Out of the Darkness…

A daughter’s tragedy is a Northfield mother’s triumph. The Elyssa Meyers story.

By David Rutter

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Elyssa Meyers was 16 when she stood at the precipice of existence and eternity.

She was deciding whether the joy in her life — and there was joy — was enough to balance the pain. And there was pain. She had thought of it often. She had thought of suicide often.

The edge of this psychic Grand Canyon is the loneliest place in the world. There is no light. No warmth. No hope.

And then she could see no way out of the darkness. The hidden pain of her life was too much. The cyber bullying by schoolmates. The torments. The malicious gossip. The malevolent juvenile plots. The clinical depression that stalked her since she was a young child. The depression that even medicine couldn’t stop. Life had become a predator to her soul.

It only seemed as though she had defenses against the predator. She did not.

And then she gave up.

She killed herself in her family’s Northfield home.

It was Feb. 11, 2004.

The ripples that spread after a child’s death extend eternally in all directions, as waves from a rock tossed into a quiet pool. The loss never goes away, and the grief seems permanent. Such losses are too profound to be clearly understood. The parent who loses a young child to suicide suffers the ultimate violation of human rightness. It changes everything that life was supposed to be.

Joanne Meyers wasn’t sure she could endure the loss and the heartbreak of her daughter’s death. The anger. Or even the guilt.

But if the wound of that day would be eternal, Joanne Meyers promised herself that the lessons of that day must be equally abiding and immutable. She could save herself only by saving others if she could. It was the least she owed to Elyssa. And to herself. There could be no compensation for the loss; but there might be redemption.

So she set about healing herself by healing others. There is virtual certainty that some teenagers are alive on the North Shore now because of that healing.

That’s how Elyssa’s Mission got started.

The Perfect Child

Elyssa was the first of Joanne and Alan’s three daughters. Even after the years since Elyssa’s death, Joanne finds comfort in remembering how special her daughter was. She clings to it. She would have been been 23 this spring, likely a college graduate, deeply involved in her own charity work and ready to bloom as a young professional. Elyssa was a buoyant beacon at New Trier Township High.

Indeed, remembering Elyssa is one of the positive side effects of Elyssa’s Mission, an interventionist teaching foundation that places the perils of suicide squarely in front of teens and allows them to see themselves in the reflection. The Mission has counseled more than 10,000 students in 30 school districts along Lake Michigan. This is Joanne’s work. This is her triumph.

But as the years slide past, Elyssa will seem less real to more people. Joanne Meyers doesn’t want her daughter to be just a historical symbol, even in a good cause.

Elyssa Meyers was too special for that.

“She was such a beautiful girl,” her mom says.

“She was incredibly bright and ahead of her time. She was funny, and she made you laugh. She was a thinker. Her writing and poetry were beautiful. It was deep, but very sad. She had this big personality and when she came into a room, she’d want all the attention the room could give. She lit up the room. Her favorite thing in life was for me to fill up the house with her friends and family. She loved being around them. She longed for acceptance.”

Sadly, Elyssa’s desire for acceptance made her susceptible to some who were not her friends. “I think that was hard for her,” Joanne says. “I don’t think she knew how to pick kids as friends. It was important to her to be popular. And I think she made bad choices. Over time a lot of bad things happened. She left herself vulnerable. She acted out. There was pain from things that happened early in her life that I don’t think she ever overcame that. She endured a lot.”

Joanne Meyers can flip through her mental rolodex of old experiences with Elyssa, and see plenty of hints. Rearview mirrors see reality so perfectly. Everyone knew she was in trouble, just not how much trouble.

“She walked around with dark clouds above her head,” Joanne said. “There was the cyber bullying, terrible things written on the bathroom wall at school. A boy had stolen her computer password” and used the Internet to torment her.

One student later said he had been paid $10 to tell her that everyone in school hated her. The boy was crying as he admitted what he’d done.

“She struggled with self esteem and got down easily when people were not nice,” said classmate Melissa Malnoti. “As time went on, she just couldn’t take it. She once asked me when we were much younger to attend her funeral. But when people are so young, it’s hard to know what to do or say.”

“Kids can be terrible people,” said Zack Novak, another classmate. “It just started to snowball. Maybe I didn’t take it seriously enough. Obviously, now that she’s gone.”

Against that backdrop, a fragile soul stumbled, fell and could not rise again.

“She would say she didn’t understand the sadness,” mom said. “And it just very hard to understand that going through adolescence there is this fine line when a child has to develop coping mechanisms and find help. I thought she was getting better. She was taking medication. But she had this hopelessness, and the drugs weren’t helping.”

It was not until later that Joanne Meyers learned of the complex peer assaults on her daughter. “She didn’t think there was help. I didn’t know the depth of her pain. She did tell some of her peers. I only found out later.”

Yes, there was no help.

It was the greatest sadness a mother can feel. “In those last few months we were closer than we had ever been,” mom said. “We were friends, but …”

That realization of what she had not known left Joanne Meyers thunderstruck. Even if you sense a child’s terrible dread of alienation, how do you break through to help? Where do you turn? Who listens? Who is prepared to act?

“In those days you just didn’t talk much about mental health,” she said. “Especially here on the North Shore. I think this has been a place where everybody wants to stick to their own business. Elyssa was not so much ‘troubled’ as she was predisposed to depression. Her mind just didn’t work in a healthy way. But you didn’t know what to do. I knew something was wrong. Back then talking about mental illness was very hard. Living in this environment, there are secrets. People are so wrapped up in their own lives that they don’t want to get involved in other people’s lives. But we have to reach out to others. Have to.”

Joanne Meyers and brother-in-law Ken felt the same pull at the same time. To do something.

And they volunteered with Links-North Shore Youth Health Center to … to what?

Yes, that was the problem. To help another child? Another mother. Yes, of course. Anything to stop another painful trip like Elyssa had traveled with no one to grab her hand and pull her back. “I knew I had to do something,” mom said.

But the Links offered so many programs to address so many issues that suicide prevention was not a particular focus. In comparison, suicide prevention was the only thing that compelled Joanne and Ken.

And so they asked family, friends and Elyssa’s true high school friends for help. The community foundation that sprang forth from their common loss now raises money to administer the SOS (Signs of Suicide) program, the acknowledged gold standard in suicide prevention programs for teens.

The SOS program was created by Screening for Mental Health, Inc., and includes a video presentation, followed by an anonymous checklist survey that students take to determine whether they should talk about their feelings with an adult or health care professional. The personal story of Elyssa is central to the message.

Teens see themselves and their lives in this presentation. The signals of approaching suicide attempts are eerily similar, and SOS presenters are often shocked how many teens volunteer that they are feeling many of the same heartaches and depression that gripped Elyssa. “You can hear a pin drop in the room when teens are watching this,” Joanne says.

SOS works because there always are signs. It’s just that there hasn’t always been anyone to react to those signs.

The program is intense and is meant to be. Ken Meyers found early that teens didn’t want a safe explanation of the truth. They wanted to know everything. They wanted to know exactly how Elyssa died. He hesitated at first. But now he tells them. She hanged herself, he says directly. There is always a deep, sad silence in the room at that news.

The program teaches — insists, really — that intervention is not a risk for a friend. It’s absolutely necessary for friends to accept that reaching out to help is the only true measure of that friendship and care. To this point, the program has allowed thousands of teens to identify themselves as at-risk and get adult help.

You belong to everyone who cares about you. And they belong to you. You cannot withhold that care. You must always act. That is the only safety net that catches a child ready to plunge. The SOS message is emphatic and consistent.

Joanne wishes with all her heart that Elyssa could have heard that message seven springs ago as she stood on the edge of her emotional Grand Canyon and saw nothing but darkness in the pit.

Wishes it with all her heart.

A Cry For Help?

SOS Signs:

• If several of these warning signs describe a teen’s behavior, they might at risk of suicide.
• Talking about feeling worthless
• Saying things like “I’m going to kill myself,” “I wish I were dead,” or “I shouldn’t have been born.”
• Visiting or calling people to say goodbye
• Giving things away
• A sudden interest in alcohol and/or drugs
• Purposely putting oneself in danger
• Obsessed with death, violence, guns or knives
• Isolation and loss of interest in usual activities
• Previous suicidal thoughts or suicide attempts.
• Talking, reading, writing about suicide.

What to do:

• Be willing to listen.
• Don’t keep the information a secret. You do not have to be certain that someone is suicidal before you talk with another person, preferably a trained adult such as a teacher, school nurse, family physician or social worker.
• Seek professional help. Encourage the person to see a physician or mental health professional immediately.
• If you know your friend has access to firearms, notify a trusted adult immediately.
• Don’t think threats are just blowing off steam.

Remember ACT:  Acknowledge. Care. Tell.

• Acknowledge that your friend or classmate has a problem and that the symptoms are serious.
• Care: Let the person know you are there and want to help
• Tell a trusted adult about your concerns.