Adolescent suicide and gay youth trauma. “Parents expect dramatic and obvious signs, but children's suffering is much more discreet”

Cristian, the 19-year-old student from Constanța who ended his days last week, was not a problem child. He seemed calm, was appreciated for his musical talent, had become a passionate instrumentalist who devoted much of his time to music, and dreamed of joining the military band. “10 grade kid”. Exactly the type of teenager that psychologists say hides their suffering best.

About the hidden suffering of young people who seem “okay” and about the fear of some of them that they will not be accepted by their families, I spoke with Elisa Bouleanu, a psychotherapist who works with teenagers who face such problems, with Victor Pânzariu, a social worker who supports young people rejected by their families because of their sexual orientation, and with Monica Sărăcescu, the psychologist who met Cristian, the young man from Constanța, when he was 12 years old and his mother at enrolled in a personal development course.

In many families, the idea of ​​a problem child has a clear picture: the rebellious, aggressive teenager who misses school, screams, slams doors or constantly gets into conflicts. But teenage suffering doesn't always look like adults imagine. There are teenagers who continue to go to school, do well, participate in activities, smile and answer “I'm ok”, even though inside they carry severe anxiety, depression, shame, feeling alone or unable to speak honestly even at home. For some, this loneliness is also amplified by the fear of not being accepted if they tell who they really are.

Psychologist Elisa Bouleanu says that it is precisely the good, perfectionist and withdrawn teenagers who are sometimes the ones whose suffering is most difficult to see: “They don't “explode” externally, they don't run away from home, they don't create obvious problems. On the contrary, they seem calm, conscientious, responsible, very sensitive to their parents' disappointment and very concerned with functioning “as they should”. That is, not to cause problems, to get good grades, not to upset their parents.” Sometimes, the hardest to save are exactly these. Quiet and functional, they learn to suffer without disturbing anyone.

“He never gave us any trouble. And that was the problem.”

“I have met teenagers in the clinic who go to school, get good grades, get results, possibly many extracurricular activities where they excel and apparently everything is “ok”. The parents bring them because they are “too closed in themselves”, “they don't trust them”, “they don't socialize enough”. Apparently, you would say that they are not serious problems. And after a few sessions you discover an inner universe overwhelmed by suffering. Teenagers who are apparently ok, functional, turn to self harm (self-harm-n.red) to regulate themselves emotionally, they have suicidal ideation, they have panic attacks, they feel alone, extremely alone, misunderstood, unseen, they feel a burden for their parents”, explains psychologist Elisa Bouleanu.

Many of these teens don't say anything at home until they're in therapy. Even then, psychologists say it's very hard for them to talk honestly with parents about how they feel, because they don't think they'll be understood. Many times, parents only discover in the office how much suffering their child has been suffering for months or even years. “Why? Because a relationship based on trust, acceptance, gentleness is needed for such a teenager to open up to his parents. And unfortunately, I admit with regret, I rarely saw such relationships in adolescence,” says Elisa Bouleanu.

In the case of the teenager from Constanța, many of the gestures made before his death today seem like farewell signals: he gave the passwords of his social media accounts to his colleagues, he withdrew from the activities in which he was involved, he told those close to him things that, in retrospect, seem like masked breakups.

“I noticed his disinterest in the activities in which he was usually very involved and, secondly, he had sent his colleagues his accounts, with the passwords. The lady director panicked a lot and called her mother to the school,” said Anca Dragomir, the director of the college in Constanța, according to Observer News. The mother assured the director that the student is receiving treatment for his conditions and that there is no cause for concern. A few hours later, the teenager was found dead on the railway.

“'He never gave us any trouble'. And that, in fact, becomes the problem: the fact that such children learn very early to carry their own suffering, not to burden their parents with how they feel, because, most of the time, they know that they will not be heard, seen, understood. The problem is that parents expect dramatic and obvious signs, but in reality the suffering is much more subtle than that. Sometimes the sign is not that the teenager explodes, but just and it simply disappears little by little,” says the psychologist.

The explanations of the psychologist who met the young man from Constanța

The young man who committed suicide had been taken to a psychologist since he was 12, because he was shy and withdrawn.

Psychologist Monica Sărăcescu, who then worked with him for 10 weeks in a personal development program for teenagers, remembers a “more shy” child who was “looking for his place, like any teenager”. “My mother was then close to him and sought to invest in his emotional development,” says the psychologist. The program that the teenager followed addressed age-specific themes: the relationship with the family, emotions, self-esteem, social integration, the relationship with one's own body and the discovery of vocation. Nothing then heralded a tragedy. “The feedback was positive. It was a positive experience,” says Monica Sărăcescu. “These years, I don't know what happened…”

Read the rest of the article HERE.