By Jonathan Dube

NEW MILFORD -- TEN LOCAL TEEN-AGE GIRLS have attempted to kill themselves in the past three weeks, highlighting what hospital officials say is a sudden increase in suicidal teens this spring.

Officials say at least a half dozen other youths, all between 12 and 17 years old, have attempted suicide by overdosing on over-the-counter drugs in the past few months. Many of the girls either know each other or know of each other.

Hospital officials said they were especially alarmed by a suicide pact among at least 15 New Milford High School girls, all of whom vowed to kill themselves if any one of them did. Several of the 10 who attempted suicide recently are part of that pact, said Frederick Lohse, an emergency room physician who treated five of the 10 young people. Lohse said the girls who told him about the pact would not give him a reason why they had made one.

"There have been more attempted suicides and talk about suicide this spring than I have seen in any other year in my memory," said Simon Sobo, the hospital's chief of psychiatry. "There does seem to be something going on."

But experts are puzzled as to what accounts for this sudden increase in suicidal tendencies among teen-age girls. Lohse said most of the teens he treated appeared to have few problems at home, at school or with their social lives.

One official, who didn't want to be named, said it appeared almost as though suicide was the "in" or "cool" thing for kids to do this sprlng.

"None of them seemed to have any good reason for doing it," Lohse said. "Just the shallowest of reasons."

Three girls, friends ages 15, 16, and 17, tried to commit suicide on June 7 while together in the same house, Lohse said. One wanted to kill herself for personal reasons, and the other two wanted to do so to "show her (the first girl) what it feels like to lose a friend," he said.

Some teens have written on their arms such phrases as "life sucks" or "long live death," officials said. Others, when questioned about their motives in the emergency room, replied, "It's so hard to live, I don't want to live anymore," or simply, "You don't understand, you don't understand, you don't understand."

All of the girls except one live in New Milford; the other lives in Roxbury.

Lorna Barrett, the director of the hospital's Mental Health Services, said teens are increasingly attempting to commit suicide not as a result of long-standing depression, but as a response to short-term problems, such as fighting with parents or breaking up with boyfriends.

"There j ust seems to be more of an adolescent acceptance of suicide as a legitimate way of coping, of dealing with problems," Barrett said. "It's almost become acceptable among the teen-age population to think depression is cool."

Barrett said it uas not surprising that the surge of attempted suicides involved girls and not boys. She said boys have other ways of expressing out-of-control behavior, such as drinking, fighting and committing crimes.

Most of the girls used a combination of Tylenol, ibuprofen, aspirin and alcohol to try to kill themselves, according to Anne Lillis, the hospital's clinical director for outpatient services. One girl cut her wrists. At least two of the girls took enough pills to kill themselves had they not been brought to the hospital. A number of them may suffer damage to the liver and other organs, although it is too early to tell, Lillis said.

Over-the-counter medicines such as Tylenol can be deadly if taken in large quantities.

"Overdosing on Tylenol is probably one of the most agonizing ways to kill yourself," Lohse said.

After being treated in the emergency room, some of the girls were admitted to the hospital, some were sent to the crisis unit at Danbury Hospital, and some were released to their parents.

Sobo, who met with the teens admitted to the hospital, said he believes the best solution is for parents to take greater responsibility.

"The pendulum of peer pressure has swung too far toward wildness and the pressure to be independent, and the parents have been really unable to prevent this," Sobo said. "It just can't be solved by psychotherapists and institutions. The only answer is for the parents to take charge."

With that in mind, Sobo has organized a special meeting on these issues for parents. The meeting will be Wednesday at 8 p.m. at New Milford High School.

"What this meeting is about is an attempt to help parents to regain control." Sobo said. "To tell the parents that they have to meet the parents of their kids friends, talk to them about where their kids are going, about whether they should be chaperoned. I think a lot of kids would really like it if their parents would re-engage with them."

Read the next article in the suicide series.

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