SALT LAKE CITY — The diocesan Office of Youth and Young Adult Ministry offered a suicide prevention workshop in Spanish on April 27 at the Pastoral Center.
Young people from 13 to 17 years of age and adults from all over the diocese gathered to learn about the signs of a suicidal person, what Catholics can do to help prevent suicides, and where people can go to find help or resources for suicide prevention.
The workshop was presented by Monica Candia, a speaker from Consejos Educativos (Educational Councils) and a St. Andrew parishioner.
The workshop was divided into two presentations, one for adults and one for the teens.
For the adults, Candia talked about how to nurture a child’s mental health, what parents need to know about the increasing suicide rates in children and teens, warning signs that a teen might be suicidal, steps to protect the teens, and resources that are available to parents to help prevent a suicide.
“Nearly two-thirds of suicide encounters involve girls, with the highest among 15- to 17-year-olds, followed by 12- to 14-year-olds,” Candia said. “Rates have increased for both boys and girls, but the increase was greater in girls.”
She suggested some steps to protect the teens such as offering help even when they don’t ask, being unafraid of talking about their feelings, seeking medical help, and encouraging a healthy lifestyle,
“I know that sometimes we are really tired. … We work all day long and to find that time for our children is hard … but it is imperative that we do so that they know we love them and, if needed, the resources are there for them to get help,” she said.
The information and resources on suicide prevention that Candia discussed were not available or easily accessible 11 years ago, when Luzbertila Leon Carrillo’s 16-year-old son Joshua took his own life.
Leon Carrillo, a parishioner of Notre Dame in Price who attended the workshop, said she wants other parents to know that suicide is a reality among their children. She also wanted to learn more about suicide prevention and be prepared to help her grandchildren if needed, she said.
“I think this is the moment for me to start walking again, to teach and share my experience and also to learn in today’s world how I can be prepared for my grandkids, how I can help them, how I can be prepared if I see something that it’s not going well with them, how I can do something,” Leon Carrillo said.
In 2008, her son was released from the hospital after attempting to kill himself, Leon Carrillo said.
“I knew deep inside that he was not ready. … This was not the first time that he tried, but the doctors said it was OK to take him home,” she said.
At the time she was a single mother raising five children.
“I always tried to protect them from everything. … I sheltered them from all the things that were happening,” she said. “Today I tell them to not hide information from their own children. … With my kids I always knew I was not prepared in many aspects.”
For some time after Joshua’s release from the hospital, he seemed to be doing OK, she said. “He always told me that he was taking his prescribed medications for his depression and I believed him, but a feeling that things were still not OK didn’t leave my body.”
One day he asked permission to go camping with his friends.
“That day when he went out the door to go with his friends, I just knew it. … I felt a huge emptiness, I knew something was going to happen,” she said. “As the hours passed I started praying and putting him in God’s hands.”
Late that night the phone rang. At the other end was one of her children, who said, “‘Mami, Joshua just killed himself,’” Leon Carrillo said. “I was sitting down and everything went blank.”
Despite the tragedy, Leon Carrillo never got angry with God, she said. Instead, every time her son attempted suicide, she asked God to make her strong and give her understanding about it all.
“When he was gone I kept doing the same,” she said.
Now she also is working to control her depression and anxiety; she believes that attending the diocesan workshop on suicide prevention was a step in the right direction.
“I never heard of events like this before, and now that I was here I know that this will help me to be more attentive and know where to go” for help, she said. “With what I lived, today I felt like a weight got off my shoulders. I did everything I could back then.”
In her presentation, Candia quoted Pope Francis from his book “On Heaven and Earth:” “There was a time when they did not perform funerals for those that committed suicide because they had not continued on towards the goal; they ended the path when they wanted to. But I still respect the one who commits suicide; he is a person who could not overcome the contradictions in his life. I do not reject him.”
“The Bible tells us, ‘Look and you will find,’” Candia said. “Nobody should pass through hard moments alone. … We are here for them, in the schools, in spaces like this one.”
Suicide Prevention Resources in Utah
– Utah Suicide Prevention Coalition: https://utahsuicideprevention.org/
– University of Utah’s Crisis, Chat & Tip Line: https://safeut.med.utah.edu
– Statewide crisis line: 801-587-3000
– Suicide Prevention Resource Center: http://www.sprc.org/states/utah
– National Suicide Prevention LifeLine: 1-800-273-8255
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