A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy(63)

Pathway to Suicide


Dylan’s Junior Year



Dylan with family at a local restaurant, about three weeks before Columbine.

The Klebold Family





Four-hour lawyer appt was upsetting. The more we talked the more we saw how this “perfect” kid was not so perfect. By the time we were done we felt that our lives had not only been useless, but had been destructive….We wanted to believe that Dylan was perfect. We let ourselves accept that and really didn’t see signs of his own anger and frustration. I don’t know if I can ever live with myself. I have so much regret.

—Journal entry, May 1999





In his junior year, Dylan got into trouble. Not once or twice, but a few times, in a series of escalating events.

That makes this the hardest chapter in this book for me to write, because I know most people reading it will say: Hey, Sue: this kid was falling apart, and you just stood by and did nothing. What the hell were you thinking? The signs that Dylan was struggling were not overt or glaring, but we observed them—and misinterpreted them.

Now, the overwhelming majority of children, even if they are facing brain health challenges, are not going to commit a school shooting. If you live with a teenager, though, there’s a reasonable chance he or she is struggling with a brain disorder. An estimated one in five children and adolescents has a diagnosable mental health condition. Only 20 percent of those kids are identified. That is why parents too often learn or think about brain health issues in teens only after those issues result in violence, crime, or self-harm. Despite its prevalence and the danger it poses, brain illness in teenagers too often goes unrecognized, even by caring teachers, well-meaning counselors and pediatricians, and the most vigilant parents.

Left untreated, even the mildest brain health impairment can derail a young person’s life, and stop a child from reaching his or her full potential, a tragedy in itself. A disease like depression can also have much more serious consequences, as it sets many of the traps that snag children in adolescence: drug and alcohol abuse, drunk driving, petty crime, eating disorders, cutting, abusive relationships, and high-risk sexual behaviors among them.

In 1999, I did not know the difference between the sadness and lethargy I had always called depression, and clinical depression, which many sufferers describe as a feeling of nothingness. I had no idea that about 20 percent of teenagers experience a depressive episode, or that experiencing one episode puts them at higher risk of another. (A recent CDC report puts that number closer to 30 percent.)

I did not know that depression manifests itself differently in teenagers than it does in adults. Where adults may appear sad and low-energy, teenagers (especially boys) tend to withdraw and show increased irritability, self-criticism, frustration, and anger. Unexplained pains, whininess, sleep disorders, and clinginess are common symptoms of depression among younger children.

Neither did I know that the symptoms of depression in adolescents are often masked by the many other developmental and behavioral changes they’re going through, which may be one of the reasons diagnosis often comes too late. Parents may not be alarmed by a teenager who sleeps late into the weekend, or a good eater who pushes away his plate—“ugh, gross”—although changes in sleep and appetite can be symptoms of depression. Diagnosis is further complicated because many depressed children show none of these signs.

Dylan’s depression remained undiagnosed, and untreated. In this he was not alone. The vast majority of depressed teens do not get the help they need, even as their condition interferes with their relationships with friends and family and with their schoolwork, and dramatically raises the risk they’ll get into trouble with the law or die by suicide. In Dylan’s case, of course, it was both.

Tom and I did know Dylan was going through a rough patch. That year, the whole family was plagued by health problems and money worries. Tom and I spent quite a bit of time worried about Byron, who had moved into his own apartment. The overall difficulty of the year contributed to our failure to see what was right in front of us.

There is another reason Tom and I did not react with greater purpose when Dylan’s life went off the rails in junior year, and that is because he seemed to get himself back on track. At the end of that year, and throughout his senior year, after the damage and disappointment of the previous months, Dylan seemed intent to prove to us he was getting his life together.

I mention this not to make an excuse, but because it is such a common refrain among parents who have lost children to suicide. “He was so much better!” those shocked parents say—as Dylan seemed better to us.

To borrow a cliché, we thought he’d been scared straight by the gravity of the trouble he’d gotten into the year before. Unfortunately, the finish line he was moving toward with such clarity was not, as we believed, an independent life in a dorm room at the University of Arizona while earning a degree in his beloved computer science. Instead, it was a plan that would end in his own death, and those of so many others.

? ? ?

Things have been really happy this summer….Dylan is yukking it up and having a great time with friends.

—Journal entry, July 1997



The summer between Dylan’s sophomore and junior years was low-key. There was, however, one disturbing incident, and it involved Eric Harris.

Dylan hadn’t played soccer since kindergarten, but he decided to join the team Eric played for that summer, and they gave him a shot although he had no experience and few skills. We were pleased to hear he was joining the team, as soccer wouldn’t strain the arm he’d injured pitching. Plus, we admired his willingness to try a sport he hadn’t played in years.