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As a father to two so-far-healthy young boys, one soon to be a teenager I feel devastated at the thought of either of them having to endure the level of emotion

As a father to two so-far-healthy young boys, one soon to be a teenager I feel devastated at the thought of either of them having to endure the level of emotional chaos that Katie went through the moments leading up to her suicide attempt. My stomach goes into a knot at the thought. I mean gosh, it was a cheating boyfriend. I don't know what to do to protect them from such a path.

vlasev 8y ago
A good first step would be to create a good life for them that they could always go back to in the event if such a crisis. If you are happy or at least content being by yourself, even if you get cheated on, you can get back to normal. If you are empty without a partner and then get cheated on, you lose a lot more.
davebryand 8y ago
I like to think of my role as "dad" is to prepare my kids as opposed to protecting them. Life is going to happen, we can't protect them from everything. What we can do is help our kids create themselves in such a way that "emotional chaos" is not part of their experience.
practice9 8y ago
> I mean gosh, it was a cheating boyfriend. I don't know what to do to protect them from such a path. Can't even imagine how guilty boyfriend feels in this situation..
oihoaihsfoiahsf 8y ago
What happened to Katie is super sad, but hundreds of thousands of people get dumped and cheated on every year without shooting themselves. I totally understand your feelings, because I also worry for my children. But I also try to do a few things: 1. Try to help my kids keep things in perspective. Don't hide the risk of pain and failure from them. Instead, warn them that such things will happen, and try to teach resilience. 2. Watch out for signs of depression in my kids. If I ever see them, I'll treat it seriously and get them help as soon as possible. 3. That said, I also try to keep things in perspective myself. There are so many big risks. The best I can do is care for my little ones as best I can.
- crescentfresh 8y ago
  It's hard to prepare someone for emotional devastation from a life event. I had loving and supporting parents, and when I found out my exwife was cheating I went through some kind of scary. My kids no doubt will experience emotional torture at some point, I just hope it comes at a time that a) I'm there to realize it and be preemptive, or 2) they are adults that have some level of emotional balance (that I hopefully had a part in building :) to sustain and live through it. My greatest fear is that I will emotionally injure my kids despite my unconditional love for them. I make mistakes afterall, sometimes not even realizing it.
  - oihoaihsfoiahsf 8y ago
    > My greatest fear is that I will emotionally injure my kids despite my unconditional love for them. You will. We all scar our children in different ways. The best we can do is make those scars as shallow as possible.
- hvidgaard 8y ago
  Regarding 1, it's one of the things I focus on a lot. I try not to "teach" resilience I think. I let them fail, and I'm emotional support when they fail. I let them see me fail, and I hope the combination will slowly instill resilience in them.
TomMckenny 8y ago
Perhaps if there are no instruments at hand that allow the young to act on such a disastrous suicidal impulse, at least some of these incidents could be prevented.
- colmvp 8y ago
  Maybe. A close friend of mine used pills instead of a pistol. Thankfully they didn’t succeed in their endeavour but the fact is people who are intent on doing the deed will find a method.
  - roguecoder 8y ago
    The rate of success with pills is lower, and it allows time for regret and the patient to seek help, whereas with a gun after the trigger is pulled it's over. The reasons that American men commit suicide twice as often as women do even though only half as many men attempt suicide is because they are more likely to use a gun.
- ApolloFortyNine 8y ago
  Ugh, are you trying to make this anti gun? There are so many ways to commit suicide it's hardly worth listing them here. If her family kept any pills in the bathroom it's likely she could have killed herself without leaving the room.
  - jdietrich 8y ago
    It isn't about guns per se, it's about all lethal items. The how of suicide is just as important as the why. Having anything in your home that is a highly efficient means of killing yourself greatly increases the risk that you will in fact kill yourself. Most suicidal intent is temporary and most suicidal behaviour is impulsive, so restricting access to highly effective means of suicide is a vital tool in preventing suicide. In 1998, the UK restricted sales of paracetamol (acetaminophen) to packs of no more than 32 tablets. The result was a lasting reduction in suicides by paracetamol poisoning, with no commensurate increase in suicide attempts by other means. Several studies have found that interventions like installing suicide prevention barriers on bridges can reduce the suicide rate rather than merely changing the choice of means. https://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.f403 https://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.f403 https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/useful-links/bibliography/bridge-bibliography/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/useful-links/bibli... If you take an overdose of tablets or slit your wrists, you'll probably survive with suitable medical care. You probably have the opportunity to change your mind, call an ambulance and save your own life. Very few people survive a gunshot wound to the head; all of them sustain life-altering injuries. You have the right to own a gun, but that comes with responsibilities. You need to recognise that your gun poses a serious risk to you and your family, especially if it isn't consistently stored in a suitable gun safe or someone in the house is at risk of suicide. If you're worried about the mental health of a family member, controlling their access to convenient and highly lethal means of suicide could well prevent an impulsive decision from becoming a tragedy. Clear out your liquor cabinet, throw out any surplus medication and get your gun out of the house. http://www.meansmatter.org/ http://www.meansmatter.org/
ClassyJacket 8y ago
Live in any other country than America, I guess, so an emotional person can't get their hands on a gun in two seconds.
- ApolloFortyNine 8y ago
  This seems to be a popular thought on hacker news for some reason, but seriously, there's countless ways to commit suicide. If your solution is to take away just one of the tools, you aren't going to get very far. Chances are there were pills in the medicine cabinet that could have been used as well. Or countless other ways that also take only a split second decision (and that's assuming she picked up the gun off the table and didn't have to go find it). Come on, you're smarter than this.
  - PeterisP 8y ago
    The method of choice, however, does have a significant effect on survivability or reversibility of a suicide attempt (pills in the medicine cabinet are a prime example, many people have been saved after taking a lethal dose of medicine) and the ease of availability also has a meaningful effect on the likelihood of suicide attempts; if people are forced to think about it some more, some of them reconsider (e.g. this very case which was a non-repeating impulse, not something premeditated). A solid example for this is the pesticide-based farmer suicides in SE Asia, where countries that limited availability of human-deadly pesticides significantly reduced the number of farmer suicides. While there are countless other ways to commit suicide, experience shows taking away just one of the tools can save many, many lives.
    - ApolloFortyNine 8y ago
      >While there are countless other ways to commit suicide, experience shows taking away just one of the tools can save many, many lives. I have found two studies with that claim. One is going state by state (like there may be no other factors?) [1]. The second is comparing urban Maryland vs rural (if you've ever been to rural Maryland, you'd know comparing it to Baltimore is ridiculous) [2]. [1] https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/magazine/guns-and-suicide/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/magazine/guns-and-suicide/ [2] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/suicide-rates-maryland-rural-urban-firearms-guns-johns-hopkins-united-states-a7898951.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/suicide-rates-mary...
azernik 8y ago
Keep them mentally healthy in general, and keep an eye out for latent problems. People deal with cheating boyfriends all the time, but when that's added to other mental health issues things can go very wrong very quickly. In this case, the sudden life changes seem to have left Katie off balance and vulnerable, and when the article refers to "perfectionism" I suspect that's a reference to some underlying mental health problem. Note that there's a fine line between pathologizing normal personality variations, and missing real issues.
eagsalazar2 8y ago
I hear you (I also have kids) but I always feel like the level of hype here is 75% about that pretty, white "before" photo. Yes it is tragic but what about the 1000s of disadvantaged kids that yearly fall into crime and drugs, ruining their lives, being incarcerated or killed, because of institutionalized indifference to the poor non-white members of our society and the corresponding negative feedback loops that trap them generation after generation. No personalized stories about them. No years of Jean Benet follow up, nothing except vilification and blame from the right.
- steve19 8y ago
  Stop seeing everything through a racial lens. It is the first time an incredibly complex surgery has been performed, the race of the person is irrelevant. If this surgery was in China and performed on a Chinese person it would be just as groundbreaking.
  - eagsalazar2 8y ago
    Sorry, I definitely disagree with you and I'm not going to stop. I don't see everything through a racial lens but I do think there is a lot of racial injustice and it should be called out and discussed where it makes sense, like here (IMO).
    - creep 8y ago
      It doesn't make sense in this context though.
  - evancox100 8y ago
    Uh it was the clinic's third face transplant and the world's 40th.
    - saagarjha 8y ago
      I believe the novelty here was that the patient was young.
- 8y ago
loblollyboy 8y ago
Don’t have guns in the house is a good start
clarkmoody 8y ago
Show your boys this article. Own up to your mistakes, and teach your boys not to repeat them. Watch how they handle disappointment in smaller things, helping them to cope. Maybe this article will open their eyes to how decisions made in a moment of passion can affect their lives and the lives of many others. You will not be able to protect them from everything. Start with that understanding and prepare.
- fjsolwmv 8y ago
  What do "boys" have to with causing a person with an unstable life and a mental illness attempting a gun suicide?

vlasev 8y ago

A good first step would be to create a good life for them that they could always go back to in the event if such a crisis. If you are happy or at least content being by yourself, even if you get cheated on, you can get back to normal. If you are empty without a partner and then get cheated on, you lose a lot more.

davebryand 8y ago

I like to think of my role as "dad" is to prepare my kids as opposed to protecting them. Life is going to happen, we can't protect them from everything. What we can do is help our kids create themselves in such a way that "emotional chaos" is not part of their experience.

practice9 8y ago

> I mean gosh, it was a cheating boyfriend. I don't know what to do to protect them from such a path. Can't even imagine how guilty boyfriend feels in this situation..

oihoaihsfoiahsf 8y ago

What happened to Katie is super sad, but hundreds of thousands of people get dumped and cheated on every year without shooting themselves. I totally understand your feelings, because I also worry for my children. But I also try to do a few things: 1. Try to help my kids keep things in perspective. Don't hide the risk of pain and failure from them. Instead, warn them that such things will happen, and try to teach resilience. 2. Watch out for signs of depression in my kids. If I ever see them, I'll treat it seriously and get them help as soon as possible. 3. That said, I also try to keep things in perspective myself. There are so many big risks. The best I can do is care for my little ones as best I can.

crescentfresh 8y ago
It's hard to prepare someone for emotional devastation from a life event. I had loving and supporting parents, and when I found out my exwife was cheating I went through some kind of scary. My kids no doubt will experience emotional torture at some point, I just hope it comes at a time that a) I'm there to realize it and be preemptive, or 2) they are adults that have some level of emotional balance (that I hopefully had a part in building :) to sustain and live through it. My greatest fear is that I will emotionally injure my kids despite my unconditional love for them. I make mistakes afterall, sometimes not even realizing it.
- oihoaihsfoiahsf 8y ago
  > My greatest fear is that I will emotionally injure my kids despite my unconditional love for them. You will. We all scar our children in different ways. The best we can do is make those scars as shallow as possible.
hvidgaard 8y ago
Regarding 1, it's one of the things I focus on a lot. I try not to "teach" resilience I think. I let them fail, and I'm emotional support when they fail. I let them see me fail, and I hope the combination will slowly instill resilience in them.

TomMckenny 8y ago

Perhaps if there are no instruments at hand that allow the young to act on such a disastrous suicidal impulse, at least some of these incidents could be prevented.

colmvp 8y ago
Maybe. A close friend of mine used pills instead of a pistol. Thankfully they didn’t succeed in their endeavour but the fact is people who are intent on doing the deed will find a method.
- roguecoder 8y ago
  The rate of success with pills is lower, and it allows time for regret and the patient to seek help, whereas with a gun after the trigger is pulled it's over. The reasons that American men commit suicide twice as often as women do even though only half as many men attempt suicide is because they are more likely to use a gun.
ApolloFortyNine 8y ago
Ugh, are you trying to make this anti gun? There are so many ways to commit suicide it's hardly worth listing them here. If her family kept any pills in the bathroom it's likely she could have killed herself without leaving the room.
- jdietrich 8y ago
  It isn't about guns per se, it's about all lethal items. The how of suicide is just as important as the why. Having anything in your home that is a highly efficient means of killing yourself greatly increases the risk that you will in fact kill yourself. Most suicidal intent is temporary and most suicidal behaviour is impulsive, so restricting access to highly effective means of suicide is a vital tool in preventing suicide. In 1998, the UK restricted sales of paracetamol (acetaminophen) to packs of no more than 32 tablets. The result was a lasting reduction in suicides by paracetamol poisoning, with no commensurate increase in suicide attempts by other means. Several studies have found that interventions like installing suicide prevention barriers on bridges can reduce the suicide rate rather than merely changing the choice of means. https://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.f403 https://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.f403 https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/useful-links/bibliography/bridge-bibliography/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/useful-links/bibli... If you take an overdose of tablets or slit your wrists, you'll probably survive with suitable medical care. You probably have the opportunity to change your mind, call an ambulance and save your own life. Very few people survive a gunshot wound to the head; all of them sustain life-altering injuries. You have the right to own a gun, but that comes with responsibilities. You need to recognise that your gun poses a serious risk to you and your family, especially if it isn't consistently stored in a suitable gun safe or someone in the house is at risk of suicide. If you're worried about the mental health of a family member, controlling their access to convenient and highly lethal means of suicide could well prevent an impulsive decision from becoming a tragedy. Clear out your liquor cabinet, throw out any surplus medication and get your gun out of the house. http://www.meansmatter.org/ http://www.meansmatter.org/

ClassyJacket 8y ago

Live in any other country than America, I guess, so an emotional person can't get their hands on a gun in two seconds.

ApolloFortyNine 8y ago
This seems to be a popular thought on hacker news for some reason, but seriously, there's countless ways to commit suicide. If your solution is to take away just one of the tools, you aren't going to get very far. Chances are there were pills in the medicine cabinet that could have been used as well. Or countless other ways that also take only a split second decision (and that's assuming she picked up the gun off the table and didn't have to go find it). Come on, you're smarter than this.
- PeterisP 8y ago
  The method of choice, however, does have a significant effect on survivability or reversibility of a suicide attempt (pills in the medicine cabinet are a prime example, many people have been saved after taking a lethal dose of medicine) and the ease of availability also has a meaningful effect on the likelihood of suicide attempts; if people are forced to think about it some more, some of them reconsider (e.g. this very case which was a non-repeating impulse, not something premeditated). A solid example for this is the pesticide-based farmer suicides in SE Asia, where countries that limited availability of human-deadly pesticides significantly reduced the number of farmer suicides. While there are countless other ways to commit suicide, experience shows taking away just one of the tools can save many, many lives.
  - ApolloFortyNine 8y ago
    >While there are countless other ways to commit suicide, experience shows taking away just one of the tools can save many, many lives. I have found two studies with that claim. One is going state by state (like there may be no other factors?) [1]. The second is comparing urban Maryland vs rural (if you've ever been to rural Maryland, you'd know comparing it to Baltimore is ridiculous) [2]. [1] https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/magazine/guns-and-suicide/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/magazine/guns-and-suicide/ [2] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/suicide-rates-maryland-rural-urban-firearms-guns-johns-hopkins-united-states-a7898951.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/suicide-rates-mary...

azernik 8y ago

Keep them mentally healthy in general, and keep an eye out for latent problems. People deal with cheating boyfriends all the time, but when that's added to other mental health issues things can go very wrong very quickly. In this case, the sudden life changes seem to have left Katie off balance and vulnerable, and when the article refers to "perfectionism" I suspect that's a reference to some underlying mental health problem. Note that there's a fine line between pathologizing normal personality variations, and missing real issues.

eagsalazar2 8y ago

I hear you (I also have kids) but I always feel like the level of hype here is 75% about that pretty, white "before" photo. Yes it is tragic but what about the 1000s of disadvantaged kids that yearly fall into crime and drugs, ruining their lives, being incarcerated or killed, because of institutionalized indifference to the poor non-white members of our society and the corresponding negative feedback loops that trap them generation after generation. No personalized stories about them. No years of Jean Benet follow up, nothing except vilification and blame from the right.

steve19 8y ago
Stop seeing everything through a racial lens. It is the first time an incredibly complex surgery has been performed, the race of the person is irrelevant. If this surgery was in China and performed on a Chinese person it would be just as groundbreaking.
- eagsalazar2 8y ago
  Sorry, I definitely disagree with you and I'm not going to stop. I don't see everything through a racial lens but I do think there is a lot of racial injustice and it should be called out and discussed where it makes sense, like here (IMO).
  - creep 8y ago
    It doesn't make sense in this context though.
- evancox100 8y ago
  Uh it was the clinic's third face transplant and the world's 40th.
  - saagarjha 8y ago
    I believe the novelty here was that the patient was young.
8y ago

loblollyboy 8y ago

Don’t have guns in the house is a good start

clarkmoody 8y ago

Show your boys this article. Own up to your mistakes, and teach your boys not to repeat them. Watch how they handle disappointment in smaller things, helping them to cope. Maybe this article will open their eyes to how decisions made in a moment of passion can affect their lives and the lives of many others. You will not be able to protect them from everything. Start with that understanding and prepare.

fjsolwmv 8y ago
What do "boys" have to with causing a person with an unstable life and a mental illness attempting a gun suicide?