Joint funeral for Pakuranga schoolboys

Press, 16 November 1987, Page 6

Joint funeral for Pakuranga schoolboys

PA Wellington A joint funeral will be held tomorrow for two Pakuranga boys, aged 14, who died in what appears to have been a suicide pact, the “Dominion Sunday Times” reported.

The boys, pupils of Edgewater College, were found in a car in Elm Park, Pakuranga, on Thursday. The engine of the car was still running. A hose ran from the exhaust to the car’s interior.

Grief-counselling sessions were held for the other pupils in the boys’ fourth form classes on Thursday and Friday, said the school principal, Mr David Woulfe. Special assemblies were called at the school on Friday so forms could meet teachers to discuss the issue.

According to a friend, one of the reasons the boys were sometimes lonely at the school was because they were bright and in the top forms. He said they were sometimes harassed because of their intelligence and, in an attempt to conform, they changed their image to become more “trendy.”

Mr Woulfe said he was unaware of any changes and thought the change was unlikely. But others who knew the boys confirmed they had seen a change. Peer group pressure is recognised in some research as a contributing factor to teenage suicides, but it is normally linked with other factors. The National Institute of Mental Health said one study found the most common precipitating events for teenagers were problems with parents (52 per cent of the cases), school problems (30 per cent), problems with brothers and sisters (16 per cent), or peers (15 per cent) or a recent death (20 per cent).

The Mental Health

Foundation’s December journal, “Mental Health News,” identifies common characteristics of suicide from research done by an American psychologist, Edwin Shneidman.

Recognition of these characteristics, he believes, can help both the public and mental health professionals to identify danger signs and act positively to prevent suicide. His pointers, according to the deputy director of the Mental Health Foundation, Dr Hilary Haines, are a profile to suicidal thinking patterns, appropriate to young and old people. The characteristics are: Unendurable psychological pain, which is what the suicidal person seeks to escape. The immediate goal for anyone involved with a suicidal person is to help reduce this pain, according to Dr Shneidman. “Even a slight reduction in pain may make all the difference,” he says. Frustrated psychological needs — they vary from individual to individual. The search for a solution. Suicifle is seen as the only answer to a crisis or an unbearable situation. An attempt to end consciousness — to stop psychological pain. Helplessness and hopelessness. Dr Shneidman says this feeds the belief that suicide is the only way out. Constriction of opinions. “The suicidal person does not explore a whole range of options but can only see a total solution or a total cessation,” he says. Any potential rescuer has to try to broaden the perspective of the suicidal

person, “even if it means choosing the least unpleasant of various unpleasant options.”

Communication of intent. Dr Shneidman estimates 80 per cent of suicides have been preceded by clear clues to family and friends.

“Talking about suicide does not indicate hostility or vengefulness, but is done to get others close to recognise the extent of pain being suffered, often in the hope that something will be done about it,” he says. “Often affairs are put in order, references are made to going away and valued personal items are given away. Normal behaviour patterns relating to eating, sleeping, sex or work may change markedly.” Departure — wanting to get away from everything. Dr Shneidman says a rescuer needs to help the person tell the difference between the wish to get away from everything and the wish to end it all. Lifelong coping patterns. He says that if a person tends to cope with problems by quitting jobs, breaking off relationships and think about problems in either/or terms, then suicide is a potential problem to watch for in difficult times. On the same day as the boys killed themselves in Pakuranga, three other young people committed suicide in Auckland. A man, aged 21, jumped to his death from the Grafton Bridge in Auckland Central. On the North Shore, a Birkdale youth, aged 15, hanged himself in his home, and at Orewa, a youth, aged 19, gassed himself in his car.