Eight years ago, during a holiday at Disney World in America, Heleen Page first noticed the disturbing signs of depression in her son, Emile, then 9. Despite the dream holiday Emile was subdued. “It’s as if nothing is ever nice,” he told his mom.
Last month, a few weeks after becoming head prefect at his Pretoria school, he shot himself with his father’s gun. In a suicide note he sadly conceded he’d lost the fight against depression.
“I’m just too tired; I can’t cope with it any more. Yes, I’m dead, but now I’m in a place where I’ll always be able to stay happy,” he wrote to his parents.
Two months earlier Emile had told his older brother, Hendré (21), the illness had robbed him of five years of his life. Now the family wants to help other teenagers suffering from depression.
Heleen weeps as she recalls how Emile glowed when he became head boy. “I think it was the happiest day of his life. I’d never seen him blossom like that. He was happy, as though he’d found meaning in life.”
But when the excitement was over his dad, Pieter, realised he was tense. “It was as though he realised only then the responsibility of the position.”
Heleen realised Emile had reached another low point. “He said he’d now done it all. He’d gone to counsellors and psychiatrists and had talked to me. If that couldn’t make him feel better, what would? I had no answer for him.”
Tragically Emile reached the point where nothing could make him feel better. “It was not suicide that took his life, it was depression. He didn’t want to kill himself,” Heleen says.
Depression robbed Emile of his life but his death shouldn’t be in vain, his parents say. If they can help only one child they’ll have found meaning in their tragic loss.
*In the latest issue of YOU experts discuss the growing problem of depression in young children and teenagers and provide advice to parents.