As I sit here reflecting on my journey of the last 3 years and a little more I can't help but marvel at the fact that I have made meaning out of my son's death. So his legacy lives on through me. I have a passion to help other parents that are going through this experience as I have. More than that I have a passion to try to prevent what happened to my son happening to other teens. E. M. D. R is a trama victims treatment, it has been used in the Oklahoma City bombing and for other not so traumatic events in our lives. One of the uses is for people that were abused in some way as a child.
A lot of our children where victims of some kind of abuse in their lives, it may have been bully's sexual, physical or emotional abuse. What I have learned about E. M. D. R is that it helps us deal with the trauma in our lives. One personal story I heard was of a girl that was raped. Her father thought she was going to be a victim of suicide like my son but got her the E.M.D.R therapy and it saved her.

I am also a survivor of suicide because of that same treatment for trauma. Without it I do not think I would have come to an understanding of my own grief at losing my son to suicide. Especially because I was in my home when my son shot himself. I guess what Iris Bolton says in her book, "My Son, My Son" is true because as I have looked for the gifts my son's death would give me I have found them. I am a crusader for youthl. I am a crusader for parents that have been through this grief and I am a firm believer that in spite of the tremendous grief I feel at the loss of my son, I am a better person for having lived through it all. Trust me I mean lived! Sometimes fighting for every bit of life I could grasp but now realizing that I do have a full life. A wounded life but a life that is worth living.

My one question is this. Where is E. M. D. R in depression that may or may not be related to abuse in childhood with teens? Too many of them where abused in some manner, shape, or form in their childhoods. Could we  not make this treatment more avialable in the treatment of teen depression, especially if we have hints that it may be due to childhood trauma? After what that treatment has done for me and my other son that was there when Stephen killed himself it makes me think that if that could help me deal with the trauma's of my life and his how much more could it help a teen that is in desperate need of the abiltity to deal with trauma that has happened no matter how big or small.

Please check out the web site for the E.M.D.R Network at this location for more information on this form of trauma treatment:

http://www.emdrnetwork.org/

My son's legacy is this. Please help our teens deal with the trauma's that may have led them down this road to contemplate or complete suicide. I am now a crusader to try to help those that help teens be aware of this form of treatment and be there to listen to them when they feel totally helpless. As a parent it is hard for us to hear our children but we need to listen because they do need to be heard.