Suicide Prozac 16/03/1989 Texas 21 Year Old Woman Shoots Herself
 Suicide	Prozac	1989-03-16	Texas	21 Year Old Woman Shoots Herself - RED
 
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 Summary:<br><br><!--StartFragment -->Paragraphs 27 &amp; 28 read: &quot;<strong>LeeAnn saw a therapist and a psychiatrist in the Dallas area and began taking the antidepressant drug Prozac.&quot;<br /><br />&quot;Apparently, it didn&#39;t help her.&quot;<br /></strong>_______________________________________________________________________<br /><br />Suicide among young continues to rise<br /><br />Experts say awareness limited because deaths still surrounded by stigma<br /><br />By Tracy Everbach / Staff Writer of The Dallas Morning News<br />Published 11-30-1997<br />Click here for a printer-friendly version of this story<br /><br />During Suzanne Sugalski&#39;s last telephone call to her daughter LeeAnn, the<br />college student assured her mother, &quot;I&#39;m OK.&quot;<br /><br />About two hours later, friends found the 21-year-old dead in her University<br />of Texas at Austin dorm room from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.<br /><br />Ms. Sugalski later discovered that LeeAnn had bought a pistol the day<br />before she killed herself and had practiced shooting it at a gun range.<br /><br />&quot;If people shared some stories with me before this happened, I might have<br />seen the signs,&quot; said Ms. Sugalski, who speaks to groups about her<br />daughter&#39;s suicide eight years ago.<br /><br />Suicide is the ninth-leading cause of death in the United States and the<br />third-leading cause of death among people ages 15 to 24, statistics show.<br /><br />Since the 1950s, the suicide rate among young people has increased more<br />than 200 percent, according to the American Association of Suicidology.<br /><br />Within the last two months, two students at Lakeview Centennial High School<br />have killed themselves, one by shooting himself in a school restroom. A<br />Richardson teenager also committed suicide.<br /><br />Nationwide, suicides outnumber homicides. In 1995, the latest year for<br />which national statistics are available, the nation saw 11/2 times more<br />suicides than homicides.<br /><br />Many people aren&#39;t aware that so many people kill themselves, because<br />suicide is surrounded by stigma and often not discussed.<br /><br />In Dallas County last year, 225 people killed themselves - 186 men or boys<br />and 39 women or girls, according to the Dallas County medical examiner&#39;s<br />office. The victims most often used guns.<br /><br />Medical experts and social services officials agree that suicide stems from<br />deep, internal pain. The person views suicide as the only way to end it.<br /><br />Dr. Kenneth Altshuler, chairman of the psychiatry department at the<br />University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, said most people<br />who attempt suicide suffer from major depression, a mental illness.<br /><br />&quot;It&#39;s a discrete, describable psychiatric illness,&quot; he said. &quot;The future<br />doesn&#39;t look good, and you don&#39;t feel good about yourself and the present<br />doesn&#39;t look good either.&quot;<br /><br />He said warped thinking is a symptom of the illness. The person does not<br />respond to reasoning.<br /><br />&quot;The mind doesn&#39;t bend,&quot; he explained. &quot;Many times people aren&#39; t aware<br />they are distorting things. That&#39;s why treatment is so important.&quot;<br /><br />Some signs of major depression include &quot;an enduring, uncomfortable<br />depressed mood that lasts for a couple of weeks at least, difficulties in<br />concentration and sleeping, feelings of guilt or hopelessness,<br />reclusiveness and problems with self-esteem,&quot; Dr. Altshuler said.<br /><br />Young people and their families report influences that can lead to suicide,<br />including academic pressure, the breakdown of the family, an increasing<br />divorce rate, a huge increase in alcohol and drug use among youths and easy<br />access to firearms.<br /><br />Ms. Sugalski said her daughter had some symptoms of major depression but<br />hid them well.<br /><br />As a teenager, LeeAnn was a star athlete, playing volleyball at<br />Richardson&#39;s Berkner High School, her mother said. When she started college<br />at UT, she joined a sorority and studied business.<br /><br />During 1988, her junior year in college, the young woman &quot;started<br />struggling and stressing,&quot; Ms. Sugalski recalled.<br /><br />Her mother said she believes a major factor was LeeAnn&#39;s birth father&#39;s<br />decision to drop out of her life after being involved for several years.<br />Ms. Sugalski and LeeAnn&#39;s father had divorced when LeeAnn was 5, and Ms.<br />Sugalski remarried five years later.<br /><br />Her father&#39;s abandonment was devastating to LeeAnn, her mother said.<br /><br />&quot;I wanted her to get counseling, and she didn&#39;t want it,&quot; she said.<br /><br />In October 1988, LeeAnn made a &quot;feeble attempt at suicide&quot; by taking pills,<br />Ms. Sugalski said.<br /><br />She was hospitalized for two weeks and her condition was diagnosed as<br />depression. But she also was embarrassed and didn&#39;t want to tell her friends.<br /><br />LeeAnn saw a therapist and a psychiatrist in the Dallas area and began<br />taking the antidepressant drug Prozac.<br /><br />Apparently, it didn&#39;t help her.<br /><br />When she returned to school for the spring semester, she told her mother<br />she was upset about a paper she was writing for a class. She couldn&#39;t<br />concentrate on it, her mother said.<br /><br />&quot;I think when the drug didn&#39;t work, she thought it was a hopeless<br />situation,&quot; Ms. Sugalski said. &quot;She thought, `Oh my God, here&#39;s the wonder<br />drug, and it doesn&#39;t work.&#39; &quot;<br /><br />LeeAnn had many friends and was dating another student at the time of her<br />suicide, her mother said.<br /><br />She repeatedly told her mom she was fine. Ms. Sugalski sensed something was<br />wrong, but her daughter&#39;s therapist told her he didn&#39;t believe that she was<br />suicidal. Ms. Sugalski said she&#39;s still upset about that diagnosis.<br /><br />The night LeeAnn died, her mother called her because LeeAnn hadn&#39; t made<br />her usual Sunday telephone call to her parents.<br /><br />&quot;She was sleeping at 8 p.m.,&quot; Ms. Sugalski said. &quot;I was very upset. I asked<br />her, `Have you thought about suicide again?&#39; and she said, `I thought about<br />it.&#39; &quot;<br /><br />Ms. Sugalski pleaded with her daughter to call her Dallas therapist, and<br />the young woman agreed. When she called back later, she told her mother<br />that her therapist had referred her to a doctor in Austin. She said she was<br />fine.<br /><br />&quot;She sounded calmer,&quot; Ms. Sugalski said. &quot;I mistook it for she was OK.&quot;<br /><br />At 2:10 a.m., Ms. Sugalski and her husband got another call. This time it<br />was the police, telling them LeeAnn had been shot.<br /><br />Ms. Sugalski said she thinks that if her daughter hadn&#39;t been able to buy a<br />handgun so easily, she wouldn&#39;t have killed herself that day in April 1989.<br />She is a firm supporter of gun control.<br /><br />&quot;Suicidal thinking can come and go very quickly,&quot; said Debbie Meripolski ,<br />executive director of the Suicide and Crisis Center in Dallas.<br /><br />&quot;The depression or unhappiness is there all the time, but the desire to<br />commit suicide comes and goes.&quot;<br /><br />Alcohol and drug abuse can be fatal when mixed with depression, Dr.<br />Altshuler said.<br /><br />&quot;If you add in alcohol and impulsivity, you have a pretty good brew for<br />suicide,&quot; he said.<br /><br />Other illnesses, mental and physical, can trigger suicidal feelings, Dr.<br />Altshuler added.<br /><br />Elderly people are the most likely to commit suicide. The suicide rate for<br />people over 80 is almost twice that of the general population, according to<br />the American Association of Retired Persons.<br /><br />If someone appears at risk for suicide, no matter what his or her age, the<br />best response is to talk and listen to him or her, Ms. Meripolski said.<br /><br />&quot;People in crisis have a critical need to talk,&quot; she said. &quot;Try to listen<br />in a nonjudgmental way. . . . Rationalization is not going to work.&quot;<br /><br />Ask the person outright whether he or she is considering suicide, Ms.<br />Meripolski said. Then get help from a doctor or other professional.<br /><br />Dr. Altshuler said that if the person &quot;is not responding with reasonable<br />confrontation, your best bet is to get the person into treatment.&quot;<br /><br />There are several types of antidepressants, and different ones may work for<br />different people, he said. The medicines may help a suicidal person feel<br />more hopeful.<br /><br />&quot;One of our problems is you can&#39;t get someone into treatment if they don&#39;t<br />feel they need it or want it,&quot; Dr. Altshuler said. &quot;That&#39; s one of the<br />reasons we hope the stigma on mental illness will be raised.<br /><br />&quot;Because you&#39;re depressed doesn&#39;t mean you&#39;re not a good or able person.<br />It&#39;s a matter of having an illness.&quot;<br /><br />Ms. Sugalski said she has come to terms with her daughter&#39;s death through<br />therapy and the support of friends and relatives. But she weeps sometimes<br />when she talks about LeeAnn.<br /><br />&quot;For 21 years, I was lucky to have her,&quot; she said. &quot;She was a wonderful<br />child.<br /><br />&quot;People think they can&#39;t mention LeeAnn because it will make me sad. But I<br />don&#39;t want people to forget her.&quot;<br /><br />The local suicide crisis line is (214) 828-1000. Counselors are there 24<br />hours a day. People who want to volunteer at the Suicide and Crisis Center<br />may call (214) 824-7023.<br />CHART(S): (DMN) Dallas County Suicides In 1996. PHOTO(S): (The<br />Dallas Morning News: John F. Rhodes) Suzanne Sugalski says she wishes<br />she had known the warning signs for suicide before her daughter, Lee 
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