Where We Cannot Go

What happened to him should never happen to any parent. Because however difficult it might be to lose a child in an accident, or through disease, how much more difficult would it be to lose a child through suicide?

Nor was it the case that they hadn’t tried everything, hadn’t gone to the best hospitals, hadn’t gotten the finest doctors. But a decade before he took his life, Matthew had gone sobbing to his father. “It’s pretty clear,” he had said, “I’m not getting better and I’m never going to get better. So why shouldn’t I kill myself? I know I’m going to heaven, Dad. So why not kill myself now?”

His father was a minister; his answer reflected that.

“Sometimes we don’t know why we’ve been given such great pain, Son. But there is a reason, and we’ll find out in the end. But I am never, ever, as a father going to give up looking for a solution to your problem….”

And it had gone on for years. Matthew, their third child, had been a remarkable child; since birth, he had been different. Shy, sensitive, he could sense in a moment the person in the room who was hurting the most, and would make a beeline for him or her. For the rest of the evening, he would stay by that person’s side, laughing, joking, trying to cheer him or her up.

“He had an amazing ability to help people, and he knew it,” his father said. “He once told me, ‘the only person I can’t help is me….’”

Yes, different; different almost from birth. The father had feared something was wrong from the very beginning; indeed, almost from the day Matthew had been born, his father had started to dread that his son would kill himself. There was that sensitivity, the inability to shrug off pain, a softness that wasn’t like other boys’. He played different, he acted different, he…well, was different.

And so they had prayed, yes, but they also knew—they had to get help. It all came clear after the first suicide attempt; then there was no choice. Matthew had swallowed the Tylenol and had left the bottle on the bed when they found him. It was, as the doctor said, the classic call for help.

Help that, despite their best efforts, they could not give him. They tried—they lost count of the number of psychiatrists, psychologists, family counselors, pastors, prayer groups, professionals, friends…  It was numbing, after a while, and in itself depressing, as well.

“We had pulled him off from the edge more than once,” said his mother. “And the night before, Matthew and I were in his bedroom, and I was begging for him not to kill himself. And he was crying and sobbing and rocking on his bed, and all I could do was hold him, and beg him to go on, and tell him that it would get better, and he just cried harder, and started pounding on the bed and shouting that I didn’t understand. That it was never going to get better and that he was in so much pain and he couldn’t go on—and it was so unfair of me to ask him to take this pain, he couldn’t bear it. He was screaming in my face that no mother would want her child in so much agony. And I was screaming back that I couldn’t let him die, I just couldn’t, no mother could. And I couldn’t bear it, seeing him in such pain and there was nothing, NOTHING I could do to help him. My son, my son, in so much pain! And I remembered when he was a child—he’d fall and cry and I’d pick him up and it would be OK. And I never imagined that there would come a day or a night when I couldn’t help him.”

“At last, he quieted down, and began to talk about going home. And something, I don’t know, something didn’t feel right. He was too calm; too collected. He had gone too quickly from utter despair to being, well, collected. We begged him to stay, we pleaded with him to stay, but he was firm. And that’s when he said it. He turned around, as he was leaving, and said, very slowly, very forcefully, ‘you know, if you ever call the police on me, or call 911 to get me help, it’s an instant suicide.’”

“I was stunned—the look in his eye was awful. But it was his voice, how cool he was, as if he had settled on something. Of course, neither of us could sleep, and we kept calling and calling. I texted him—‘just send me one word, ONE word telling me you’re OK.’ Then we drove to the house, about three in the morning. All the lights were on. That’s when I knew—but we didn’t have a key. And what should I do? Should I call 911? Was it a bluff? Would he really have the courage, or the desperation or the despair to do it? So we were sobbing, Rick and I, and holding each other in the driveway, and praying. And that’s when I knew. We left, and then got the call from the police department. We went to the house, and a cop came out, and we looked at him and he just nodded.”

All right, Readers, why have I spent 891 words telling you this story? Because I read in The New York Times last week that Rick Warren, the pastor of the mega-church Saddleback Church, and an outspoken opponent of marriage equality, was going to start a mental health outreach ministry in his church. Why? Because, with some poetic license, the story of Matthew, above, is the story of Matthew Warren, Rick and Kay’s son.

It happened just over a year ago, and if I knew about it, I had forgotten it. But what’s significant about the story—for me, at least—is that I immediately assumed Matthew was gay (which of course was why I was banging that “sensitivity” drum up there). So I turned to find a picture of him, since gaydar will—very occasionally—work with photos. Here he is, and no, it didn’t work….

Well, it’s a heart-breaking photo, this boy who seems to be telling us, ‘one day you will know, you will see, you will understand this half-smile of mine…” And it’s sad, as well, that even in death, Matthew’s photo, when I saved it just now, had “rick-warren’s-son” as the default save option. Matthew was not Matthew, but Rick Warren’s son.

Nor was I the only gay man who had wondered about the question, since apparently Twitter and the social networks erupted. And I’m sorry to report that a number of my gay brethren pounced on the death as god-or-the-devil-sent stick with which to beat up Rick Warren. Here’s one example….

Was @rickwarren's son gay? Maybe conversion therapy, condemnation and hatred towards gays was too much for matt...#ripmatt

— Samir Perez (@SamirPerez) April 7, 2013

That is by no means the most egregious; here is one of the 70 comments made to the article referenced above:

I wish I could come up with the right set of sentences that would drive this pain (if Mr. Warren actually feels such, being an experienced con man) deep, deep into Mr. Warren such that he could no longer cling to his sick delusions of god service.

The only 'god' Rick Warren serves is himself. He has poisoned the minds of millions.

He is NOT a friend to democracy.

Religion comforts...and cripples.

Or how about this:

Rick Warren's son has committed suicide // ‪#IWOULDTOOIFIWASHIM ‪#FUCKRICKWARREN ‪#UGANDA ‪#GAY ‪#EXECUTIONS ‪#LAKEFOREST

Guys? There are some places we cannot go, and just as we abhor the Phelps family—which of course came out and said the usual about Rick being an apostate and worshipping a false God and, anyway, no matter what, God hates you-know-whom—we cannot, let me say it again, we CANNOT do this to a suffering family.

That much I knew. What didn’t I know?

The skinny on Rick Warren’s celebrated AIDS program in Africa.

Drop by tomorrow, and I’ll tell you all about it….

Somebody Always Gets Hurt

Well, we don’t know because it hasn’t been, and almost can’t be, studied. So it’s either three or four or eight times higher—the suicide rate for gay kids versus straight kids.

Correction—there have been studies; that’s where I get these pretty far apart statistics. But it’s hard to say. A sensitive, sweet kid gets bullied, doesn’t have anyone to talk to, feels alone and helpless. He takes Dad’s shotgun and blasts the back of his head away. OK—was he gay? Or a sensitive, sweet, straight kid?

The death certificate will have his age, parents’ names, cause and date of death. But the sexual orientation? Even if known, it won’t be there.

So it’s a fuzzy area. “The Suicide Prevention Resource Center,” says Wikipedia, “synthesized these studies and estimated that between 30 and 40% of LGBT youth, depending on age and sex groups, have attempted suicide.”

That’s a shocking figure, if true. And I wonder, is it easier for gay kids now than it was in my youth, forty years ago? Then, the topic of homosexuality was almost as off the map as it was in Victorian times. It was taboo, it wasn’t discussed, it was unseen and invisible. In a sense, it was easier to pass.

Though it’s just occurred to me—the word “fag” was very frequently in and out of the mouths of a lot of my classmates. Was it directed at me? I think not. But the message was clear—keep your wrists ramrod tight, don’t move your ass, books get carried at the hip, not the chest. Pass, and try not to think about it.

Because thinking about it lead to dread. My worst fear, in those days, was of my wedding day since—as we all were then—I was on a societal conveyer belt. I would graduate from college, find a nice girl, and marry. And I knew that the morning I woke up and faced having to get married would be the worst day of my life. How would I get through it, or more—would I get through it?

Today, I think it’s harder for gay kids. In high school, I was just a nerd, a cellist, not a jock but not gay. You know, just weird. Today, I think kids are more aware, if not any less cruel. There’s gay everywhere….

Well, I’m thinking all this because of Josué, a killer flutist and sensitive, insightful man. Whom I met when he was still driving around with a Bible in the back of his car—his parents were deeply religious and it would kill them, he assured me, if they knew. Don’t know if they ever did know, or to what extent they accepted, but he’s gone on, moved on, done well professionally and personally. And he’s speaking out, which I totally like, on Facebook.

It gives me no pleasure to announce that a Tennessee state senator—a guy by the name of Stacey Campfield (I’m tempted to note that that “Stacey” is just a bit, well, faggy, but I won’t. Anything to shore up the high moral ground!)

OK—where was I? Right, this guy—who claims that AIDS originated when one guy screwed a monkey (sorry about these digressions, but who could resist?)

Try again, Marc. State senator Stacey Campfield has proposed legislation that would require school officials to notify parents of any child who has identified him or herself as gay. Oh, or even questioned.

(Whew—third time’s the lucky one!)

Yeah?

Marc—“I think I might be gay…”

School nurse reaches for the phone.

Nurse—“Mrs. Newhouse?”

OK—what’s the rationale? Homosexuality is dangerous to a person, says Campfield. Implicit is the belief that, gotten in time, nipped in the bud, and treated with that expert technique of conversion / reversion / inquisition therapy, that young life might still be saved!

Those, of course, would be the caring parents. The uncaring parents?

Well, the ACLU article that Josué posted mentions several facts. Forty percent of homeless LGBT youths have been kicked out of their homes by their parents.

Something I feared, actually. Don’t think it would have happened, but it would have seared Jack’s heart. Look, who he ended up being wasn’t where he started—is it ever? When John lived “in sin” with Jeanne a year before their marriage, Jack’s world fell down. It was nothing religious. It was just that Jeanne “had no self-respect”—could any woman do such a thing and have?—and that wasn’t the woman for John. Franny found Jack crying one day at the bottom of the basement stairs. “I used to put a mattress down here when he was a baby so if Johnny fell, well, it would cushion the fall. But now there’s nothing I can do to protect him….”

The possibility of exposure, the fear of the police coming through the front door of the Pirate Ship—an old bar where the Overture Center now is—as you squiggled out the bathroom window…all of that is still going on for a lot of kids.

Two of whom, says the ACLU, were picked up by police when they were found in a car with condoms and beer. So the cops dragged them in for underage drinking, and chose to do a little corrective therapy by lecturing on the Bible. Oh, and telling the kids that they’d better go right home and fess up to their parents.

Remember the start of this post?

Right—one of the kids, Marcus Wayman, had another idea. He got the keys to his dad’s gun cabinet (and don’t get me started…) and blew his brains onto the wall behind him.

Well, the mom took the cops to court—good for her—and got a settlement for 100,000 bucks. So now we know the price of a gay youth! The ACLU says:

If even one LGBT teen in Tennessee dies as result of this shortsighted, mean-spirited, and quite possibly unconstitutional bill, his or her blood will be on Stacey Campfield’s hands.

Totally agree. In the study adduced by the ACLU, 46% of homeless LGBT run away because of family rejection and 43% are forced out because of family rejection. On the streets, these kids are vulnerable to everything from prostitution to AIDS to suicide.

For many of us, families are the cradle for violence and abuse. It’s the first law of family dynamics: somebody always gets hurt.

30,000 Lives

That’s how many people—more or less—die from gunshot wounds every year.

OK, be fair. A surprising number—over fifty percent—are suicides. Some are mishaps / accidents. Maybe forty-five percent are homicides.

Does it matter? Only ten thousand people murdered; hey—that’s nothing! 

Yeah? Every September 11^th, we all gather and recite three thousand names. Yet ten times as many people die every year from guns! And does it make a difference whether it’s you or someone else who pulls the trigger?

It’s a life lost.

I know a bit about that. I’ve had a brother scream at me, so concerned was he about my own planned death. And in my last trip to Chicago, I entered the seedy hotel where I bunked over, in my journeys from Wisconsin to Puerto Rico.

And discovered the manager, shaking, and calling 911.

The housekeeper had discovered the body.

She came out, a moment later, to smoke a cigarette and watch them collect the body. The paramedics came out, got the gurney from the back of the ambulance, entered the hotel. Sixty seconds later, they came out.

Everything—head included—covered by a sheet.

They returned with the gurney to the hotel. And came back with two suitcases, uncovered.

Took less than five minutes.

“He killed himself,” said the housekeeper. “So young, just 33 years old….”

One down—29, 999 to go?

“It’s surprisingly hard to kill yourself,” I wrote elsewhere. And I thought at the time of the decade I spent as a psychiatric nurse. Borderlines would come whimpering to show us the scratches they had carved on their wrist.

“Oh, let me get you some hydrogen peroxide to wash that off,” I’d say. “And would you like a Band-Aid?”

It’s anatomically almost impossible to slit your wrists deeply enough to hit the artery….

Tylenol? Curiously, for most people, nothing happens for the first 24 hours after ingestion.

“Just take a seat, Hon, I gotta see to this ingrown toenail….” a friend in the ER used to say, when the lost girls with their teddy bears arrived, empty Tylenol bottle in hand.

But a gun?

That’s serious. 

OK—sharp turn here. In a recent development, the University of Colorado psychiatrist who had been treating James Holmes warned the university that he posed a risk.

Did she warn the city?

And the university did nothing, since Holmes dropped out. 

Did he stop being a risk?

And does Colorado have a mental health background check?

It’s madness beyond words. 

Here’s what I’m gonna do.

I’m gonna start a petition on Signon.org . I’m gonna ask for thirty thousand signatures. Then, I’m gonna sit in the coffee shop that has now become my office and read them. I’ll film it, and put it on YouTube.

Any idea how long it’ll take?