Full Transcript Introduction to Suicide Prevention Awareness 0:10 Welcome back to Daily Flash. 0:12 KSA Entertainment believes in helping our communities by turning a bright spotlight on awareness initiatives. 0:18 September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, and our next guests have decided to go public with their very personal story. 0:25 Please welcome Dr. 0:25 Amy Duffy and her daughter Maddie Duffey to daily flash.
Maddie's First Signs and Crisis 0:28 Good to see both of you. 0:29 Thank you for coming in. 0:31 This is a tough subject. 0:33 It's not an easy one to discuss. 0:34 Maddy, let me start with you when did you first start having thoughts of suicide? 0:38 When I was 13, I started cutting myself and really strongly thinking about taking my own life. 0:43 I never knew it was going to be as scary as it became until I in the back of that cop car getting driven to the mental institution. 0:49 If that would be like summer camp, this was no summer camps. 0:53 And as a mom, Amy, what's going through your mind in having this experience and watching your daughter being put into the bag of a police car? 1:01 I mean, you can imagine how scary it is watching you 13-year-old daughter come to you for help and end up getting put in a car. 1:08 You know, in the back of a police car, literally with a modern day straight jacket, I am a physician, you know. 1:13 I'm a doctor.
Amy's Perspective as a Parent 1:26 It's bright in your face. 1:26 You're right on the money there. 1:28 The shoulda, coulda woulda. 1:28 Your a doctor, you should have seen this eye. 1:30 This is your daughter, it's a mother's intuition. 1:33 Was there something that happened that sort of sparked your interest and said something's not right? 1:39 Well it was Christmas Day, we were sitting around the table playing Irishopoly and we live in South Carolina so it is warm. 1:44 Maddie was in shorts and I just noticed that she had cuts on this side of her leg. 1:49 and she originally said they were the cat scratches or something, and I knew that wasn't quite right. 1:54 So there was a little signs early, but then this experience of her getting a bit worse, we talked about therapy, she tried a lit bit, 2:02 thought she was feeling better, then suddenly came to me one Wednesday morning, five months later, having been up all night cutting herself with a razor 2:12 that she deconstructed from the bathroom shower. 2:14 So that was a very scary experience, and that led us to the hospital, which prompted the drive to that hospital mental institution in the back of a cop car. 2:23 And there maybe have been family dynamics come into play with mom and dad, is that right?
Family Stress and Social Pressure 2:28 Yeah, so we actually let her know that day on Christmas Day when we found out that he was cutting through that conversation that we were actually going 2:37 forward with the divorce. 2:38 We were definitely having a stressful time. 2:40 She's number two out of four girls. 2:41 So we had a busy life in a business household. 2:44 Definitely for me, having the mom guilt of being blindsided a little bit, but also just caught up in my own stuff and not really being able to recognize 2:54 what was going on. 2:55 And Maddie, why did you not feel comfortable going to your parents or even your siblings for help to say, hey, I'm not feeling quite right now? 3:03 I don't know. 3:03 It was seventh, eighth grade, so everyone else was doing it too. 3:08 Oh, and so there's social pressure. 3:11 Yes, yeah. 3:11 I was following the cliche, not so much with the cutting, but kind of acting sad, posting sad stuff on my Snapchat story.
Warning Signs: Withdrawal and Sleep Changes 3:18 Kind of all hit all at once. 3:22 And did you feed off of that? 3:24 Because I think a lot of times people go to social media, they're feeling sorry for themselves because they want attention. 3:29 Was that kind of what you were doing? 3:31 Definitely. 3:31 I was feeding off all the other negative that I making myself. 3:34 Which made it even worse, right? 3:36 Made it worse. 3:37 You've created a list of questions, a quiz for parents, and we've got some of them. 3:42 We want you to walk us through a few of these signs. 3:43 The first one, you've gotten sudden loss of interest. 3:46 If you notice your child has got a sudden lost of interests in something they love, that could be a sign. 3:51 Yeah. 3:51 Yeah, well, I lost all motivation to do anything, whether it was school, youth group, sports, even just hanging out with my friends. 3:58 I didn't want to it. 3:59 And that's a big sign. 4:00 You also say social withdrawal. 4:03 Yeah. 4:03 So in the same boat, I noticed Maddie staying in her room a lot, not really wanting to be part of the family events. 4:10 We're having dinner. 4:10 Do you want to come up? 4:12 Wearing your hoodie all the time. 4:13 And again, we see these.
Warning Signs: Appetite, Grades, and Hygiene 4:15 These are signs that you see all time, always on your phone, headphones, just really isolating yourself from the world. 4:21 Yeah, and just entrenched in a social media world, which is not healthy altogether. 4:26 Changes in sleep patterns. 4:27 Were you not sleeping? 4:28 No, I was not sleepy. 4:29 Really? 4:30 Yeah. 4:30 I would staying up from one or two, even three o'clock in the morning, just on my phone doing nothing. 4:35 And then I got my foam taken at night. 4:37 Still stayed up, Just doing Nothing and would find myself falling asleep in class almost every single day. 4:42 Wow. 4:43 Okay. 4:44 Loss of appetite or change in eating habits. 4:46 So I noticed Number one, all the kids took their lunch to school and Maddie stopped taking her lunch box. 4:51 She didn't want to do that. 4:52 I don't know if it was lack of appetite or just it wasn't cool to have a lunchbox in middle school, but we'd have breakfast ready in the morning and she just, 4:59 I'm not hungry. 5:00 All the time, not hunger. 5:02 Gosh, and you've also got a couple of other ones on the list, decline in academic performance and loss of interest in personal hygiene. 5:09 Yeah, I was a straight A student in the seventh grade. 5:12 Maddie, really? 5:13 And in my eighth grade year with three Cs and a super low B.
Message of Hope and Getting Help 5:18 Wow. 5:19 OK, what's the message you want people to take away from your book? 5:21 Why can't she see me? 5:23 But really just for people to recognize that this is not uncommon. 5:27 And like you heard, you know, a lot of kids are going through that, and that seems to be the cool thing to do, but really reaching out for help, 5:33 talking to a friend, another adult, parent, if you can. 5:37 Once I knew what was going on with Maddie, then we could move forward and really get her the help. 5:41 So she doesn't have to experience what she went through. 5:45 If we can just one life, one that we change, preferably save, that's really what our goal is. 5:52 MD.com is the website for more information. 5:55 Ladies, thank you so much for sharing your story. 5:57 Thank you.
Comments