Healthy Skepticism Library item: 4619

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Publication type: news

Babington C.
Out of a Son's Suicide, a New Mission
Washington Post 2006 May 5
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/04/AR2006050401685.html

Notes:

Ralph Faggoter’s Comments:

“It called for federally funded screening of school-age children “to detect those predisposed to depression and suicide”…”

There is double tragedy here.

Firstly, the tragedy of the Congressman’s son’s suicide.

Secondly, the tragedy of the well-intentioned Congressman and journalist’s mis-interpretation of the nature of their own society, its ills, and the direction in which solutions lie.

Full text:

Out of a Son’s Suicide, a New Mission

By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 5, 2006; A17

REMEMBERING GARRETT

One Family’s Battle With a Child’s Depression

By Gordon H. Smith

Carroll & Graf, 208 pages

Sen. Gordon H. Smith faced a fundamental choice after his son committed suicide in 2003, the day before his 22nd birthday. He could end his political career and live out his years in an agony of “what ifs” and “whys.” Or he could rededicate his professional life and powerful position to trying to make something positive come from the tragedy.

Staggered by grief, the Oregon Republican and devout Mormon seriously weighed the first option. But a church leader persuaded him to mourn his son and then “get back to work.” Part of that work is a new book on a subject that cannot get too much attention: a plea for Americans to learn more about depression and suicide, and to confront mental illness openly, without embarrassment or prejudice.

“Remembering Garrett” is a straightforward, simply written account of one child’s descent into despair and the nearly unbearable heartbreak his family endures.

Famous or powerful people can do more than suffer in private, however, and Smith has chosen to try, as he puts it, “to bring suicide’s brutal toll and mental health’s subordinate status out of the shadows. The shame and stigma our society feels about mental health must stop, and our national conversation needs to begin.”

Garrett Lee Smith was the second of three children adopted, through church connections, by Gordon and Sharon Smith after years of trying to conceive. The book’s early chapters could be dismissed as heartfelt but trite accounts of domestic bliss (Smith likens his family life to “a Norman Rockwell painting”), were the reader not aware of what is to come.

We are told how much Garrett smiled, frolicked on camping trips and doted on his siblings. But his father also weaves in scenes that, in retrospect, hinted at the approaching storm and the parents’ growing sense of helplessness. Garrett struggled with dyslexia and other learning disabilities, and once burst into tears when he couldn’t match his 5-year-old brother in naming the 12 months in order.

“ ‘I can’t keep them straight, and I’m seven years older,’ he cried. His face was full of sorrow and self-loathing,” writes Smith, who wondered whether his time-consuming “pursuit and service in public office was hurting Garrett.”

Local doctors did not diagnose depression when they treated Garrett after he was arrested for drunkenness as a high school junior. But a year later, applying for a two-year Mormon missionary assignment, Garrett stated that he suffered depression (and later told his parents he had since age 10). He salvaged his mission by assuring adults that he “could handle his mood swings.”

“I was stunned by his self-diagnosis of depression,” Smith writes. “I didn’t want to believe it and, like so many in our society, I didn’t understand it.”

Garrett’s two-year mission to England was a success, but his mental state rapidly deteriorated when he returned and started college in Utah. In February 2003, he agreed to see a psychiatrist and take antidepressants, although the book does not specify which ones, and Smith questions whether his son actually took them. By September, Garrett stopped answering his phone and, on a Sunday night, he swallowed a fistful of sleeping pills and hanged himself in his closet.

Throughout the book, Smith takes care to blame no one, except perhaps himself, for misdiagnosing Garrett’s condition or missing possible warning signs. His only ire is aimed at several unnamed House Republicans who complicated his bid to enact legislation intended to combat youth depression and suicide.

Other senators previously drafted two bills, but they rolled them into one, named it the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act, and let Smith take the lead in pushing it. It called for federally funded screening of school-age children “to detect those predisposed to depression and suicide,” and for funds to combat suicide at colleges.

The Senate unanimously approved the legislation, but some House conservatives objected. Smith tried to address their concerns, but writes that he was “appalled by some of their responses. “ ‘Your bill has Democrat sponsors!’ said one. ‘We don’t pass bills over here that Democrats want!’ “

The House approved the bill only after several changes were made, including a provision that permits the school screening only for children whose parents request it.

One wishes Smith had named names. Plausible arguments can be made for and against federal spending for mental health screening and intervention. But to attack or push a bill in order to hurt the other political party is all too typical of the partisanship that poisons today’s Congress, and Smith’s account of his House negotiations adds a bitter note to a book already replete with heartache.

Perhaps the book’s most useful section is a 13-page appendix on resources, including Web addresses for groups dealing with depression, mental illness and suicide. Two examples are the American Foundation

for Suicide Prevention ( http://www.afsp.org/) and the Columbia University TeenScreen Program ( http://www.teenscreen.org/).

Smith, generally labeled a moderate Republican, says he gave modest thought to such issues before his son’s death. But now, he writes, “my heart has softened,” and he proudly notes that he has defied GOP leaders by opposing cuts to Medicaid, food stamps “and other safety-net programs that serve the underprivileged.” Whatever one thinks of his political reawakening, none can dispute that the price was unspeakable.

© 2006 The Washington Post Company