While unimaginable and unthinkable, suicide is an unfortunate reality. Every 26 seconds, someone attempts suicide. Just in the city of Houston, 13% of the youth have expressed they have attempted suicide compared to the national average of 10%. This is a very real problem affecting children everywhere but especially in our backyard. Vicki Stewart, assistant director of regional operations for Texas Children’s Pediatrics, lived through this heartbreaking experience with her own child and now uses her story to educate others on exactly what they can do to help and the resources Texas Children’s offers.
Vicki started to notice a change in her daughter when she was about 12 years old. Becoming more withdrawn with every passing day, Vicki assumed she was just an average preteen girl. But then she noticed her daughter withdrawing from her friends and no longer taking part in activities she had previously enjoyed. Soon enough, Vicki realized the behavior has escalated and she was cutting herself.
She snapped into action immediately and tried scheduling an appointment with the pediatrician. “Oh, we don’t handle that here,” she was told. They referred her to psychiatry which had a months-long waitlist. She remained vigilant, calling the office each day to see if there had been cancellations and working with her therapists, but in the end, she had no choice but to sit and watch her daughter continue to deteriorate. Multiple episodes of stress-induced hives did nothing to move her daughter up on the list. And then it happened.
Vicki went in to get her daughter up for school one morning and found her unresponsive. Next to her was a note: “I’m sorry, mom.” She was life flighted, stabilized and then admitted to a psychiatry unit. After several weeks, she was set to be discharged, not because her daughter had improved but because Vicki’s insurance wouldn’t cover further treatment. On the way home, her daughter jumped out of the car on the freeway and the process started all over again. While all of this was happening, she missed her scheduled psychiatry appointment.
Now a thriving and happily married 24-year-old woman, Vicki’s daughter has come through to the other side. The journey for Vicki was long and isolating. While continuously advocating for her daughter, she was met with roadblock after roadblock. She feels if she had been able to access the resources we now have available through Texas Children’s, things might have been different. “I would have loved to have been able to just go into this SharePoint site and at least feel like I was doing something. Find somebody that could help me or maybe a community of support,” Vicki said.
She was heavily involved in the creation of the Suicide Prevention SharePoint and made sure the committee knew it needed to be elementary and easy to navigate. “You’re so overwhelmed at that time because when you’re in the midst, you can’t process. It needs to be as simple as, ‘If you’re experiencing this, click here.’” Additionally, Vicki was a family advisor and helped to create the 20 documents available for families on the site.
Vicki especially loves the link the resources have to EAP, how to identify suicidal tendencies and what to expect if your child is in a psychiatric hospital. “Those types of resources would have been really helpful and made the experience less scary,” she explained.
The Suicide Prevention SharePoint is full of resources for Texas Children’s team members. There are a variety of resources around suicide that help families and staff in their personal lives, but also clinically from trainings, clinical tools, tip sheets and more. Familiarize yourself with what is available to you. It just might save a life.