The We Generation by Michael Ungar

Author:Michael Ungar
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hachette Books

chapter five

The Best and Worst of Connections

Meaghan came to see me at the urging of her mother, who was worried her daughter was depressed. It had all started when Meaghan’s friend, Natia, became quite ill with anorexia nervosa and was hospitalized. As if that weren’t bad enough, Natia had escaped from the hospital and had run to Meaghan’s house, where she raided the family’s medicine cabinet and overdosed on Meaghan’s mother’s painkillers left over from a back operation. Natia had had her stomach pumped. Within days, Meaghan was back at the hospital to see Natia, feeling guilty for having failed to protect her friend.

Meaghan is the type of fifteen-year-old kid who draws people to her. She’s pretty, with big brown eyes and an engaging smile. She has never wanted for friends or attention from boys. Natia liked hanging out with Meaghan. It felt safe having someone like Meaghan around.

“So where would you like to begin?” I asked Meaghan once she’d settled into her seat in my office. It was warm. The heat was up again in our building, and I’d had to open the window even though there was snow outside. Meaghan didn’t seem to mind the heat. She sat with her coat on the entire time we spoke, as if ready to bolt if I said anything against her or her friend.

“Tell you what happened?”

I nodded.

“A few weeks ago, my best friend tried to kill herself. She was already in treatment for anorexia. She looked really awful. She even told me she’d hinted to her therapist at the hospital that she was going to do something. I guess I am the only one who really understands her. You know, who knows how serious she can be.”

“Has she told you things like this before?” I asked. Natia had. The summer before, Meaghan had helped take Natia to the hospital. Natia was threatening to cut her wrists. The staff at the hospital didn’t do much about it at the time.

“That’s what got me so upset, because her mom came home a few days later to find her on the floor of her room, and she’d slashed her wrists and really tried to kill herself. How could they not see it? I thought they were trained to know these things.”

I could tell Meaghan hadn’t gotten over the shock of her friend’s first suicide attempt. It’s no coincidence that when children know someone who has attempted suicide, they are at a much greater risk of attempting suicide themselves. Meaghan’s own depression was making sense.

It can be confusing to be confronted by another’s pain and the hopelessness of knowing there is little one can do except offer one’s support. I think Meaghan was telling me her world fractured a little that day. Suddenly adults weren’t quite as dependable as they were supposed to be.

“I went in and saw her that night at the hospital,” Meaghan told me with tears now misting her eyes. “And she was really tired, and I felt all these what-ifs. Like what if her mom hadn’t come just then, or what if the hospital hadn’t discharged her.

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