“My daughter was laughing one day and the next she wanted to kill herself. No family is prepared for this."

Guiomar Aramburu says that as a teenager he had a mask.

He had been pretending to be normal all day and “let go of everything” when he came home in the afternoon and went into her room.

It was then that he self-harmed, with cuts on his arms, in response to the emotional pain he felt.

Fleeing from him, she attempted suicide twice.

It is a

that some kids consider at those ages when adversities become a world and problems seem unsolvable.

As Joaquim Puntí, an expert psychologist on the subject, affirms, "adolescence has incorporated that when you feel bad you have the option of dying."

This same week, the attempted suicide of a teenager and another completed one, both in Catalonia, have shown society that the problem is there and that it is urgent to address it.

They are not anecdotal episodes.

Suicide of minors between the ages of 10 and 14 has been on the rise since 2019. In 2021 (latest data published by the INE) 22 were registered, the highest number in 30 years.

Between the ages of 15 and 19 there were 53, below the average for the last four decades.

These figures are complemented by other disturbing ones: the main help line for minors with suicidal behaviors (900 20 20 10), which is attended by the ANAR foundation, has seen how calls for suicidal ideations and attempts have multiplied by 12 in a decade .

It is a piece of data with many limitations, the analysis of which is subject to confounding factors (it cannot be definitively affirmed that they call more because this behavior is really more frequent or because they are more familiar with the resource), but it is one more alarm signal.

Like the medical consultations.

The Spanish Association of Pediatric Primary Care has denounced this week at its annual congress that the mental health of adolescents has worsened in recent years: "Although the figures vary from one study to another, there is consensus on this increase,

The first time Guiomar ended up in the emergency room for an attempt to take his own life, he was 14 years old.

Today, at 24, she remembers that stage in a book that is being presented in Madrid this Sunday:

.

She told EL PAÍS a few days before together with her mother, Matilde González, who brings another point of view and puts a chronological order to some events that come to Guiomar's mind disjointed, as in a nebula.

Matilde has a date recorded: the night of the Three Kings of that year (2014), when they went to the theater to see a performance of La Cubana.

"We were like a happy family, we were all happy, including Guiomar."

At that time she was a stewardess and the next day she had a flight to Brazil.

In the middle of the journey, looking at her electronic tablet that was connected to an old cell phone that she had left her daughter, she saw photos of an arm "with cuts and blood" that were being sent to thematic forums. suicide.

“She gave me a nervous breakdown, I didn't know what to do.

I notified her father, who immediately contacted a psychiatrist specializing in adolescents, ”she says.

Matilde and her ex-husband (they had separated a year ago) did not suspect anything.

That Guiomar mask had worked.

“Adolescents don't count for anything, maybe you see that he doesn't have many friends, or that they don't go to his birthday, but it doesn't occur to you that he wants to end his life, you think it's age stuff.

My daughter was laughing one day at the theater and the next she wanted to kill herself.

There is no instruction manual to address it.

No family is prepared for this”, continues Matilde.

Cecilia Borràs, president of After Suicide-Association of Survivors, says that these feelings of the Guiomar family are very common among those who surround someone who has taken their own life: “We found ourselves in a beastly disbelief.

In many cases they could not imagine it, because their boys and girls had not mentioned it at all, had not detected a signal.

It shocks them a lot."

Behind Guiomar's case there was a mental health problem that surfaced then and is still being dealt with: he is bipolar.

At the time he heard voices.

That was coupled with the fact that he didn't fit in socially.

“We have never liked you.

We only got along with you out of pity, ”those who were supposedly her friends at the time told her one day.

As Benjamín Ballesteros, director of Programs at the ANAR foundation, says, the suicide attempt never has a single cause: "Suicidal behavior is nothing more than a symptom of serious problems in the minor."

The professionals consulted explain that there are substantial differences between adolescent and adult suicide.

Diego Palao, a psychiatrist who is an expert in anti-autolysis programs, points out that unlike their elders, most do not have mental health problems.

“Above all it occurs in vulnerable people who have not learned to respond adequately to frustration, discomfort, despair, the tunnel vision that adolescents have, who do not see beyond what has happened to them, with a feeling of deep anguish.

In many cases there is no psychiatric illness that can be diagnosed, although with the pandemic these have increased, ”he explains.

Puntí, who in addition to being a clinical psychologist coordinates the Parc Taulí adolescent day hospital in Sabadell, estimates that only a third of the adolescents treated who have attempted suicide suffered from mental illness.

The majority, he says, is due to emotional discomfort, "which is normal, but we don't know how to manage it."

For this reason, once a first intervention is made in the acute phase, problem management strategies are implemented.

With the implementation of these programs, which begin with a weekly session during the first month, they have managed to reduce the suicide retry rate from around 40% (which is the average figure reported in the scientific literature) to around a 10% in the more than 500 minors who have been treated since 2008.

In this learning they try to make adolescents understand that drastic decisions cannot be made at times when they feel bad.

"We are very clear with them: the only problem that has no solution is death."

They implement a survival plan so that when autolytic thoughts appear they come out of them: “We want them to do what they enjoy, watch a series, listen to music.

A very important protective factor is that they have their time occupied with healthy leisure.

And if this fails, ask for help.

It doesn't have to be to tell what happens to them, but to go for a walk, go bowling with friends.

Because they still don't feel like talking about it, but they feel better that way."

The next step would be to call someone to talk about it, if they think this can help them.

“We ask them to name a friend, an adult, a father or mother, a teacher.

But that they have them written down with their first and last names, and if possible, the mobile.

And if everything fails and they continue to be bad, before doing anything we teach them to go to the emergency room.

95% of the patients we see, one day after the suicide attempt, no longer see it that way.

Sometimes it is enough that a few hours pass for the ideas to come back”, says Puntí.

What can families do

For a decade now, the Catalan Association for Suicide Prevention (ACPS) has been working with families that have had a suicide attempt.

“We talk about breaking the stigma of suicidal behavior, being able to verbalize it.

It is the first challenge we have.

Here, a barrier that they have due to stigma and fear of being judged is broken,” explains Clara Rubio, its president.

“Then we provide them with active listening tools to teach them how they can better communicate with their children when they tell them they don't want to continue living,” she adds.

In this sense, Cecilia Borràs advises parents to offer to listen to their children, and not ask them the reason for their thoughts or behaviors, "since this makes them justify themselves."

“The question is what, what happens to them.

Or what can we do?

And if they don't want to talk to us, don't pressure them and find the right person, ”she points out.

Both talk about protective factors, such as belonging to a group to do activities.

“The bond is essential.

Adolescents need to bond with their peers and not having it is a huge risk factor, which is why it is very important to promote activities where they find this," says Borràs, who warns of some signs that parents should be aware of: "When there are changes in the routine, if you eat less, more, if you change the sleep routine.

Addictive behaviors are a risk factor.

Sometimes they leave things in writing, like sad poems.

There are many warning signs widely scattered in many types of behavior that are confused with those typical of adolescence.

That's why they pass us by."

Rubio adds the guideline that he considers to be the most basic: the son or daughter must be linked to health services, "ideally public, but if not, private."

The first thing families have to do when faced with a suicide attempt is to go to the emergency room for psychiatric care.

There are also several helplines, such as the one that the Ministry of Health launched last year (024) or the aforementioned ANAR one.

This foundation channels minors to more than 17,000 resources, depending on the municipality or autonomous community where they reside.

The problem is that public health usually does not have sufficient means.

“They give you an appointment every month or month and a half.

No matter how good a professional he is, he doesn't remember you, he has to look at your file to remember what the problem is.

The consultations should be weekly, but the system does not allow it, we need many more psychiatrists and clinical psychologists”, claims Benjamín Ballesteros.

In the case of Guiomar, he spent more than a year going to a private psychiatrist to receive a weekly session.

“If not, I still wouldn't be here.

And not all families can afford that, ”she assumes.

Today, she is a psychology student and she sees all of her past as part of the person she is today: “My personality has developed as a result of the events that happened when I was 14 years old.

It was horrible, but it has also given me the life I have now.

It has given me a vocation, an incredible group of friends, it has given me a partner, a life, it has given me an apprenticeship.

The process of learning all of that has been horrible.

But I've been able to rebuild my life and be a person I'm proud of.

I'm happy, I'm happy."

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