Content warning: This post discusses suicide, self-harm, and mental health crisis, including descriptions that may be distressing. Please take care while reading. If you need support, call or text 9-8-8 anytime. If you are in an emergency, please go to your nearest emergency department or call 9-1-1.
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2am. A grim corridor with a flickering fluorescent light. It’s quieter than when I arrived 12 hours ago, following the ambulance. I haven’t seen my daughter for hours; they let me bring her some juice earlier. We cried together in the grey room with the metal door and then I had to wait outside again.
This is the second suicide attempt in six weeks. There’s not a centimeter of her arms and legs that is not covered in healing and fresh cuts. And new, the words she’s marked herself with that herald her life is getting more precarious every day. The duty psychiatrist finds me in a plastic chair outside the ward; every cell of my body yearning towards the small room where my heart holds its breath.
I know she is trying to help. I know she wants to be reassuring. She sits down, bright in the dull light, her smile kind. “You’re doing all the right things,’ she says.
‘Then why am I here?’
We have an appointment with a psychiatrist; it’s a 9-month waiting list. Until we get there, if we get there, I have to keep her alive. No longer a mom, now I’m a prison guard. My child doesn’t sleep alone; she’s not allowed to use the bathroom or take a shower with the door fully closed. I sit on the floor outside, straining over the sound of the shower for the clink of metal. I search her room regularly; nothing is innocent any more, my car rattles with pencil sharpeners, craft scissors, kitchen knives, every possible harmful object I can find.
We are the lucky ones. Ten years on my girl is living in recovery and building her career. She got the help she needed, she shared the traumatizing assault that took her to the brink and as a family, we continue to work with medical professionals and services. A text saying ‘I’m having a bad day’ still makes my stomach drop, but she has built coping skills and resilience, and she has good supports. She came back, that delightful spark of her that was gone for so long, that I thought was gone forever. She’s planning for the future.
Jack Windeler’s family were not so fortunate. The loss of Jack to suicide on March 26, 2010 is tragically not a unique situation in Canada where suicide is the second leading cause of death for youth. But what Jack’s Dad, Eric, created from his gaping grief is unique. Jack.org has helped hundreds of thousands of youth and young adults across Canada in the last sixteen years, offering education, resources and most of all, a community of hope. Eric Windeler changed and undoubtedly saved young lives; he gave teachers and caregivers tools and resources that helped them feel more confident in building connections and talking about mental health with youth.
As we remember Eric after his recent passing, we remember his immeasurable contribution to youth mental health in honour of his beloved son. A loss that anyone might break under, Eric built a positive, compassionate and proactive organization that is known across the country as a place with the wellbeing of youth at the centre of everything it does. As a mom and a professional working daily for better mental health programs and services for youth, my greatest wish for Eric is that he is with Jack again and that they both know the difference their family’s story has and will continue to make.