I’m writing this post today as someone whose life has been profoundly impacted by suicide.
I am involved in young people’s lives at almost every stage and age. I see the different tracks they’ve taken, or are in the process of taking, and simultaneously where those paths might lead. Its like seeing into the future and into the past all at the same time. It gives me hope, and it can also be terrifying.
For our neurodivergent young people especially, the stakes are so high.
I’ve seen it first hand. I’ve been in rooms with young people who have told me how they have planned to die by suicide. I’ve sat with young people who have told me they don’t want to be alive anymore. I’ve held stories young people have told me about the ways in which they do harm to themselves.
As parents and caregivers who adopt a neuroaffirming and trauma responsive stance, we are so often told we are the problem. That it’s our fault. That our kids just need to learn to fit in. We need to make them be like the others, train them even to be like the others.
They won’t be able to survive unless we do.
The truth is they may struggle to survive precisely because we do.
What we are expecting of all young people, not just neurodivergent young people, is so often far beyond what they are biologically and neurologically capable of. To make matters worse, we’ve somehow ended up in this entirely bizarre societal norm whereby advocating for our young people is immediately perceived as being neurotic, where protecting them is automatically perceived as harming them. Where to do the right thing you have to be OK with everyone thinking you are doing the wrong thing.
As a parent or caregiver, its isolating, lonely and gaslighting.
As a young person, the stakes have never been higher.
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Image Description: A hand drawn, white map with different signposts and locations. Buildings, trees, roads and mountains are visible. The background is a teal watercolour wash at the bottom spreading into a deep royal blue at the top.
