Please Support Suicide Prevention
Adam & I in Key West
I will be participating in the “Out of the Darkness” Community Walk for Suicide Prevention on Sunday morning in Siesta Key. I am walking in honor of my son, Adam Szychowski and to support the efforts of the AFSP (American Foundation of Suicide Prevention).
If you can walk with me I welcome you. If you cannot walk but would like to support this cause, please consider making a donation.
Adam was a brilliant, joyful, loving, creative soul. In a moment of darkness he did the unthinkable. Unfortunately, the statistics are staggering I am left with the pain of missing him.
This walk is my way of trying to do something. AFSP funds research into suicide prevention. It is a wonderful and brilliant organization, and I’m hoping that they will be able to save lives.
To walk with me: Go to : www.outofthedarkness.org and register to walk. When you register, sign up as a team walker, our team is called “ADAM LIVES” (You can also register the morning of the walk at Siesta Beach) The walk begins at 9:00 A.M at the Siesta Key Pavilion. Registration begins at 8:00.
To Donate: Visit my page at the “Out of the Darkness Walk”
I appreciate your support… together maybe we can prevent even one needless death.
Adam Taking a Polar Bear Swim
What Caused Adam’s Suicide?
Suicide is permanent. Yet it often occurs in a moment or moments of a temporary crisis. Someone once said that suicide occurs when someone’s pain exceeds their resources for coping with pain. During those moments when Adam contemplated suicide as a solution, his internal resources were depleted.
Maybe it seems trivial to talk about lack of sleep. But three days without sleep can bring on hallucinations and delusions. Combine lack of sleep with ritalin. And too much Ritalin at that, and you now have a medically documented suicide risk. An overdose or a sudden crash on Ritalin has been known to cause suicidal thoughts. Combine that with a glass or two of alcohol, and you have a lethal soup.
The scarey aspect of Adam’s suicide is that he was a happy person, a successful student, well liked, well loved, and had dreams and aspirations. Suicide is the 3rd leading cause of death among young people: ages 20-24, and young men are six times more likely to commit suicide than young women.
Why is that? Is it the reckless behavior that is often natural in young men? Is it the fact that they do not always confide and seek emotional support when they are grappling with an emotional crisis?
At the moment when Adam took that final action, he had no resources to cope with the pain he was in. But why was he in so much pain? We will never really know for sure, but I have my answer… and I will always believe that the combination of lack of sleep, Ritalin and alcohol created a toxic ideation and killed my son.
