine.

The problem is teens, especially teen boys, are impulsive. On a recent tour of UT Southwestern's research facility for depression, I heard an interesting fact. A study of brains of suicide victims showed that the majority of adult brains showed clear signs of depression. In the teens, only 30% had what looked like a chronically depressed brain. What does this mean? Teens are impulsive. We all know this. A breakup for a teen can seem worse than a natural disaster. Their worlds are still small, focused on today, without the perspective age brings. A deadly combination if there is a gun in the house.

So do me a favor. Lock up your guns. The rate of suicide in the US is nearly twice that of homicide. The more potent enemy in homes today is the silence that surrounds mental illness, not the predator from outside the house. When a gun cuts silence, recovery never starts. When a gun cuts silence, we all bleed.

Julie K. Hersh

www.struckbyliving.com