A chronicle of my attempts to live a classy life as a single girl in the Nation's Capital

Thursday, March 10, 2011

For someone so young...

And seemingly "normal" I sure have had to deal with a lot of tragedy in my short life.  I was confronted with this fact today when I learned that one of my former students, now a senior, committed suicide last night.

Having known this girl, I am in disbelief.  She was so smart, beautiful, outgoing, and always seemed so happy.  I keep checking my work email for an update from our principal, to tell us that it was actually some sort of tragic medical thing. Not suicide.

It just doesn't make sense. Somehow a heart attack at 17 seems more acceptable to me.

But, like this student, I am a good actor.  I can pull myself together quickly; know tricks to hide red, swollen eyes; and smile brightly, even though it takes every ounce of my energy to do so.

I'm not sure if that's a weakness of mine or a great strength.  But I do know that it means that others don't always take me seriously when I say that I do know great tragedy.

This is not the first death I've had to deal with--or the first suicide.

Though I wish it was.


I wrote the above the day I found out about Alyssa. I never finished or published it though.  I will now.

  Today, one week later, I am sitting at the computer in my black dress having just come back from her funeral.  I still find it so hard to believe and when a coworker told me how it happened... that's an image in my head I'd rather not have.  I found myself thinking several odd things while at the funeral, where over 400 people showed up. 

The first was that it was the first time I'd set foot in a church in about 10 years.  And when the priest kept talking about "forgiving sister Alyssa of her sin" and then refused to let any non-catholics take communion, I remembered why.  One of the coworkers I was with is actually a pastor's son--he was very mad about that.  At a time like this, when people need comfort, what kind of message is that sending? 

The second thing I kep thinking about was all of my students who were there.  Some in rather short, tight black dresses.  Clearly a dress meant for a night out and not a funeral.

But why should a 17 year old need a funeral dress? 

Seeing my students there was probably the hardest for me.  Just seeing them tear up made me start crying and I had to stop and ask myself a rather morbid question.

As a teacher, over the course of my career, how many student funerals will I end up attending?  I hope only one, because even that is too many.

And the final thing I found myself thinking about is something I have said before.  People like Alyssa are not the ones you "expect" to have problems or do something like this.  But those are precisely the people with real problems.  I've met many people who dwell on issues and who broadcast the fact that they are depressed.  But at the core of all that show is really a cry for attention or sympathy.  Not true depression.  I remember a roommate I had in college. She quite literally introduced herself like this: "Hi, I'm Danielle. I have depression."  Did she have problems?  Of course, but 90% of the things she did were an attempt at getting attention. She would never go to the extent Alyssa did because the root cause of her issues weren't the same.  
Alyssa never would have admitted to that, and never did.  Now I know she had been seeking help for years and was, in truth, quite troubled.  But depression isn't really something you can control; and when it is a part of you like that, you get really, really good at hiding it. 

Alyssa Marie Jupin
December 13, 1992-March 2, 2011

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is really true and insightful, I think suicide is always difficult to accept especially when it's someone we all know, but your post really helped me understand it from a logical perspective.

Anonymous said...

I'm reading this for the first time. I decided to "google" my daughter's name, and this came up. It has been over a year now, and the pain is still fresh, but it is different. I have been through the 4 seasons without my beloved daughter. i have read books, found a great therapist, found a great organization (the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention or AFSP), sought out experts in the field of suicidology to talk about Alyssa. My family and I are forever changed by this. Our daughter was/is the love of our life. But what I appreciate about your comment especially is the recognition that true, deep depression finds a way to hide itself. That is a profound insight. That is the challenge, a confounding challenge for those in the mental health field, the medical field, education, and yes religion -- to begin to understand this as an outcome of a disease, much like cancer. i've thought that suicidal thoughts are like cancerous cells. If not treated, it becomes terminal. Like cancer, it can be hard to detect. My daughter was everything she projected, but she also had a very sensitive core, that I, her mother who loved her more than anything, did not fully appreciate or understand. There are many like Alyssa in this world. My only hope, a ray of light, has been to begin to comprehend that life is more than living in our bodies for a set number of years. The body ages and dies, the soul does not. That is where I look for understanding and insight. I also pray every day for those like Alyssa who left this world in agony and despair or are contemplating it and for their survivors. Some day we will understand more about scourge, this lethal illness and find effective ways to treat it.

Anonymous said...

"But at the core of all that show is really a cry for attention or sympathy. Not true depression"

How do you know? Maybe it's better to stick with a topic that you actually know something about.

Anonymous said...

Coming up on the 4 year anniversary of Alyssa's death and it still hurts to think about her. You're words do help a lot though. Thanks for posting such insight