In their final conversation with counsellors, Sailor, who identified as non-binary, felt weighed down. The 14-year-old described the mass of emotions in them as growing by the day, and felt they had nowhere to turn for help.
Their parents, Jason and Monika, struggle to get the words out when they think of their child feeling so alone. Despite a referral to the NHS a year before Sailor died, no official help or assessment took place. The teenager ended up taking their own life in September last year after visits to accident and emergency owing to self-harming.
“Our child was first referred by the school in October or November of 2020 and then later by a GP,” says Sailor’s mother, Monika. She says that at the end of June the family ended up in hospital after a particularly bad cutting incident that left them concerned.
“The psychiatric nurses gave a safeguard plan which involved locking up sharp items. There was no mention of suicide,” Monika says, adding that in later calls with health experts exercise was suggested as a solution.
Sailor’s parents hunted for solutions but private counsellors refused to take a child who self-harmed. “They were considered too high-risk and counsellors were worried about being sued if something bad happened … Both Jason and I over a period of months tried several times a week to get Sailor help and it was difficult. How hard can it be when you say you have a 14-year-old who is self-harming, has obsessive compulsive disorder and wants to identify as gender neutral.
“If you cannot get help for a young person dealing with all these things, it’s not surprising what happened. But it is heartbreaking as Sailor’s death was so avoidable.”
To get a quicker assessment, Jason and Monika would need to wait until “absolute crisis”, professionals said.
Sailor’s mental health deteriorated over lockdown but Jason says he feels a lack of funding is no excuse for poor support. “If you are in an organisation that is cash-strapped then work out how to best serve the people you need to,” he says.
Sailor struggled with school shutting and opening up and was more stable when at home. They were popular but their OCD symptoms could be triggered by going to school due to a lack of control.
“The humanity of this whole thing gets lost. From the perspective of mental health services it’s another person on a list, and to triage a child you wait until someone tries to kill themselves. But at this stage there’s a 50/50 chance of saving their life and in Sailor’s case it was too late. Our child died.”
Monika says Sailor was “not a difficult teenager” and was “not hard work”.
“They were creative, artistic and musical. I am not saying this because they were our child, it’s true. Sailor was not demanding and difficult like teenagers can be. We never fought, and I am a hothead,” she says.
The parents say it was hard to hear Sailor’s final comments. “Sailor was saying there was no one there to help them, and all Sailor wanted was to be taken seriously by a doctor or children’s services,” Jason says.
In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international suicide helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org.
