A Last Cry for Help

I lost my son to suicide last year and I have finally come to terms with it in my mind. I am bi-polar as well and I had a mother who wouldn't tolerate a depressed 15 year old kid in 1980...wow, this is going to be a throwback. I believe everything happens in a synchronous timeline, even death.I downloaded this from TOASTnJAM 's youtube channel not knowing what is was about, I just enjoy old TV movies on occasion.

I just came out of a two week clinical depression. I seem to grieve losing my son like he just passed away during those cycles. If there is any silver lining to living with bi-polar it's that over time we learn to distinguish circumstantial depression from clinical depression.Knowing the difference can save your life because then you can get properly medicated. It is nice when you can find something that works. Sadly, as the person in my son's life who caught him when he became withdrawn, I was taking an improperly low dosage of my medication, lamotragine, and I too was very withdrawn that week. We were both laughing, being normal as could be not days before. After going up on my dosage of my prescribed lamotragine and dropping welbutrin completely(ugh what a horrible drug!), the day before my son's memorial service I felt the distinctly chronically agonizingly dark clinical depression lift and go away. I was still in shock and dealing with the circumstantial grief and depression of his death, yet my bi-polar clinical depression subsided. If my mother were still alive I'd say, " Mother, THAT is the difference!".

Losing my only child of 21yrs. 10mo., my only son, and having raised him by myself since he was 17mo. old...I assure you, the pain of grief and depression do lift, but if for ANY REASON you are suicidal, get help NOW! My son called a local mental heath clinic. Instead of seeing EVERY NEW DEPRESSED PATIENT THE SAME OR NEXT DAY, LIKE SHOULD BE A FEDERAL LAW, they gave him an appointment for 10 days away. That was too late. Listen, if they call it means they are serious!! Do get help NOW if you are suicidal, don't wait. And don't drink alcohol or self medicate, and don't be alone. People do care, including YOU. HELP YOU LIVE.

It stayed with me all these years, perhaps because of the poignancy of its heroine's situation. Sharon is a cheer leader, pretty and popular, with loving parents and a beautiful home and all the advantages that go with it. However, she sees her older sister, who was also a cheer leader in her younger days, now married and mothering in her twenties, already slotted into the narrow suburban housewife life that their mother planned for her, and perhaps Sharon feels a little helpless.

Her mother seems singularly uninterested in her daughter's doubts and fears, at one point even telling Sharon, "You have no right to be unhappy!" Not surprisingly in view of her lack of support from home, Sharon's grief implodes, resulting in a suicide attempt. She meets a young man, Jeff, in the hospital where she is sent for observation and strikes up a friendship with him that eventually results in further grief for her. Sharon also must deal with the variety of reactions she elicits from friends and family after her suicide attempt.

I was fourteen when this film was first aired, and I was certainly no cheer leader type. I was a fat, nerdy kid who figured all the cheer leader types had it made -- popular, pretty, had all the boys interested in them, etc. This film forced me to realize that things really are tough all over sometimes. Since TV movies are so rarely aired anymore except on cable, I don't imagine this one has gotten much exposure.

I saw this movie when it first aired in 1979, and didn't really get the character's pain. At the time, I was 22, not pretty, not a cheerleader, had few friends, a favored older sister, and unsupportive parents who didn't even like me -- much less love me. And my name was Sharon. I just didn't understand how someone who had so much of what I wanted in my life could be so unhappy.

Now, having lived longer than I ever expected, I see things much differently, and I can definitely feel how constricted Sharon's life was and how she could so desperately want to be done with it all.

The movie has its flaws, but overall the acting is decent-to-good, and the message still resonates. It's worth 90 minutes of your time.

I am 66 years old and just finished watching this movie on YouTube (free and no commercials). Linda Purl was excellent. This is a very moving program and should be watched by parents of teenagers. It will give the parents some idea of the damage they can do to their children when they favor one over the over (and the kids know parents, even when you say you love them all the same) and when they pressure one child to live up to the talents of another, etc. Even though it is a TV movie over 40 years old, teens should watch it too so they can realize they can be their own person and don't have to try to live up to a siblings triumphs.