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Behind Closed Doors
by Joe Pritchard
I interviewed a nice Christian family the other day. Friendly, well-mannered folk, upwardly mobile and managing life well, or so it seemed on the surface. Working as a crisis counselor out of an urban hospital's psychiatric emergency room (ER), I've grown accustomed to and quite comfortable with those less fortunate souls in life's battles—the homeless and helpless, drunks, drug addicts, derelicts, and even those who are truly deranged.
Give me a schizophrenic seeing stars in his cornflakes, and I'm fine. It's the increasing number of "normal" families showing up on our doorstep that scare me. People like me with families like mine. Here's their story, as told to me by one father, a down-to-earth, good-hearted man deeply committed to his family. Just like you and me....My wife and I have a wonderful teenage daughter—a bright kid, very quiet, no behavior problems whatsoever. She was attending a magnet school and seemed to be doing fine. On the surface anyway.
If I'd only looked beneath the surface ....
My wife wasn't looking either.
We both assumed she was okay. Oh, she seemed down at times, but we had no idea. To us it didn't appear especially unusual that she stayed in her room most of the time. She was a teenager! Don't all 15-year-old girls withdraw to their rooms and listen to music while talking on the phone at all hours of the night?
If we'd only looked beneath the surface ....
I knew she was devastated when her boyfriend broke up with her. But don't all teenagers go through times when they think the world is going to end? Especially teenage girls when it comes to boys! She seemed to bounce back okay. Oh, she stayed in her room more, but ....
My wife called me from the emergency room in shock.
"Why didn't we see the signs?" she cried. "Why didn't we go into her room?"
I was so concerned about respecting my stepdaughter's privacy that I literally never went into her room. My wife didn't either. We didn't want to snoop—didn't want to go looking for something that we didn't think was there to begin with.
Looking back, we must have been blind! My stepdaughter was leaving signs in her room, all over the place, crying out for our help. Since we were being such "wonderful, trusting parents" by not invading her space, she brought her space to us—she left a page of her diary on the kitchen counter right next to the coffee pot. Nothing like putting it right under our noses.
My wife found it. My 15-year-old stepdaughter was contemplating suicide. The one page of her diary she made sure we would find was filled with thoughts of ending it all because she had no real reason to live—one page filled with the pain she felt from feeling she had no one to love and no one who needed or cared what happened to her. That no one included us. And then the real scary part—her talking about how the razor made her feel when she cut up and down her forearms.
 Looking back, we must have been
blind! My stepdaughter was leaving
signs in her room, all over the
place, crying out for our help.
How could we have missed it? When my wife found the note, she raced to her room. There she sat on her bed with her long sleeve shirt on—in the dead of summer! When my wife asked her to roll up her sleeves, she was stunned. My stepdaughter's forearms were covered with razor cuts! She told her mother that she had been self-mutilating for six months—about the time her boyfriend broke up with her.
We were fortunate. Some parents don't get a second chance.
Sad to say too many parents don't get a second chance. Suicide among teens has reached epidemic proportions. The statistics are staggering. In the past 12 years more kids have committed suicide than there were soldiers slain in the Viet Nam war—over 500,000. One of the major triggers for teenage suicide—and adults for that matter—is the loss of a loved one. As parents, we know that teen perception—when it comes to relationships and "being in love"—is often greatly distorted. However, we're not going to change that perception by ignoring or downplaying it. And the odds are we're not going to change it at all.
Thus, it becomes even more important that we take our kids' break-ups with boyfriends and girlfriends very seriously. We can't assume that all is well just because they're following the rules and not causing any obvious problems. It's also critical that we pray for them. Also, we need to pray with them. Drop them a note or a card—let them know that Jesus is touched with the feelings of their infirmities: "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin" (Hebrews 4:15, NIV).
I'm also not suggesting that as parents we sneak around our kids' rooms while they're out and read their diaries. Our kids should have some sense of privacy, not to mention a whole lot of trust that we will respect their belongings the same way that we expect them to respect ours. However, there must be a balance! We can't assume that a quiet, private kid is necessarily a well-adjusted, happy one.
Spend some time with your kids in their rooms. On their turf. Observe. Look around! Ask questions, but ask them in a non-threatening way. Listen. Learn. Let them know you care by being nosy enough to ask. Don't wait until they are in the emergency room to find out what you've been missing.
Joe Pritchard is a licensed professional counselor and freelance writer who has spent the past 25 years working with troubled kids and families. His inspirational/humorous book, Stepfathers' Anonymous Playbook ... The Season That Never Ends, ($10 + free shipping in the U.S.A. ) can be ordered via e-mail dpjpabriel@mindspring.com ... or by calling (615) 847-8741.
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