After the death of his friend, Stella Abel, Kaden Legron decided to paint his soapbox derby car like a starry night in honor of the girl who wanted to be an astronaut and print suicide prevention contact information on its side.
(Photo submitted)
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Stella Abel, left, and Kaden Legron, right, enjoyed racing soapbox derby cars together. He said taking his soapbox derby car to competitions now gives him a platform to talk about mental health.
(Photo submitted)
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Editor’s note: The following is the third in a year-long Journal-Tribune series called Stella’s Cloud, aimed at drawing attention to the growing suicide rate in Union County.
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When Stella Abel killed herself, Kaden Legron lost his only friend.
“I do not want another family, group of friends, co-workers or acquaintances to go through the grief of losing a sweet soul to suicide,” the 15-year-old student at the Marysville Early College High School said.
Legron is part of a growing number of what mental health professionals call survivors of suicide, the friends and loved ones left behind after a suicide.
Holly Zweizig, with the Union County Mental Health and Recovery Board, said grief experienced by survivors of suicide is very different from other forms grief and the questions often left behind are at times unbearable.
Janae Mulvaine, with local mental health services provider Maryhaven, explained that when someone loses a friend or loved one to suicide, the grief is more complicated because, “not only are you going through the ‘normal’ grief process, but you are also experiencing PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) from the loss.”
Counselors and mental health professionals realize that for a variety of reasons, including the complexity of their grief, suicide survivors are at an increased risk of suicide or suicidal thoughts themselves. According to a 2015 report from the Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention, a public-private partnership working to prevent suicide, young people appear to be particularly vulnerable after the suicide of a peer, though losing a family member to suicide increases the mourner’s suicide risk about 300%.
Kaden’s mom, Tracy Legron, understands that risk.
“I was terrified,” said Tracy Legron.
She said that after Stella’s suicide, she felt like a prisoner.
“We couldn’t leave him alone,” Tracy said of her son. “I would try not to cry in front of him or tell him how scared I was.”
Kaden had recently told his mother he was cutting himself. He said the long sleeves he had been wearing were an attempt to cover the scars. And the cutting? It was an attempt to cover a lot of things.
“Mostly, I wanted to feel something,” Legron said. “I literally couldn’t feel anything.”
He said feeling pain was better than feeling nothing.
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Legron, who admits he struggles socially, says Stella Abel was, “different from anyone I was used to.”
“She didn’t care that I was different,” he explained.
Stella shared her art with him and made him feel valued.
He talked her into participating in an after-school program and helped her to build a soap box derby car.
Then came Nov. 20, 2018, the final day before Thanksgiving break.
“It kind of felt different because I didn’t see her in the hall,” Legron said.
As they day wound to a close, several teachers and administrators came to Kaden’s class. They explained that his only friend had ended her life.
“I was just confused and obviously sad and scared, but mostly confused by why she didn’t say something,” Kaden said. “I had no idea that was coming.”
He reached out to his mom.
“’Stella is Dead,’ that’s all he would text me,” Tracy Legron said.
Tracy said she felt for Stella’s family, but there were other fears.
“It really hit hard, because he had his own issues,” she said.
In and out of therapy for years, Kaden struggled to fit in.
After Stella’s death, Kaden had new challenges to face.
Kaden said he would see Stella — not all the time, but enough. He said he would talk to her but didn’t really know what it meant or how to deal with it.
Stella’s appearances only added to Kaden’s grief, guilt, confusion and hurt.
He didn’t eat or sleep and that’s when the cutting started.
Kaden’s response is not unusual. In fact, counselors say it is normal.
“The grief of suicide is so intense, in some cases, the individual cannot stop reliving the day their loved one died and blames themselves for the suicide, which can lead to major depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation,” said Mulvaine, who runs a support group for suicide survivors.
Kaden exhibited many of the signs Mulvaine said counselors would look for in a grieving survivor.
“As clinicians, signs we look for in individuals are yearning to be with that loved one again that does not ease with time, we look at the continued difficulty re-establishing a meaningful life without the person who died and inability to take care of their own needs,” Mulvaine said.
She offered examples of “some red flags” including not taking care of basic needs, not eating or showering, sleeping too much or not enough, not taking medications and isolation.
“When meeting with family members or individuals who lost a loved one to suicide, we encourage the person to take time to grieve in their own way,” Mulvaine said. “We encourage identifying supports and surrounding themselves with those supports daily, we encourage self-care, talking about and sharing memories of the loved one they lost, continue to receive counseling, and join a support group of those who lost loved ones to suicide.”
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In the days following Stella’s suicide, Tracy says she knew her son needed help, to be part of a group, to deal with his grief. She also knew Kaden was resisting the help, telling his mom he wasn’t a child and could work this out on his own.
Kaden explained, “I thought I could move past it on my own.”
He said he has never planned his own death, but he has thought about it.
“But I have thought about what would happen if I weren’t here, who would even care,” Kaden said.
Eventually however, the pain was too much and it all came out. Kaden came home and began to cry. He blurted it out, all of it — the cutting, the pain, the visions, the fear, the grief.
Tracy knew she had to get him help.
The only therapist willing to see him on short notice was a marriage counselor. Tracy took it. She knew that while it wasn’t ideal, it was help.
Eventually Kaden began seeing a therapist trained to help children with loss.
“About a month into counseling, I started to feel happiness for once since that occurred,” Kaden said.
Kaden said his therapist has a way of connecting with him, even when he doesn’t want to talk.
“You’ve got to find someone you can trust, someone you connect with,” Tracy said.
Through the counseling, Kaden began to heal and move forward. He decided to carry Stella with him. He showed her art at a school event. He decided to paint his soapbox derby car like a starry sky, in honor of his friend who wanted to be an astronaut.
Kaden says he is now “on a mission to spread positive awareness about mental illness” and promote suicide awareness.
He hosts a Facebook page that offers positive affirmation as well as help, hope and resources for individuals and families struggling with mental illness.
“I think this helps me because I am getting my feelings out, but also because I might be helping someone, even if I don’t know them,” Legron said.
He added that he is “excited to see what is going to come of it.”
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As he moves forward, Legron is thinking about the future, about his future, about moving on.
“I want to go to college,” he said, explaining that he wants to become a physician’s assistant because he likes to help people.
Whatever else he does, Kaden said he wants to continue to help and encourage other people.
“We have to encourage people and take care of people. You never know, they might not be there the next day,” Kaden said.
He said he wants to spread awareness that it is OK to talk about mental illness, it is OK to hurt and it is OK to ask for help.
“Mental illness awareness is important, needs to be more talked about and be just like any other disease someone may have, it needs talked about and not shamed,” Kaden said.
He also stressed the importance of taking care of yourself.
“If you are thinking of hurting yourself or know someone who is, don’t think of it as a joke because you don’t ever know,” Legron said.
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Zweizig said Union County has a help line that can be called, 1-800-731-5577 or texted, 85511. A national suicide hotline can be reached at 800-273-8255 or by texting HOME to 741741.
Mulvaine said the Survivors of Suicide Loss group “offers a safe place for survivors and friends of survivors to share their pain and offer comfort and understanding to others who have experienced a similar loss.”
The group meets at 6 p.m. on the third Monday of each month in the Memorial Hospital cafeteria’s Terra Room.