By Darlene Vanasco
Yesterday my Sober Friend from Brooklyn called me.
She lives in another town now, but her daughter and my daughter grew up together.
Sober Friend leaves me a message about HER daughter: Her daughter’s friend tried to kill herself. Friend is now on life support.
I sit down on the bed and cry. I think about everything MY daughter has been through recently. I think about “L”, another daughter friend, who successfully hung herself at 13 after being cyber-bullied too much for too long.
I cry and I ask the air, “What is happening to our girls?”
When I call Sober Friend back I ask her the question. I say, “Is it really as simple as blaming the media?”
Maybe it is. I don’t know.
Is it an American phenomenon?
I tell her, “I don’t know the suicide rate increase for women around the world. I just know when I was growing up we did a lot of things that would be considered harmful like drinking and drugging and passing out and having sex.
Although the sex part was more of a moral judgment on female behavior than anything intrinsically ‘harmful’.
But there was not this clear sign flashing over our heads. A sign that seems to say: I hate myself.
“I know.” Sober Friend agrees.
Sober Friend and I are silent for a moment. Our daughters have self-harmed in various ways, like so many of their girlfriends. I tell her, “Last night, a 17-year-old I met had just entered Intensive Outpatient Treatment for an eating disorder.”
“I feel like everywhere I turn, there is a teenage girl self loathing herself out of existence.” I say.
Sober Friend wants to help. “What can we do?” she asks.
We hang up.
I think about this.
About the pressure on teenage girls to be perfect.
About how that pressure comes at them now harder and faster than ever before.
I think about Hollywood.
About the Porn Industry in the digital age.
About expectations.
About size 00.
And oh, to have a thigh gap, but with D cups.
To attain the unattainable, sans Photoshop.
It is not a feminist argument.
It is not an exaggeration.
SAVE (Suicide Voices of Education) reports:
- Between 1952 and 1995, suicide in young adults nearly tripled.
- There are three female suicide attempts for each male attempt.
- Suicide is the 3rd leading cause of death for 15- to 24-year-old Americans.
- An average of one person dies by suicide every 16.2 minutes.
I think about Sober Friend’s question, “How can we help?”
I think: Ask the question.
Ask now.
WHAT IS HAPPENING TO OUR GIRLS?
I hope we are not too late.
If you are in a suicide crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-8255.
Darlene is a teacher-mother-designer-writer who is recently transplanted to Philadelphia from Brooklyn. Her writings on mothering and growing up female emerged as a sanity-saving device and productive alternative to crying on the kitchen floor. She can be found at darvana@yahoo.com or you can read the antidotal stories of insanity, reality and progress on her blog: violet915.wordpress.com