TheBakersfieldCalifornian.com

Let's call him Matt. He's a 17-year-old high school senior who enjoys soccer, has a girlfriend and plans to go to college. Last summer he had a part-time job, which gave him a little additional independence -- much needed in view of the fact that his mother, a hard-working single parent with two younger kids, wasn't exactly in position to finance any extravagant wants.

But things changed last summer. His friends started growing apart from him. His best friend was smoking pot and hanging out with people he didn't care for. Matt, not interested in becoming a "pot head," backed off a little on the friendship. It helped that his girlfriend provided him some refuge, but one week into the school year she unceremoniously dumped him. Matt texted her a few times in the days that followed, trying to keep a flicker of something going, but she didn't respond.

Distant friends, an ex-girlfriend who'd moved on, a mother so preoccupied with work and her other kids she seemed to barely notice him: It was too much, and Matt fell into a deep funk. He actually thought about suicide.

Here's where the story might have gone either way. Matt might have spoken to a teacher or a school counselor or some other adult he trusted. He might have insisted that his mother stop running from one responsibility to the next long enough to actually listen to him. But he didn't: That would have been dorky. And almost as painful as the pain he was feeling already.

Then one day at school he spotted his ex-girlfriend among a group of friends, and as he walked past, she started laughing. At him? To Matt, it seemed so.

That evening, locked in his room, "finishing homework," Matt sent his ex a text message: "I don't belong here anymore. I love you. Goodbye." He stared at his mobile phone screen for a full minute, but there was no response. Quietly, he walked down the hallway leading to the garage. He tossed an orange extension cord over a rafter beam, climbed atop an old dresser and secured the cord around his neck. He paused for a moment. Then, clenching his teeth, he stepped off into space.

Matt isn't just one boy, he's seven -- a composite of the seven confirmed suicides in Kern County between 2008 and 2010 that involved kids between the ages of 15 and 17. Jane Yadon, a supervising public health nurse with the Kern County Department of Public Health, looked at each of those seven cases and noted certain commonalities. The factors that led hypothetical Matt to a tragic (and erroneous) conclusion -- that there was nothing left for him in this world -- as well as the actual circumstances of his death, turn up with remarkably little variation in each of the actual suicides.

Of the seven suicide victims, all were actively enrolled in high school. Five were boys. Five died from hanging. All but one suicide occurred at home. Virtually all had problems with social issues, whether it was discord with school friends, disharmony with parents or a broken romantic relationship. Few had any sort of serious academic problems or drug/alcohol issues.

But they differed in how they expressed their pain. Four had a history of suicidal expression or past mental health treatment, and three did not. Four left suicide notes, and three did not. It bears noting that those who did leave warnings or farewells left electronic text messages, not handwritten notes -- and they sent them to peers, not their parents.

Rudy Hernandez, a psychiatric social worker with Kaiser Permanente in Bakersfield, knows these stories well.

"The teens in these cases are always going through some kind of stressor -- family stress, divorce, peer groups stress, relationship stress," he said. "Often it's a breakup, and they catastrophize."

Some teens get help in time. Some never seek it. And some let help slip through their fingers. Hernandez still wonders about "John," who agonized over the impending divorce of his parents, a likelihood brought about largely by the behavior of his abusive father.

"His glass was just too full," Hernandez said. "His parents went into his room one night and found he had consumed over 100 pills -- Tylenol, Benadryl. They found notes on how he was going to hang himself, and saw he had some type of rope. He spent a couple of days in the hospital."

They saved John that night.

"But the father was still angry," Hernandez said. "It wasn't him (at fault) -- it was everybody else. John dropped out of therapy and I haven't seen him since."

That's an additional level of tragedy that turns up all too often in suicide cases: A family makes a preliminary save, but fails to seize the gift of a second chance.

The way to fight suicide is to head it off before the first serious attempt. Let kids know that difficult times will pass. That's the message of the Kern County Network for Children's advocacy committee, which has recognized September as Suicide Prevention Month. But it's a 12-month task. Need an ear? Call 800-784-2433.

rprice@bakersfield.com