A recent teen suicide leaves haunting questions about how to address one of New Mexico's most tragic problems.
Jenine Clifford's face greets visitors as they step out of the world and into the McGee Memorial Chapel. Her serene smile beams from photos pasted to a poster board resting on an easel near the building's front entrance.
A long procession slowly files past the patchwork homage-with "Neener Jelly Beaner" scrawled in marker at the top-and into the main chapel. The collage features miniature cut-outs of guitars, Fender amps and a Clue board game pasted between pictures of Jenine mugging with friends. Jenine sitting behind a drum kit. Gripping a microphone. Riding the crest of a wave on a body board. Hamming it up with her brother Mark. There is her Ski Santa Fe pass, casual hand-written words like "girlfriend" and a portrait of a young woman's face etched in pencil.
A sprawling bouquet filled with yellow and
red flowers sits nearby. The attached card identifies the arrangement as a sympathetic offering from the Parent's Club of St. Michael's High School.
Jenine Marguerite Clifford was six weeks away from the end of her freshman year at St. Mike's when she took her own life on April 13.
She was 14 years old.
Her sudden death exacted a devastating blow to all those she encountered in her short life, but it also was a tragic reminder of an interminable national-and local-health crisis.
The American Association of Suicidology estimates as many as 2,000 suicide attempts are performed every day in the United States by people under age 24. The rate of completed suicides in New Mexico is consistently twice the national average. The problem among the state's teenagers is so pervasive that last fall Gov. Bill Richardson convened a Youth Suicide Prevention Task Force in an attempt to comprehend why some 50 teens kill themselves annually in New Mexico.
"Teen suicide is generally a national health crisis, but when it hits home in your own community it becomes more tragic and absolutely incomprehensible," says Ana Gallegos y Reinhardt, director of the Santa Fe youth cultural center Warehouse 21. "You just never know why and it just breaks your heart."
Jenine displayed textbook warning signs.
She expressed her internal torment in an online blog and lamented a downward spiral she felt helpless to escape. Ultimately that was what consumed her. Not her love for music, movies and poetry. Not her desire to make people laugh. Not even the affection and support of family and friends. And-like all suicide victims-she leaves behind more questions than answers.
But right now those squeezed into the chapel are only concerned with celebrating the girl with the infectious laugh. The talented poet, artist, chef and musician with the uncanny ability to make people smile. It's beyond standing room. When all the pews are filled, dozens of people-most teenagers-take seats on the floor. Many bear faded "R.I.P. Jenine" tributes written in black Sharpie on their hands and arms.
The solemn silence is finally broken with an invitation for tributes and eulogies. Aaron Sanchez unsnaps his black guitar case adorned with a River City Rebels sticker and strides to the altar with guitar in hand. The 17-year-old's nest of curly black locks shield his eyes as he bends over his instrument and strums the opening chords to a song he wrote in Jenine's memory.
Don't let this go again, just say that we'll be friends
Sanchez sings.
Letting go of everything we loved just once again…my eyes are swelling shut from all the pain…everything will never be the same
…
The floodgates are open. A stream of kids approach the altar one, two and three at a time, plucking guitars, singing melancholy melodies and offering tender reflections. There are poems, scripture readings and innocuous anecdotes about sledding in the winter, swimming in the summer and warbling "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" through the halls of St. Mike's.
Jenine's memory is tethered to the names of friends like Paige, Cat, Alissa, Olivia, Teresa, Justine, Aurora and countless others.
"She was an original, an incredible;
Jenine's smile could and did light up any room," the obituary in The Santa Fe New Mexican read that day. "She gave her love generously and joyfully and was always there for those of us who needed her."
It was as complete a portrait as could be expected for a human work in progress abruptly halted long before its completion. The words written in the obituary and spoken at the memorial service said a lot about Jenine Clifford.
But they didn't say everything.
…Merde. i am in so much pain. This just proves that once i stop feeling depressed all the time, then it hits. This huge dark forbiding cloud of depression swallows me and will not let me go…just so all you konw, i am not just some stupid suicidal teen, there is more to me than that, but i am depressed… i want to escape. i want to stop wanting to die, and i want to stop wanting to cut myself, but it is just so hard, especially with things getting worse…i havent smiled a real smile and meant it all day, and SHIT, that is huge for me, cus i usually cant help but smile…
-Excerpt from Jenine Clifford's blog, February 25, 2005. Currently listening to:
American Idiot
, Green Day. Current mood:
Depressed
.
Merde
.
It's just a word. Three consonants and two vowels. But to Jenine Clifford,
merde
-the French word for "shit"-encapsulated the maudlin malaise and internal despondency that would eventually lead her to ruin.
The world is
merde
. People are
merde
. Life is
merde
. At least that would be the prevailing perception of anyone who happened upon the forlorn ruminations Jenine poured into her online journal. Her splintered heart was on display for all but none understood the true weight of her words until it was too late. Now they exist as a testimonial to the machinations that compel hundreds of New Mexicans to self-destruction every year.
Jenine was
user 9505565. She occupied a corner of the interactive Internet community for less than three months but during that time she left a vapor trail of clues about what she felt fate had in store for her.
The abridged Clifford's Notes reveal musical sensibilities both conventional (Weezer, Bright Eyes, Green Day) and independent (Suburban Legends, Hollis Wake, the Blue Waldos). Jenine read
Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
, played
Soul Calibur
and fawned over connect-the-Goth cinematic staples like
The Crow
and
A Nightmare Before Christmas
as well as syrupy romances like
The Notebook
. She also was a habitué of comedies like
The Simpsons
,
Friends
and
Chappelle's Show
.
The latter inclination reflects the most consistent representation of Jenine Clifford. A girl who easily shed humility in favor of hilarity. Someone who couldn't help but smile and compelled those around her to answer in kind.
"She was crazy," Sanchez says with a laugh. "She was hilarious. She was always able to make people smile, to make
them laugh…She was never afraid to help other people be happy, whether or not she was happy herself."
Jenine was not particularly happy the last two months of her life. Anyone familiar with her Myspace page-as many in her extended social circle were-could sense as much. Her entries reveal a tormented inkwell in which she dipped her pen to provide intimate details about her life down to what mood she was in and what album she was listening to as her fingers fluttered across the keyboard.
Her monologues exhibit the staggeringly abrupt transitions of an adolescent mind. One day Jenine giddily recites the
Veggie Tales
theme song and the next offers a vivid poem she penned that begins
Swinging back and forth on the rope holding me up/Above the people bursting with life, ending the misory and the strife…
One minute she frets about math homework and the next alludes to a prior suicide attempt precipitated by a failed relationship. In one breath she delineates the virtues of cherry vanilla cream soda before extolling self-mutilation in the next.
"She wasn't afraid to express what was on her mind whether it was death or happiness," Sanchez says. "It seemed like she didn't care what other people thought of her. She just wrote what she felt."
As a fledgling poet, Jenine's words were taken as literary, not literal. But the muddled verse of teenage angst attained disturbing clarity on April 13. Even her closest friends were blindsided.
"A lot of us didn't really see that other side of her much," Sanchez says. "She was so outgoing most of the time that [her suicide] confused a lot of people. It pretty much came as a huge shock to all of us. We never thought things were
that
bad."
Gail Griffith learned the agony of underestimation first hand. Griffith-author of
Will's Choice
, an account of her son's attempted suicide-thought her son's depression was being adequately addressed until he ingested a near lethal dose of his anti-depressant medication.
"My biggest mistake was trusting that Will wouldn't commit suicide because I didn't think it was in his nature," Griffith says. "I was stunned. He was always this joyous, bouncy kid. He was the last child I thought that this would happen to."
When it does happen,
friends and family are left struggling to sweep together the shards of a shattered life.
"Nothing could be worse," Griffith says. "The people who have lost a child are very reluctant to talk about it. Some people will never be able to talk about it. It's a rare family that can cope with something like that."
It's been more than three months since Jenine Clifford took her own life and her loved ones are just beginning to come to terms with their loss. Suicide is commonly shrouded with a stigma health-care professionals say is the biggest obstacle to effectively addressing the issue. But the simple devastation of such an act has an understandably debilitating effect on the articulation of those left behind.
SFR contacted several of Jenine
Clifford's friends and family members for this story-which was delayed two months in deference to their wishes-most of whom chose not to be interviewed. In addition, certain details about the suicide have been left out in respect to loved ones. Jenine's parents, Thomas and Camille, declined to speak at length with SFR, citing their own current lack of understanding.
"It's just too much of an open wound for us," Thomas Clifford says. "We've thought a lot about it but at this point I don't think we can offer any guidance how something like this could be prevented."
So, i have decided that i will not cut myself. I cant risk having people see the scars. Hm…i am deciding on weather i should go hang out whith Justine tonight or go to the Blue Waldo's last concert…
-Excerpt from Jenine Clifford's blog, February 18, 2005. Currently listening to:
Live Aus Berlin
, Rammstein. Current mood:
Mellow
.
The gravel parking lot at Warehouse 21 is filled with teenagers propped up by cars
as the sun melts into another Saturday night. Dozens of kids sit on the patio in plastic, paint-splattered chairs while several more pace aimlessly as they murmur into their Nokias. The building's doors are wide open but the checkered dance floor is vacant,
oblivious to the DJ channeling Tupac inside.
This wasn't Jenine's crowd. She probably wouldn't have cared to listen to obscure Colorado rappers bellow "Everybody in the 505 make some noise!!!" But this
is
where she frequently lost herself in the sweaty throngs writhing beneath the "Mosh With Love" banner as bands like the Suburban Legends bounced across the stage.
That is precisely what Jenine planned on doing April 13. Instead, her friends spent that night expelling their grief with pumping fists and dancing feet. The summer schedule at Warehouse 21 was subsequently dedicated in Jenine's honor and the program from her funeral mass has since taken up residence on a small memorial to fallen teens in a quiet corner of the bustling building.
Warehouse 21 was established in 1997 as a creative community for teens and has since become a social anchor for Santa Fe youth. The central mission of the organization is the empowerment of teens, a vital tool-experts say-for disenfranchised kids.
"When you're talking about youth suicide you have to talk about letting youth empower each other," says JoAnn Sartorius of the New Mexico Suicide Prevention Coalition. "Kids don't go with their problems to parents, teachers and counselors first. They go to other kids."
Reinhardt estimates some 28,000 kids have walked through her doors in eight years. Many are drawn to the concerts-booked and promoted by youth-but others come for guitar lessons, theater, art, poetry and a myriad of other offerings. For many kids it's a rare sanctuary from the emotional tempest of their formative years.
"All youth are at risk in some way,"
Reinhardt says. "There are so many problems. Peer pressure, personal problems, issues of self, relationships, rebelling against authority. We've all been through that. It's nothing different. Sometimes you just never know who is going to take that self-destructive path."
Mental health professionals also cite a laundry list of risk factors. Everything from depression, scholastic achievement and substance abuse to social isolation, lack of access to health care and access to firearms. Few individuals fit any one profile.
"There are those suicides that are imminently preventable," Dr. George Davis, director of the University of New Mexico's child and adolescent psychiatry department, says. "But there is also another group of youth that is entirely unpredictable. There are a lot of kids who are quite high-functioning, they are high achievers, they have good social skills, they have a relatively solid support structure but they simply can't tolerate minor narcissistic problems like breaking up with a boyfriend or failing a test."
Impulsivity is a common hallmark of youth suicide, which makes prevention difficult, but even premeditated attempts can be hard to stop if the preceding factors aren't recognized and addressed immediately.
Suicide was not a new idea for Jenine Clifford. The contents of her online journal reveal sustained depression, a preoccupation with self-destruction and an allusion to at least one previous attempt on her life. In addition, she had reportedly set aside personal belongings earmarked for loved ones in the days leading up to her death.
Yet while Jenine's online musings raise obvious red flags in retrospect, it's understandable they were originally interpreted as tortured treatises of a creative mind. But whenever there is an indication someone is prone to hurting themselves, the issue should be addressed immediately, even if it means breaking ranks, according to Cynthia Gonzales of the New Mexico Suicide Intervention Project.
"It's better to betray that trust and have
your friend stay alive," Gonzales says. "The guilt these kids feel is incomprehensible after their friend kills themselves. If they're in that position, it's so important that they tell someone."
Few people are willing to openly discuss issues like depression and suicide in detached conversation, let alone in the chambers of Congress. Which is why the efforts of US Sen. Gordon Smith, R-OR, are so extraordinary. Smith (a second cousin of New Mexico's third congressional representative Tom Udall) shoved the issue into the public forum when he successfully lobbied the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act-in honor of his son, who committed suicide in 2003-into action last fall. The bill authorized $90 million over three years to support efforts to combat youth suicide.
While Smith was pushing through federal legislation, Gov. Richardson was convening a 20-person Youth Suicide Prevention Task Force-of which Sartorius, Gonzales and Davis were members-to address the issue.
The task force submitted a 15-page report in January that called for $600,000 in additional funding, a strengthening of existing resources and government responsibilities and the creation of programs that expand behavioral health screening and referrals to treatment services in schools and community organizations. According to the task force, adequate health care is vital because 90 percent of youth who commit suicide have a mental health problem and only 36 percent of at-risk youth receive treatment.
The report is a solid step forward,
but experts say the road to effectively tackling suicide in New Mexico is still beset by a persistent hesitancy on the part of authority figures to broach the subject.
"Adults are generally really uncomfortable with this topic," Sartorius says. "But they need to let kids know that they have adults who they can talk to. If we don't empower kids or have adults that they can talk to, they have nobody."
Hello everyone. well, i am deciding weather or not to keep writing in these journals. if you want me to keep writing in this, then leave me a comment. well, Cat wrote me back, and im fuckin estatic. she might come back over the summer to visit!!! ahhhhhhhhhh!!! well, i am amazimgly bored, so someone should call me!!…and, im also really happy cus…well, i have my reasons.
-Excerpt from Jenine Clifford's blog, March 19, 2005. Currently listening to:
Sing the Sorrow
, AFI. Current mood:
Ecstatic
.
"We have about one person a day killing
themselves in New
Mexico and one youth every week," Sartorius says.
Such staggering statistics aren't new. New Mexico consistently tallies one of the highest suicide rates in the country.
What isn't readily apparent is why the rate is so high. Suicide is a difficult problem to pin down, but there is plenty of speculation why this is the Land of Disenchantment for many residents.
Substance abuse, access to lethal means and depression comprise the lethal trio most frequently cited as factors in suicide. Firearms are used most frequently in suicide attempts, including 63 percent of those completed by New Mexicans under age 18 in 2002.
"I would say the level of
substance abuse and access to lethal means are two leading indicators of a climate for a high suicide rate," Dr. Davis says. "But there are other factors as well. The social monitors can tell you a lot."
Poverty, unemployment and geographic isolation among them. Rural areas are historically hard hit. Which is why states like Wyoming, Montana, Nevada and New Mexico-all states with high gun ownership levels-consistently tally the nation's highest suicide rates.
Isolation also decreases access to health care and contributes to what the task force calls "the most formidable obstacle to future progress in the area of mental health." Namely, stigma and the chilling effect it has on dialogue.
Mental health in America has long been treated as a shameful secret. And those who've been caught in the collateral damage are even more reticent, racked as many of them are with the guilt that they could have prevented the tragedy. But even those who have stood on the tracks know it is no guarantee for stopping a runaway train.
"To blame yourself or the child or anyone involved is ridiculous," Griffith says. "Society deserves the blame for stigmatizing this illness. Death is the worst possible outcome of cancer. Suicide is the worst possible outcome of depression. But they're both treatable. Why is this so difficult to talk about? It happens all the time. It's the stigma I think that keeps people from putting pressure to make changes in the system."
It's a system already groaning under the strain of a limited number of professionals capable of effectively utilizing existing resources. New Mexico has made recent strides at financing the issue
but the allocations are a relative pittance compared to the enormity of the problem.
"This year we got $520,000 passed in the budget for suicide prevention issues and that's a huge development," Sartorius says. "You couldn't jingle the change in your pocket for what was given to suicide prevention in years past. But it's still going to take more than a half a million dollars to make a dent."
Griffith-who struggles with depression herself-says she wrote
Will's Choice
not out of altruism but sheer frustration at the lack of a support infrastructure.
"It exposes the inadequacies of the mental health care resources available for our children," Griffith says. "This is supposed to be the most protected class of people and we treat them the worst. As an adult, I've felt like I have resources. For kids, it's a crapshoot."
Getting help is only the first step. Reinhardt says intervention programs are readily available to those in need, but a critical loophole in the issue is how an individual deals with their despair.
"It's not like the community doesn't have resources," Reinhardt says. "I think the hard part behind all of this is when there's that private time when nobody else is around and impulsive behavior sparks in. I think in that private moment of one's aloneness there isn't anyone to help them but themselves and you feel totally helpless about that."
Davis cites the importance of confronting the problem as soon as possible, but also acknowledges that coaxing teenagers to open up about their innermost thoughts and feelings can be a Herculean task.
"Adolescents are consistently non-compliant patients," Davis says. "I think they are more resistant to being treated than any other age group."
As for Jenine Clifford, she had reportedly sought professional help before she took her own life.
"I knew she was going into [counseling]," Sanchez says. "That was fine. A lot of us would much rather have that happen than have what happened happen."
Sometimes what happened
happens anyway. When it does, even the experts are left at a loss to explain why.
"We walk a real fine line here as professionals saying that we have all the answers, because obviously we don't," Gonzales says. "Even though it sounds like she was getting help she still went through with it. I don't think anyone has an answer for that."
Gothic dirt poisons the heart on its way through the veins/It seeps into the tortured soul and starts to destroy the sanity/And now i nurse my broken heart which was shattered in a matter of seconds/Back to its original state of matter, to a point where i can live again/But as i try to breathe, my lungs will not take in air/And i wish things had gone differently as i close my eyes forever.
-Jenine Clifford's final blog entry, March 20, 2005. Currently listening to:
The White Album
, The Beatles. Current mood:
Optimistic
.
April 18 was a beautiful day. The sun
was shining, the sky was
blue, and the snow-capped Sangre de Cristos were smiling their pearly whites above Santa Fe. Class was in session at St. Michael's High School. Only six weeks until summer vacation.
Idle days were the furthest thing from the minds of the kids packed inside Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church to pay their respects to Jenine Clifford. The hustle and flow of traffic on Guadalupe Street wafted inside the church where rites were given and prayers were offered.
A reading from the Book of Wisdom. Psalm 103. The Letters of Paul to the Romans. Communion was given. Songs were sung. "Hosea," "Here I Am Lord," "You Are Mine," and, finally, "On Eagles Wings" as the Clifford family filed slowly down the aisle on their way to deliver Jenine to her final resting place.
Jenine's friends and family may never truly know why she took her own life. But experts say continuing to talk and deal with such issues helps prevent more tragedies.
"We know that the more knowledge
we can impart on people the more kids we can catch," Gonzales says. "None of us could continue doing this if we thought we couldn't save lives. We know we save lives. And we believe we can save more."
And it's an uphill battle." You put your heart and soul into this and still there are suicides," Sartorius says. "It's very draining work. But every time I get discouraged, my dear husband says to me 'Remember that the ocean is filled with individual drops of water; just keep putting your drops in.' That's really all we can do."
July 24 would have been Jenine's 15th
birthday. The day looms as another tragic reminder that the crushing grief will linger longer before it fades. "I think it's hitting people a lot harder now than it was maybe two weeks afterwards," Sanchez says. "But we all talk to each other all the time. We're always there for each other. We don't want anything to happen to anyone else."
On the back of the funeral program was a romantic rebuttal to the hopelessness and despair that pervaded much of Jenine's poetry, a composition she had written titled "Back Again."
I see two stars in a summer's night/Hovering, lost, in blinding light/Each so dull in heaven's net/So each remains, as yet unmet/But fortune moves in strangest ways;/It lengthens nights, it shortens days/May this night end, and day begin/And bring two people back again
.
Helping Hands
Resources for at-risk youth and their families.
24-Hour Crisis Line (New Mexico):
1-888-920-6333
24-Hour Crisis Line (National):
1-800-SUICIDE
Ayudantes (
):
438-0035
Catholic Charities of Santa Fe:
424-9789
Gerard's House (
):
424-1800
New Mexico Suicide Intervention Project
(Crisis Line):
820-6333
(Counseling):
820-1066
New Mexico Suicide Prevention Coalition (
):
401-9382, 505-266-3134
Santa Fe Rape Crisis Center (
):
986-9111
Southwest Counseling Center:
471-8575
Student Health Clinics/Counselors
Santa Fe High:
467-2439
Capital High:
467-1081
St. Michael's:
983-7353
Desert Academy:
992-8284
Warehouse 21 (
):
989-4423
Compiled by Farren Stanley and Laura Parisi.
