FL - Police investigate 7-year-old's hanging death

  • #81
I wish, in cases of childhood suicide, there were "do-overs".

Ohh gosh, me too! I wish in all cases of suicide there were do-overs!
 
  • #82
I will apologize right off the bat to anyone who finds my opinions to be critical,but I can't buy this BS that a young child has suicidal thoughts.This is not an inborn behavior.How could such a young child decide that suicide would be an option for their problems.But...this day and age when little children are exposed to everything under the sun,well who knows what goes through their little minds.

Please know that although rare, there are young children in this world who want to die or have suicidal ideations. Suicide is the sixth leading cause of death among children ages 5 to 15! ( source- http://www1.nmha.org/children/prevent/stats.cfm )

I pray this boy has finally found peace.
 
  • #83
Ohh gosh, me too! I wish in all cases of suicide there were do-overs!

You're right. I was just thinking that if this little boy realized the finality of what he was doing, maybe he wouldn't have done it (kind of like kids who play a lot of video games and see violence and then commit murders, thinking that they can just press "new game" and their victims will still be alive).
But, that can probably be applied to anyone who takes their own life, child or adult.
 
  • #84
After 7-Year-Old Gabriel Myers' Suicide, Fla. Bill Looks to Tighten Access to Psychiatric Drugs

The apparent suicide of 7-year-old boy Gabriel Myers, who was taking several psychiatric medications, has led to the introduction of a bill in the Florida legislature, which would assure that powerful mental health drugs dispensed to Florida foster care children would be more closely monitored.

More: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20000546-504083.html

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  • #85
I want to throw my two cents in about this...just because it's so close to my own heart. The first time I was hospitalized with suicidal idealogy was 8. 8!!!! I'm bipolar 2 (finally diagnosed) and medication saved my life...but I was hospitalized at 8, 12, 16, 24 and 25. Don't discount him being bipolar or some other serious mental health issue....yes, I had some trauma in my childhood, but I truly don't believe it had much to do with my problems at that age.

Edited to add: just read the further articles about psychotropic drugs he was on....I felt as though this was something like that before hearing that. Glad they did try to help him. God bless his soul.
 
  • #86
Just thinking as an old psych nurse (it's been about five years since I worked as one), but unless the panel is going somewhere I can't see from the information given, the issue of medicating foster kids doesn't seem to be all that relevant.

If anything, the side effect of suicidality is more likely to occur when the meds are not taken for a couple of days (say the child refused to take them). Anybody out there taken yourself off of antidepressants? And felt the mood swings for those first weeks or so?

The other thing is some people, even children, are so damaged, so intent upon ending their pain that there's no stopping them.

Psychotropic meds are a necessity for many people. I don't see how they are a cause unless they were NOT taken. I don't think every child/adult can be saved, though we should proceed as if we should save them all. I hope this panel does not succeed in reducing the psychotropics given to children . . .
 
  • #87
Just thinking as an old psych nurse (it's been about five years since I worked as one), but unless the panel is going somewhere I can't see from the information given, the issue of medicating foster kids doesn't seem to be all that relevant.

If anything, the side effect of suicidality is more likely to occur when the meds are not taken for a couple of days (say the child refused to take them). Anybody out there taken yourself off of antidepressants? And felt the mood swings for those first weeks or so?

The other thing is some people, even children, are so damaged, so intent upon ending their pain that there's no stopping them.

Psychotropic meds are a necessity for many people. I don't see how they are a cause unless they were NOT taken. I don't think every child/adult can be saved, though we should proceed as if we should save them all. I hope this panel does not succeed in reducing the psychotropics given to children . . .

I'm not quite sure where the panel is going either. However, I just went to a training on psychotropic medications and children. It was taught by a child psychiatrist. One of the problems that she sees occuring is the fact that children are given medication, then experience side effects, are given medications to treat those side effects (seeing them as new symptoms), experience side effects, etc. It's a vicious cycle. In the case of foster children, they often times do not see the same psychiatrist long term and there aren't adequate histories on the children. By the time you have the 4th worker, no parent involvement, and the third psychiatrist, it's really unknown if the child was exhibting certian behaviors before being put on meds, or because of the meds. Maybe that's what the goal of the panel is, to have more continuity of care to make sure the children are really receiving the best care possible, rather than just medicating everything.
 
  • #88
FDA warns psychiatrist who treated dead foster child
The psychiatrist who treated the Broward foster child who killed himself last year is now in hot water with the FDA.

A South Florida psychiatrist who was treating a 7-year-old foster child before the boy committed suicide last year has received a warning from federal drug regulators who say he failed ``to protect the rights, safety and welfare'' of children enrolled in clinical drug trials.

In a strongly worded letter dated Feb. 4, regulators at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Dr. Sohail Punjwani over-medicated children who were enrolled in clinical trials for undisclosed drugs. One girl, the letter said, slashed her wrists while hallucinating.

Another, a 13-year-old, ``experienced sedation and dizziness during the study,'' the letter said.

(snip)

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/03/16/1531156/psychiatrist-gets-warning-from.html
 

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