Every child carries things we cannot see.
Sometimes it is disappointment or loneliness. Sometimes it is bullying, rejection, or the feeling of not belonging. And sometimes what a child is carrying is much heavier: abuse, neglect, fear, and a growing sense of hopelessness.
For some children, the burden becomes almost unimaginable.
Suicide remains one of the leading causes of death among young people in the United States. In 2024, it was the second-leading cause of death for Americans ages 10 to 44.
However, the most recent data offer some encouraging news. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2025 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 14% of high school students reported that they had seriously considered attempting suicide during the previous year, down from 20% in 2023. Six percent reported attempting suicide, down from 9% in 2023.
The improvement matters. So does the reality behind those numbers.
Because behind every statistic is a human story—and recently I read one that reminded me a story doesn’t necessarily end where the pain was greatest.
A Ten-Year-Old Boy
From Suicidal to Service: Thriving Through Faith is the story of Norman Gordon, a Jamaican author, poet, and life coach whose childhood was marked by physical and emotional abuse, neglect, and hopelessness.
At only ten years old, Norman reached a point where the pain became so overwhelming that he decided to end his life.
I knew this before I began reading his book. What I wasn’t expecting was the extraordinary gentleness with which he would tell the story.
Norman writes about terrible experiences, but he does not seem consumed by bitterness toward the people who failed him. Again and again, I found myself noticing something else in his words: love.
His book is certainly about what happened to a child.
But perhaps even more importantly, it is about what became possible for the adult that child grew up to be.
What Helps Us Heal?
This is where Norman’s story became particularly meaningful to me.
He doesn’t simply tell readers that he survived. He shares some of the tools that helped him move from surviving toward healing.
Among the most powerful was writing.
Through poetry, journaling, reflection, creative expression, and faith, Norman found ways to approach experiences that had once seemed unbearable. He discovered that putting pain into words could begin to change his relationship with it.
One sentence in his book stopped me:
“Gradually, my tears of hurt transformed into glee, through the powerful experience of creative flow.”
I love that image.
The hurt did not magically disappear. The past did not change. But something new was being created alongside it.
I think there is something here for those of us who have reached adulthood carrying pieces of our childhood with us.
Most adults have probably discovered that turning eighteen does not erase what came before. We carry memories. We carry messages we received about ourselves. We may carry grief, shame, anger, fear, or ways of protecting ourselves that once served a purpose but no longer do.
Healing can take many forms, and Norman’s path will not be everyone’s path. Writing, creativity, and faith are not substitutes for professional mental health care when it is needed. But his story offers something valuable: the possibility that we can find practices that help us give expression to what we have carried silently.
Sometimes that may be writing.
Sometimes it may be art, music, movement, prayer, meditation, therapy, time in nature, or a conversation with someone we trust.
Sometimes healing begins simply with finally being able to tell the truth about what happened.
Children Need Us to Notice
Norman’s story also asks something of those of us who care about children.
The National Institute of Mental Health identifies warning signs that should never be dismissed: talking about wanting to die; expressing hopelessness, unbearable emotional or physical pain, or feeling like a burden; withdrawing from friends; saying goodbye or giving away important possessions; extreme mood swings; or making or researching a plan to die.
We cannot always see what a child is carrying.
But we can pay attention.
We can listen without immediately trying to fix it.
We can take hopelessness seriously.
We can create relationships in which children know that difficult feelings can be spoken aloud—and that there is an adult who will stay present when they do.
And perhaps we can remember something else.
The frightened, hurting child in front of us is not necessarily showing us who that child will become.
The ten-year-old boy who once believed he could no longer endure his life grew up to become a writer, poet, life coach, and a man willing to share what he learned with others.
His pain was part of his story.
It was not the end of it.
From Pain to Purpose
There is a reason Norman titled his book From Suicidal to Service.
Service is where his story eventually led.
What he learned through suffering and healing became something he could offer another person.
That may be what I found most hopeful about this book.
We cannot give a child a childhood that has already passed. Nor can adults rewrite their own childhoods.
But healing can change what we carry forward.
And sometimes, from the very places where we once hurt most deeply, we discover something we can offer to someone else.
That is a message worth sharing.
If you or someone you know is in emotional distress or considering suicide: Call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. If there is immediate danger, call 911 or seek emergency medical care.
Sources: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System and National Center for Health Statistics; National Institute of Mental Health.
