Parenting

After Will's suicide attempt, Griffith searched for a residential treatment facility, the right combination of medicines, and answers to the question that haunted her: "Why?"

In addition to the emotional toll on Griffith's family, the time and financial cost of finding help for Will was enormous. The treatment option they deemed best -- a $5,000-a-month, out-of-state therapeutic boarding school -- was not covered by insurance. What about families who don't have such resources? "They are relegated to the dregs of the mental health system -- poorly managed and poorly maintained state-run facilities," Griffith explains. "Their children suffer, their families suffer -- and we all pay for this heinous failure to provide adequate treatment for every young person who needs it."

Part memoir, part social manifesto, part reader-friendly biochemical textbook, Griffith's personal story turns political as she uncovers the obstacles that many depressed teens and their families face: an illness that is difficult to diagnose in young people, ill-informed pediatricians recklessly prescribing antidepressants, and the powerful drug companies holding sway over the Food and Drug Administration ("The two are incompatible and they have no business being in bed together.")

Griffith's powerful prose provides just one of several voices in this book. Articulate, revealing journal entries from Will and his girlfriend supplement the author's description of Will's road to recovery, speed-bumps and all. Correspondence from various relatives during Will's treatment rounds out the book, and the entire family seems to have a way with words and an irrepressible sense of humor.

As an advocate for depressed teens and their families, Griffith educates and empathizes. With the story of Will's choice -- life -- she gives hope to families in crisis. ·

Deesha Philyaw Thomas is a columnist for literarymama.com and parentsaction.org and a film reviewer for 3blackchicks.com.

The Will to Live

On March 11, 2001, Gail Griffith's 17-year-old son, Will, took an overdose of his antidepressant medication that left him comatose for 48 hours. He became one of the approximately 2,000 Americans between ages 13 and 18 who attempted suicide that day. Griffith chronicles her son's journey back to a renewed interest in life in Will's Choice: A Suicidal Teen, a Desperate Mother, and a Chronicle of Recovery (HarperCollins, $24.95).

After Will's suicide attempt, Griffith searched for a residential treatment facility, the right combination of medicines, and answers to the question that haunted her: "Why?"

In addition to the emotional toll on Griffith's family, the time and financial cost of finding help for Will was enormous. The treatment option they deemed best -- a $5,000-a-month, out-of-state therapeutic boarding school -- was not covered by insurance. What about families who don't have such resources? "They are relegated to the dregs of the mental health system -- poorly managed and poorly maintained state-run facilities," Griffith explains. "Their children suffer, their families suffer -- and we all pay for this heinous failure to provide adequate treatment for every young person who needs it."

Part memoir, part social manifesto, part reader-friendly biochemical textbook, Griffith's personal story turns political as she uncovers the obstacles that many depressed teens and their families face: an illness that is difficult to diagnose in young people, ill-informed pediatricians recklessly prescribing antidepressants, and the powerful drug companies holding sway over the Food and Drug Administration ("The two are incompatible and they have no business being in bed together.")

Griffith's powerful prose provides just one of several voices in this book. Articulate, revealing journal entries from Will and his girlfriend supplement the author's description of Will's road to recovery, speed-bumps and all. Correspondence from various relatives during Will's treatment rounds out the book, and the entire family seems to have a way with words and an irrepressible sense of humor.

As an advocate for depressed teens and their families, Griffith educates and empathizes. With the story of Will's choice -- life -- she gives hope to families in crisis. ·

Deesha Philyaw Thomas is a columnist for literarymama.com and parentsaction.org and a film reviewer for 3blackchicks.com.