43
Mahoning County clergy instructed in prevention of suicide
YOUNGSTOWN
Diane Baytosh grew up a lost child.
“I was like a shadow in a world of active people,” she said, telling her story of depression and suicide attempts and recovery at this week’s Mahoning County Suicide Prevention Coalition’s gatekeeper training for clergy.
Baytosh said she was so shy and isolated as a child growing up in Liberty that she began seeing a therapist at an early age and continued through her years at Ursuline High School.
Despite her problems, she graduated from John Carroll University in Cleveland and worked as a finance manager for three different offices.
But on Oct. 28, 1998, she attempted suicide, the first of several attempts to take her own life.
No longer able to work, Baytosh said she spent much of her time from 1998 to 2006 in psychiatric wards at local hospitals and eventually was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, also known as manic depression.
Through a process of trial and error, she got the correct medication combination to make her symptoms manageable, and in 2006, began working at Help Hotline Crisis Center as a part-time community-center worker.
Today, at 46, she is a peer-support specialist at Help Hotline, teaches classes on mental illness and recovery and leads a support group for those with mental illness.
She is, she told the clergy, living proof that recovery can work.
But before treatment and recovery can occur, someone has to recognize and act upon the warning signs of depression and suicide.
The reason for training clergy is because they, along with the family doctor, are who people go to most when they are considering suicide, said Ronald Marian, director of the Mahoning County Mental Health Board.
“We wanted to train the clergy as gatekeepers, because many times, people turn to their clergy for support, and we wanted to make sure they are aware of all the good support programs available,” said Duane Piccirilli, chief executive officer of Help Hotline.
The Suicide Prevention Coalition is funded by the mental-health board and the Help Hotline Crisis Center.
The problem is too big for any one provider or group of providers to handle themselves. Suicide is the third-leading cause of death among young people in the United States. The support of the whole community is needed, Piccirilli added.
Robert Conkey, director of admissions and special projects at D&E Counseling Center, said that it’s a myth that talking about suicide in an educational setting will cause people to commit suicide.
Teaching kids and gatekeepers how to identify the signs is key to D&E’s Linkages, a school-based depression awareness and suicide prevention program.
It also is a myth that people who talk about committing suicide will never do it. Talking about it is really a call for help, Conkey added.
The Rev. Ralph Edwards, pastor of Good Hope Lutheran Church in North Lima, said he has worked with five children considering suicide in the last two years whose parents were not aware.
He said training sessions such as the Suicide Prevention Coalition are valuable, not only for the information about suicide warning signs, but for the contacts and to put a face on people he might call for help.
“They let you know you are not alone and where to go for help when they don’t have all the answers,” the Rev. Mr. Edwards said.
The sessions help connect the spiritual community with the social-services community and increase the knowledge of clergy about the symptoms of children at risk for suicide, said the Rev. Tarone Claybrook, executive director of Heart Reach Ministries in Youngstown.
Heart Reach Ministries, through its Super Kids Program, has contact with a thousand kids a month, the Rev. Mr. Claybrook said.
Suicide is not prevalent, but the symptoms, such as depression, are. Some clergy engaged in counseling may need training to recognize the signs, and if they can’t deal with it, they can at least make a referral to the appropriate agency, he said.