Betsy is a former nurse who lost her son Collin one week after his 24th birthday. When I spoke with her it had been three years since he died. Betsy also has two other children who were Collin’s older siblings. I had met Betsy during a series of workshops hosted by an area grief center for individuals who had lost a loved one to suicide. We bonded as the only mothers in the group. I looked to her for guidance as she was a year farther along in her grief journey and her son was close to my son’s age. I knew she would be an excellent person to provide insight into the experience of a mother who lost a child to suicide as she is outspoken and a straight shooter. These traits are immediately evident in the beginning of our conversation when I explained that to ensure her anonymity and confidentiality, I will use a pseudonym when referring to her.

“I’d rather not have a fake name.”

She, like the other mothers you will read about on this site, have been open about her loss. Betsy even chose to address his suicide in his obituary. To honor Betsy’s wishes, I will not use pseudonyms for her or her son. She explained her reasoning.

“If we don’t talk to people, they’re never going to know, and, you know, we didn’t do anything wrong. Gina. Our kids made a decision and here we are. I don’t care if my name is put out there. I just don’t because I am a person. I have a name. I am Collin’s mom.”

Showing me photos from Collin’s childhood, Betsy explained how excited she was when she was pregnant with Collin. After being widowed at age 30 with a young child, she was excited to be in the next chapter of her life with her new husband. They had a daughter just 15 months earlier and now they were expecting a son.

“I ended up having him when I was 38 years old. I had to have amniocentesis, and everything was fine. . . . I was excited and thrilled to death, but it didn’t turn out that way. Well, life was pretty much difficult with him. He was very colicky, he was unable to self soothe but you look at his face, and you think…it’s got to get better. So, there was always hope, but it’s like a frustration, you know, doctors’ appointments, just trying to figure out what was what. Being sent to pediatric rehab for sensory integration to learn how to deal with these things….Then the psychiatrist and third grade, that’s when he was officially diagnosed with bipolar disorder and was hospitalized. I would always say, how can you have 3 children and they all be so different? My older son was different. He was 7 when his dad died in a car accident. Gosh, he was so mellow and Collin was… I felt like I was living in Hell. It’s just…I was exhausted…just exhausted, all the time.”

The photos of an adorable child and a handsome young man looking so calm and peaceful belie his reality. Betsy shared the challenges of mothering him but also lit up when she talked about other aspects of his life. Collin was athletic, and popular but faced academic challenges which created additional stress for Betsy. However, there was a period when it seemed that things were changing in a positive direction for Collin.

“He had more bad days than he had good days in school…he was very smart, but he hated school. So, it was hard to get him up and get him going. But then 6th grade to 9th grade was amazing it’s like “God, what’s going on?” But I’ll take it – I mean he was AMAZING. And it’s like -we have a life. Because we didn’t, we didn’t go out a lot and people didn’t seem to understand.”

It was heartbreaking for Betsy when she came to the realization that this change was not permanent. Her son would continue to struggle and as Collin got older Betsy encountered more intense situations. After years of dealing with her son’s on and off again drug use, she had decided that she could not continue with the cycle of frustration and hope.

“You know, we’d think we were out of the woods and that the drug thing was going to be over and whatever and … and then having to put him out and bring him back and put him out and bring him back and finally saying “enough is enough” and that’s pretty much when the end came. Then he said, “I need help” and he went to recovery.”

At this point, Collin was 19 years old and had already attempted suicide two times. His second suicide attempt was the impetus for a new trajectory in his life.

“The second time that he did, he spent 15 days on a ventilator with the catheter and feeding tube – they didn’t know if his liver and kidneys would recover.”

After spending almost two months in a hospital physically recovering, he was being transferred to a recovery house in Florida for his drug addiction. Betsy knew that this change was what would be best for her son but as she explains, Collin was not happy about this move.

“It was either Florida or Arizona but he wanted to come home and that’s when we had to say “Collin you can’t ever come home again, this is destructive for all of us”. And it’s hard and it still breaks my heart because when he left they were taking him down to Philly airport to get on the plane by himself at 19. And he called me to say how scared he was and then the plane was delayed and he said “I’m afraid. Could you please come back” And I knew Gina if I went there he would be coming home and I said calmly “I will talk to you until your plane gets going and you can call me when you get down there but I can’t come down. I can’t, I can’t rescue you anymore I know this is going to be hard but you are worth so much more than this”.