Dr. Richard Keller wrote a letter ~

Thank you Dr. Keller ~

“Many adults and youth are likely to encounter a suicidal person at some point in their professional or personal lives, but lack the skills, comfort level, and training to recognize warning signs or respond effectively…a community-wide cadre of trained “gatekeepers” may make a difference.”

A recent attempt to help develop a “cadre of trained “gatekeepers”” in Lake County middle and high schools met with minimal success. The Lake County Suicide Prevention Task Force will continue to push for that with materials developed locally by Dr John Jochem. We will be working with the Regional Office of Education Superintendent’s Office into the next school year in another attempt to get the material to school personnel at all levels.

However, to attempt to reach a tipping point sooner and to offer it to even more individuals who regularly interact with youths who might be suicidal I am sending the links to the material for your review and consideration. These materials are available on the Lake County Coroner website.

Letter to school administrators

Project Safety NET


Feel free to use the materials for education in your organizations, communities of faith, etc and feel free to disseminate them to others who might be interested.

Richard L Keller, MD
Lake County Coroner
Lake County Suicide Prevention Task Force

Peer Pressure ~ Parents need to Know

For All Parents ~ Knowledge is Power ~

~ Jon's Friend ~

I found this beautiful tribute to your friend Jon this morning right after you posted it on Facebook ~ I bless sweetie for honoring my son with your words. He will always be a part of your soul ~
Love you, Momma Mac ~

It is still hard for me to believe that my friend is gone. I can say that he always wanted to have a good time and be free.

There are so many pressures in life that we all will feel at different times and in varying levels of intensity. I guess he had slowly been fed up with a lot of those pressures. His recent mistakes, and problems with getting past them had driven a lot of the guys that were supposed to be his friends away.

People were dependent on him, and kept pushing him to be more and more without giving him any of the resources. He went from being a carefree teenager to a stressed, overworked man trying to pay back his debts to society for a mistake.

Literal debts, monetary debts. He wanted to find his light in the sun. His passion; that one thing that he could do all the time and escape. He searched through the many mediums; frantically trying to escape from the world that became reality too quick. He wanted to stay young, stay easy going and live like the rest of his peers.

In my book the system swallowed him whole.
It started with court cases and arrests; then that led to further experimentation with intoxication, and he had completely believed all the rehab self help BS that he was born with this intrinsically 'real' problem and there are all these steps to deal with it.

Those steps are for uneducated people I may add.

All the while, these ''rehab'' places are breeding grounds for the down and out drug addicts of society; and he developed his worst habits there. He was able to rationalize his pill use as part of a "problem" instead of something he knew wasn't him and should not be done. These people he was living with now were at their lowest points. He was re-socialized into a bunch of people worse off than him.

I used to get angry when Jon told me stories about his recent ''progress'' at the inpatient facility. It was at it's worst two years ago when he would make these outlandish loopy calls to me proclaiming that "he really sees his soul, and he likes to cry sometimes".....drawing and painting childish pictures that reflected that of an untied man. He had spoke as though they were his new friends. I'm sure this is part of my coping process in some unknown matter; but I'm angry at a lot of people for the way they handled Jon.

He was a person and just wanted to be accepted. That seems like an odd idea to one who is a part of the group; but when your suddenly shoved to the outskirts---you may be able to see through his eyes.