In the living room of her Downeast Lane home in Scarborough, Margie Johnston shuffles though papers, her itinerary for an upcoming trip to Washington, D.C., and she begins to see the light at the end of a very long, dark tunnel.

“If this saves one life,” she says. “If this saves even just one life.”

From Feb. 25-28, Johnston and her husband Russ will represent Maine at the annual advocacy forum of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP). There they will attend workshops devoted to a model school district policy created by a partnership that includes AFSP, the American School Councilor Association, the National Association of School Psychologists and The Trevor Project, the latter of which focuses on crisis intervention for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered students.

While in Washington, the Johnstons will visit with each member of Maine’s congressional delegation, to lobby for the federal funding needed to bring the model suicide prevention policy to Maine and implement it in school districts statewide.

For Russ and Margie Johnston, the issue of suicide prevention in schools is more than academic.

Just nine months ago, on May 24, their daughter, Ashley, ended a two-week period that included a traumatic breakup, a job loss and some hateful words posted about her on Facebook, by wrapping a cord around her neck and hanging herself. She was 23 years old.

A friend discovered Ashley within minutes of the suicide and called 911, but it was too late. Paramedics from Scarborough Rescue resuscitated the young woman, literally bringing her back to life, but she never regained consciousness. Johnston lingered in a coma for 10 days until she died on June 3, less than 48 hours after her parents made the painful decision to remove her breathing tube.

Johnston’s suicide was the fifth in Scarborough in the annual reporting period that ended June 30, 2013, making it part of an alarming upward trend.

Although data released by the Scarborough Police Department shows that actual suicides tend to happen in clumps – with four in the reporting year ending June 30, 2008, one in 2009, none in 2010, and three each in 2011 and 2012 – police calls for attempted and threatened suicides shot up nearly 55 percent in the six years between 2007 and 2013.

Meanwhile, requests to have police perform “well-being checks” on local residents feared to be suffering from psychiatric issues related to depression and concern for suicide also have been on the rise, more than doubling during the same time frame.

According to Police Chief Robert Moulton police and rescue personnel in Scarborough respond to, on average, one person per week who has either threatened suicide or attempted suicide.

Statewide, 1,169 people died by suicide between 2007 and 2012, according to the Office of Data, Research and Vital Statistics. Maine now sees an average of more than 194 deaths by suicide each year.

Last year, Maine passed a law requiring all schools to train staff to spot red flags that may indicate a student is contemplating suicide. That program starts in the 2014-2015 school year and the Maine Suicide Prevention Program is creating an online awareness training system to support the program, using $44,000 Gov. Paul LePage donated from his contingency fund.

LePage followed up that initiative last fall by drafting an executive order requiring that all departments of state government issue a suicide awareness and prevention policy. The program is designed to make state workers aware of the resources available to themselves or co-workers they feel may be at risk for suicide.

Still, the Johnstons say more can be done, especially considering that, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide is the second leading cause of death among people age 24 and younger in the state. It ranks 10th for all age groups and is the most common type of violent death in Maine, beating out homicides 7 to 1. According to data distributed during the last legislative session in support of the new law, Maine has the second-highest suicide rate in the nation.

The new state law mandates that all school staffers complete a one-to-two-hour training module on suicide prevention every five years, while two staffers must be trained as “gatekeepers,” which requires one daylong training session.

The AFSP model policy, however, requires annual training for all staffers under the direction of a district-level suicide prevention coordinator. The policy also goes beyond instruction in how to spot warning signals to requiring implementation of ongoing youth suicide prevention programming, along with education and outreach to engage parents and guardians in the awareness and prevention campaign.

How much could that level of programming cost? The Johnstons say it doesn’t matter. According to the AFSP, four states (Alaska, Kentucky, Louisiana and Tennessee) already have adopted suicide prevention programs similar to the model policy.

“Ashley was actually born in Kentucky,” said Russ Johnston. “That’s a pretty poor state. If they can find the resources to do this, I’m sure we can, too.”

“What can be more important that saving lives,” said Don Crowley.

“Most kids just want help,” agreed Carolyn Crowley. “I don’t think they want to end their lives. I don’t think my son wanted to end his life either. I just think that it was the pressures of school, the pressures of life, the pressures of work, it just got to be too much for him. He just didn’t want to do it anymore and didn’t want to burden us with anything that was wrong, or bad. He was almost too perfect of a son.”

Cody Crowley was just 20 years old when, on Dec. 12, 2012, he drove his car to the end of his family’s street off Broadturn Road and parked, with charcoal briquettes burning in a tub in the back seat, a technique police later learned he had researched on the Internet.

The Crowleys attended a spaghetti supper sponsored by the Johnstons last year to raise awareness about suicide prevention. They quickly came to rely on each other for support through their trauma and only learned later that their children lay in adjacent plots at Black Point Road Cemetery.

Unlike Ashley Johnston, whose suicide was spur-of-the-moment, Cody Crowley has clearly planned his death. Still, neither left a note. Both did, however, know of others their age who had committed suicide, making them a chain in what Margie Johnston sees as a dangerous “copycat” effect sweeping through Scarborough.

In many of the cases, those who have killed themselves recently in Scarborough were, like Ashley and Cody, in their early 20s, making, or about to make, the transition between college and adult life. Prevention programs in the schools, the Johnstons and Crowleys say, might have equipped them with the tools to handle those transitions better, or to reach out in difficult times.

Ashley, like Cody, her family and friends say, was a rock to others in need, and no one realized the trouble she was having coping with her own problems.

Both the Johnstons and the Crowleys feel the factors playing into the rise in suicides are too great for a simple one-hour training session every five years. There’s America’s fascination with celebrity, which can leave young people feeling like their lives are not worth living if they’re not superstars. There’s the rise of social media, which makes it nearly impossible to escape bullying. And, the parents say, there’s some fault in the public school system, which funnels students into a common core of learning aimed at a liberal arts degree, as if there is only one way to succeed. Both Ashley and Cody did well in school, their parents say, until they got to high school.

“It’s a lot or pressure, the way the curriculum is,” said Ashley’s friend, Chris Dinan. “It’s all geared to college. They try to reform you, or mend you a little too much more than some people can handle. And then getting out of school and trying to find jobs, that’s another big jump. It took me almost two years to find a spot.”

“Suicide is a hugely complex problem,” said Nancy Thompson of Cape Elizabeth, whose son, Timmy, killed himself in 2004. “It’s bigger than a family issue. It’s huge, huge. It requires a sense of community, it really does take everyone to help out with this problem.”

Thompson helped lobby last year to get the bill passed leading to the current rules on suicide prevention training in schools. The Johnstons say that’s a good start, but they’re anxious to take the next step. A meeting with the high school principal David Creech led nowhere fast, despite his support.

“He did go talk to his social workers, and they said it’s too much of a demand on their department,” said Margie Johnston. “But we’re going to keep working on it to try and get some programs started.”

For now, the Crowleys say they are eager to be “staff support” for the Johnstons’ efforts.

“I just want to say Margie and Russ are doing a great job with this whole thing,” said Carolyn Crowley. “They jumped right up at it. When we first experienced this, it was such a shock. I couldn’t even deal with getting up in the morning. It was overwhelming. And then, when I saw the things they were doing, it gave me hope. It allowed me to find a purpose in Cody’s death, to leave my sorrow and get up and do something.”

The Johnston family has launched a website, www.rememberaj.com, through which they hope to continue raise awareness and funds. Last fall, they raised more than $5,000 at the “Out of Darkness” walk for suicide prevention held in Sanford. Some of that money is being used to fund the trip to Washington, D.C., and the family hopes to stage a similar walk in Scarborough in September.

“If we can get even a few people through that door, to realize they are not alone in whatever they are feeling, that can’t hurt,” said Russ Johnston.

In many ways, both the Johnstons and Crowleys say, whether something comes of the AFSP model ordinance, or even just local walks and websites, the hope is to ensure that the deaths of Ashley and Cody are not ends, but beginnings.

“This is the hardest thing to get over,” said Carolyn Crowley. “You don’t get over it. It’s a thing you live with the rest of your life. But if just one person can be saved, just one, it would all be worth it.”

Russ and Margie Johnston of Scarborough sit with a painting of their daughter, Ashley, who committed suicide last May, and Ashley’s dog, Mia. Later this month, the Johnstons will represent Maine at the annual advocacy forum of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, with hopes of bringing back a model policy on suicide prevention that could be implemented in school districts statewide.  Ashley Johnston

Copy the Story Link