Supporting young people through a suicidal crisis is tough. Sometimes the journey continues on for years with significant impact on families and friends.
Nicole draws on her lived experience as a carer of young people to unpack the experience of having the primary responsibility of keeping someone alive.
Parenting in 2024 is not easy. Young people are growing into an increasingly complex world.
Cost of living, climate change, challenging global events, family breakdown, information overload; supporting young people to navigate this is increasingly difficult. There’s no rule book but lots of expectation for parents and carers.
Having a child with challenging and concerning behaviours is incredibly isolating. The teenage years are meant to be a time of exploration and growth, however this can manifest in some extreme ways. Risk taking, drugs and alcohol, gaming and social media addiction, aggression, stealing, mental health breakdowns, self-harm.
Whilst other parents around you are celebrating sporting wins or prizes at school assembly, you might be at the local police station or at the hospital. Somehow you need to continue working and support the rest of the family too.
Throughout her journey Nicole realized that there are not many supports for parents with young people in crisis. Finding the right supports for young people is also challenging. After being in and out of different services it can be hard to feel like you have received holistic care.
Care might also look like one hour with a therapist a week – for the other 167 hours it is your job to keep your young person alive.
When Nicole’s first child became seriously unwell the silence around teen suicide was deafening. She couldn’t understand why there was so little conversation in her community around teenagers in crisis – surely other people were going through this too and why was no-one talking about it?
She now is drawing on that lived experience to share her story, to encourage others to share their story and to advocate for the needs of parents and carers in supporting young people through crisis.
She also speaks to the need for understanding around neurodiversity and how we must better support our LGBTQIA+ young people.
Ultimately love, listening and not giving up hope are key ingredients to keeping kids alive.