The Turmoil Inside Comic Strip’s Examination Of Teen Suicide Focuses Attention On A Problem That Affects Every Community

Today, faithful readers of the Funky Winkerbean comic strip will discover one of its characters has attempted suicide.

Susan Smith, a smart, sensitive high school student, has swallowed a bottle of pills because she’s discovered the teacher she loves plans to marry someone else.

In a world of shifty-eyed cats, talking ducks and running gags, Susan Smith’s suicide attempt may appear jarringly real. So real, in fact, that several newspapers have refused to run the strip. But cartoonist Tom Batiuk hopes to raise awareness of this serious issue at a time when teen suicide rates have reached an all-time high.

Batiuk’s primary message: “Those moments will pass. Suicide is an awfully poor choice. Things do get better.”

The Buffalo News in Buffalo, N.Y., rejected the strip partly because so many of its readers objected when Farley the dog died in a recent story line of the “For Better or Worse” cartoon. Editors there didn’t want to further upset their readers with a strip on suicide.

Mary Kunz, comics editor at the Buffalo News, says, “I just think the whole subject is too complex for the comics page.”

But Batiuk, who lives in Medina, Ohio, points out that comic strips seem to be cycling away from gag-aday cartoons. He believes the comics are an art form that can be used to address real, human issues.

“I obviously think the medium can handle that,” says Batiuk. “I think if it were any other medium - books, theater, movies - that question wouldn’t come up.”

For those who don’t regularly read the strip, Susan is a straight A student at Westview High School who has developed a crush on her teacher, Les.

Unaware of Susan’s feelings, Les has been absorbed in his own romance with Lisa, who has been planning to move to France.

Les tape-recorded a marriage proposal to Lisa and placed it in the school mail tray, but Susan stole it from the tray. Distraught when she discovered her teacher didn’t love her, she attempted suicide. She survives.

At first, Batiuk contemplated this story line and rejected it.

“Then I thought, ‘If it’s going to be done, it should be a positive piece, that shows it doesn’t have to end in tragedy, that a person can recover from it and life goes on.”’

The story line, devised as “a cautionary tale,” emerged.

The timing of Batiuk’s story line seems appropriate in Spokane, where a new suicide prevention task force plans to launch a massive suicide prevention campaign this fall.

Modeled after the CPR classes which teach life-saving techniques in churches, schools and fire stations, the new program will be called QPR, for Question, Persuade and Refer, and will be designed to teach “heartto-heart resuscitation” to the public.

“The major message I want to get across: Suicide is a really difficult subject, but it’s really hopeful because it’s one of the most highly preventable causes of death there is,” says Deanna Cooper, coordinator of the Spokane County Suicide Prevention Task Force.

Local suicide prevention experts point to a dismal list of reasons for a recent increase in teen suicide: isolation, lack of connection to parents and other significant adults, heightened pressures to achieve, a Generation X sense of hopelessness and a pop culture that glorifies suicide.

Paul Quinnett, a Spokane clinical psychologist and author of “Suicide: The Forever Decision,” believes teens need to hear a firm message:

“Suicide is a bad idea all the way around,” he says. “It’s not glamorous. It’s not romantic.”

Dean Beaudry wrote a note before he killed himself. In it, he said, “I don’t want to hurt anybody.”

Yet his suicide at age 23 devastated his entire family.

“There’s not one thing in my life that will ever be the same,” says his mother, Jacqueline Beaudry of Spokane. “There won’t be a holiday, there won’t be a vacation that hasn’t changed forever.”

Jacqueline, a computer technician and member of a Spokane suicide survivors support group, believes parents must work harder to truly listen to their children.

“I think through the years, my son had told us many times he held this as an option,” she says.

“When my son was small, he would get angry and say, ‘I hate myself. I hate myself. I’m gonna go kill myself.’ I think we just poohpoohed it. As the years went on, as he kept running into brick walls, it became a more viable option.”

Lisa Mattson, a school counselor at Shadle High School, regularly listens to students who contemplate killing themselves.

“I have students who refer to Kurt Cobain (the Nirvana star who killed himself in April 1994) when they’re speaking to me,” she says. “Rather than saying ‘I feel depressed, I feel really awful,’ they might say, ‘You know that singer? You know, that’s me. That’s like where I’m at.”’

Like a high fever during a childhood illness, a teen’s suicide crisis is usually mercifully shortlived.

“If I can just get them through the high-fever part, we can deal with the rest,” Mattson says. “The high fever doesn’t go on for three weeks. It subsides and there’s still an underlying problem to be addressed.”

The No. 1 issue for the students whom Mattson counsels is their relationship with their parents. They’re yearning to be heard and accepted.

Parents must develop the patience to sift through the blue hair, the “like, you knows,” and the “well, duhs” to simply listen without judgment.

Mattson has discovered that teens love to go out for coffee or ice cream and share a meaningful conversation with a parent.

When that happens, they return to school excited. They’ll tell Mattson, “It was so cool. My mom and I just sat there and we talked.”

People of any age who weather a suicide crisis often go on to live creative, courageous lives, says Quinnett.

“The message may be that something needs to die, but not you,” he says. “It may be a relationship. It may be a career. It may be a dream. It’s not you.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Staff illustration by A. Heitner; picture from Funky Winkerbean comic strip

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: SUICIDE WARNING SIGNS Prolonged depression (crying, sleeplessness, loss of appetite). Trouble eating, sleeping, concentrating. Withdrawal from friends, family and regular activities. Unusual neglect of appearance. Sudden changes in behavior (withdrawal, apathy, moodiness). Excessive fatigue. Suicide threats. Alcohol and drug abuse. Statements revealing a desire to die. Making final arrangements.