The first time LaOneda Carpenter spoke about her 12-year-old daughter’s death by suicide was at a Mother’s Day luncheon at a church in May 2017. Immediately, afterward, an older lady approached her and advised her to never let Mariah’s voice die. She listened. As a posthumous 13th birthday present to Mariah in December 2017, Carpenter published a book entitled, Mariah’s Voice. She then began accepting speaking engagements at churches, schools, conventions and teen summits in Mississippi and Alabama and the southeastern US.
“It is a feeling that you will never get over…you always hear about a child losing a parent…now there are more parents burying kids than children burying parents. It wasn’t designed that way,”
This is a national problem. There has been a “significant increase in the suicide rate among US preteens between 2001-2007 and 2008-2022 periods… (and) suicide was the 11th leading cause of death in female preteens between 2001 and 2007 and (increased to) the 5th leading cause of death between 2008 and 2022,” according to a NIMH (National Institute of Mental Health) funded study. Increases Found in Preteen Suicide Rate – National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) “It’s hard to bring the discussion to the community with the stigma surrounding mental health and suicide,” remarks Dr. Arielle Sheftall, an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Rochester Medical Center. Yet, she believes the answers are contained in communities. “It’s hard to talk about, but the more that we don’t talk about it, the more we can’t prevent it,” she says. The risk factors for preteen suicide are first being discovered. “More information is just beginning to be compiled about the younger set,” Sheftall adds. “For example, diagnoses associated with death by suicide for adolescents may be depression, whereas for preteens, it may be associated with ADHD.”
“ADHD (Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that involves a persistent pattern of inattention, hyperactivity, or impulsivity that interferes with development or functioning,” according to the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, Fifth Edition (DSM-5 ). There is also an elevated risk of self-harm among persons with ADHD, according to a study by Amalie Austgulen et al., That self-harm may lead to suicide ideation as well.
Among females, 30% said they seriously considered attempting death by suicide, according to the Youth Risk Behavior Survey Data Summary & Trends Report 2023 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This was up almost 60% from a decade ago. The increase in youth death by suicide, along with mental health diagnoses in the Black community, resulted in a 2019 Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) task force making recommendations to assess and tackle the problem. Titled, Ring the Alarm: The Crisis of Black Youth Suicide in Americait is now in the funded research internships.
Unfortunately, Mariah’s story is not an unusual one. She was the victim of cyber-bullying from schoolmates, each of whom she had known. Although Carpenter said her daughter never exhibited signs of mental distress before her suicide, after she passed her mother found out that she had been self-harming by cutting her wrists. She also found unfinished, written suicide notes hidden in her closet. In Mississippi, where Carpenter resides, The Mississippi Museum of Art (MMA) presented Mariah’s Voice and Carpenters” story in the program, Mind Frame: Exploring Mental Health Through Film—Youth Edition, which featured the film of the same name along with a panel discussion. The film can be viewed on Vimeo. “A lot of people don’t like it when I tell Mariah’s story, but God gave me this platform and I’m going to continue to work it until I can’t anymore,” because she adds, “If I’ve saved one, I’ve done my job.” Prevention and intervention are some of the topics she passes along to others during her speaking engagements.
Suicide prevention can take the form of mental health education, which is highly recommended by Carpenter. She says there should be “Annual conferences on general education for the community.” Additionally, “Mental health should be taught as a part of the curriculum in school and as a part of the health class. Students need to know signs of depression and mental health awareness especially before they go to college.”
Sheftall says that prevention and intervention for them relates primarily to education and emotional regulation. She is therefore currently conducting a research project by following 6–11-year-old high risk youth in suicidal behavior to work with them on how to intervene and gain more information via the following factors:
- Emotional regulation
- family
- Parenting
- School and connectivity there
- Neurocognitive functioning
- Depression/anxiety
“All these factors come together in painting a picture illustrating preventative, protective and harmful measures within the child’s world,” Sheftall says.
During the MMA panel for Mariah’s VoiceDr. Michael Nadorff, Professor of Psychology at Mississippi State University, Department of Psychology, provided a similar view, casting it as “multi-informing” (getting as many different views as possible from different sources of the young person to construct a more informed picture from many pieces). “It takes a village to put the pieces together,” he says.
One community actively working on a solution by developing a mentoring program for youth grades three through eight is the QSD (Quitman School District) Connect program created by Dr. Minnie Dace, School Superintendent in the 2021-22 school year. Students are referred to the program by counselors for a “variety of reasons including excessive tardies and suspensions—as well as some members of gifted programs to enhance their social skills,” says Daisy McKenzie, a 38-year educator now retired, who heads the program. Their mentors are volunteers from the community who spend half an hour a week with their mentees. They are also screened, and both the mentee and mentor are given interest form inventories to help find commonalities to find suitable matches.
Detra McCarty serves as a mentor with the nonprofit, A Community of Caring Christians, and has been with the program since 2022. She says that they were provided with topics to discuss including self-esteem, coping skills, anger, bullying, home life, self-awareness, interaction skills, schoolwork and behavior modification. The mentors “develop rapport with the students and create a safe space for them to talk,” McCarty adds. “We’re consistently concerned with well-being and doing the inward work.” McCarty also says they stress students’ growing accountability for their self-worth, self-love and self-esteem, while the mentors help build them.
Describing her interactions with one shy young lady who had been bullied. McCarty says she encouraged her, as an exercise, to introduce herself to one person she did not already know, before she returned the next week. She requested this because she wanted her mentee to break out of the preconceived notion that people would not want to get to know her. “The response was so positive for this young lady that it is now easy for her to do the task weekly and describe the positive interaction,” McCarty says. Regarding return on an investment, McCarty says the program has been a blessing to them. The girls going through the program are “different people: different in behavior, grades, experiencing less trouble in school and suspensions.”
Meanwhile Carpenter, through her book Mariah’s Voicecontinue to be a champion of youth, helping them to find their voices, and would like to expand her platform beyond the southeastern US. “They have a voice, and they have a choice, and suicide is not the one,” she concludes.
About the Author: Jacques Armstrong is a fellow with The Loreen Arbus Accessibility is Fundamental Program, a fellowship created with Women’s eNews to train women with disabilities as professional journalists so that they can write, research and report on the most crucial issues impacting the disabilities community.
