Arts
By Paul V. Griffith
Will's Choice: A Suicidal Teen, a Desperate Mother, and a Chronicle of Recovery
By Gail Griffith (HarperCollins)
The author, joined by Emmylou Harris, will be at Davis-Kidd Booksellers, 6 p.m. Aug. 11On April 18 of this year, 21-year-old Rachel Wright was found dead in the basement garage of the United Artists Tower on 17th Avenue South. Three days before her suicide, Wright had been released from inpatient psychological care, and her case got a good deal of attention in the local press. As her story indicates, psychological and pharmacological treatments, even when competently administered, don't guarantee recovery. Clinical depression is not like a headache: it doesn't just go away when you take a pill.
At 18, Will Griffith was also on the cusp of adulthood when he attempted suicide four years ago, and he, too, had recently been released from a treatment program for depression. Unlike Wright, however, Will didn't die. Will's Choice is a chronicle of his disease, attempted suicide and tentative recovery. Written by Will's mother, Gail Griffith, the book has implications for anyone who struggles, or loves someone who struggles, with depression—a condition that Will himself likens to being overcome by a "black wave."
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In many ways, Will was a normal teenager. There had been traumas in his life—his parents' divorce, a recent move, a troubled romance—but prior to being diagnosed with "major depressive disorder" shortly before his suicide attempt, there were no obvious signs that Will's reserved demeanor hid anything other than routine teenage angst. The stealthy nature of suicidal depression is the most troubling revelation of Will's Choice. "I found it hard to imagine a more unlikely candidate for the illness," Gail Griffith writes of her son. "He was popular and athletic; he received good grades and was well-liked by his teachers, and he was the easygoing, youngest child in a family who lavished him with love and attention." Ironically, Will's chosen method for suicide was his anti-depression medication.
Though Griffith is quick to point out that there's hope for the seriously depressed—a cocktail of cutting-edge antidepressants combined with cognitive behavioral therapy has proved particularly effective—her book never stoops to platitudes or easy answers. Rather, she describes a family dealing with the ongoing sufferings and frustrations that are consistent with the disease of depression, which is chronic and requires a lifetime of vigilance. The struggle is made more complicated, Griffith claims, by a mental health delivery system that's skewed toward the bottom line rather than with the well-being of patients, many of whom don't have the familial or financial resources to adequately battle their afflictions.
Despite its gut-wrenching subject matter, Will's Choice is an entertaining book. Griffith is a zippy writer whose sarcastic wit tempers her family's saga. "Please no Enya tapes," she tells herself while fantasizing about an ideal treatment facility. In more serious passages, her lucid, honest prose keeps the reader engaged. "To the outside world, my son brought this on himself," she writes. "Parents who find themselves struggling to cope in the aftermath of a child's suicide attempt shouldn't have that slapped on them. Society's ignorance and lack of understanding about depression may lead others to that conclusion, but as a parent, you do not have to accept it."
The book's most compelling writers, however, are Will and his troubled girlfriend, Megan. In letters and excerpted journal entries, the pair describe their ordeal in terms that are both puerile and incisive. "Goddamn, why'd I get myself in this?" Will writes. "Was it even my fault? I don't even know. I fucked up pretty bad. But that was a pretty direct result of the depression. And that shit wasn't my fault. I can't help being sick." Megan, who also suffers from depression, is a "cutter." She explains the gratification of self-harm in a tragic, remarkably well-written journal entry, which the book prints in its entirety. "I would hold my arm up and watch the steady streams of drops cascade down the smoothness of myself, falling to my lap with a mixture of tears," she writes. "It was satisfying to know that many of the cuts were probably deep enough to warrant stitches, or at the very least, a butterfly bandage. The scars would be beautiful, I thought."
Each of the 10 chapters in Will's Choice begins with a song fragment. One of the most telling is a verse from "My Baby Needs a Shepherd" by singer-songwriter Emmylou Harris, who is a childhood friend of the author's. It reads, in part, "My baby needs a pilot / She has no magic wand / To help her part the troubled waters / Of the Rubicon." The lines emphasize how difficult it is for families struggling with major depression to find direction in a sea of pop-culture quick fixes and expensive, long-term therapies.
Though Griffith admits there are no clear-cut answers in the struggle against depression—the difference between normal teenage angst and potentially fatal depression, for example, is notoriously hard to discern—her story provides concrete advice to concerned parents. One such lesson, often ignored by therapists and missing from other books: "Never allow your son or daughter to administer his or her own medications."
Above all, Griffith recommends that parents communicate with their teens. "Talk to your kids about depression. Openly. Candidly. And at intervals as they grow up," she says. Griffith maintains that it's unrealistic to ask the FDA, the drug companies and the medical community to relinquish self-interest in the name of adolescent mental health. Instead, the burden of care falls on the parent, who must gather the courage and information necessary to be their child's best advocate. "It's a crapshoot," she concludes. "And the risks of making the wrong calculation are immeasurable. Do not give up."