If you're in crisis, please call, text or chat with the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988 — or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741.
Jaimee Seitz often sits in her car after work. Her condo is empty, so she waits. Sometimes for hours.
Seitz hasn’t turned the light off in two months. She hasn’t washed her daughter's bedding, either. It’s all sealed up — in case she needs it. She knows she wants to smell them someday.
At South Fork Park one evening, Seitz thinks about her daughter a little more than normal.
“I would stand on this bridge and just let them go,” Seitz said. “I had her young, so we grew up together.”
When Seitz holds up her phone, she shows a photo of her two children swimming in the creek she's now standing above. She said they often walked here and raced up a hill to get back home.
“I can just picture her there,” Seitz said, pointing to the water. “And it’s hard knowing the world keeps spinning and mine has stopped.”
Audree, her 13-year-old daughter, died by suicide in December.
Hear Seitz's urgent plea to parents in the video below:
“Even though I thought she was having the best year, she was having the worst," Seitz said.
Since November, at least four young people have died by suicide in Boone County. It's why officials started a new task force — to try to prevent more.
“Suicide is a very complex topic,” said Elaine Zeinner, spokesperson for the county’s Suicide Response Team. “It’s a tough conversation to have, but we need to start.”
The response team works to bring more resources together and raise awareness about what help is out there.
Scroll to the bottom of this article for more resources.
Melissa Young works at Cincinnati Children's Medical Center. Part of her job is to increase suicide prevention measures. Young applauds what the county is doing, and the clinical psychologist said it's important to know that suicide does not always directly relate to mental health issues.
Often, it's subtle behavioral changes or a lack of sleep that can be warning signs.
“I want parents to know it’s not their fault,” Young said. “And I want them to know there’s people out there to help.”
Seitz wants to be one of those people, even if she’s still struggling to figure out exactly what her daughter was going through.
This week, Seitz brings pictures and sketchbooks to her mom’s house. It's where her daughter often used to catch the school bus. One of the drawings has a Post-it note: Audree, you have so much talent — keep making art.
Seitz has been looking through her daughter's journals. She's spoken to the police about what they found on her phone. And she's gone down rabbit holes on the internet, looking through TikTok videos her daughter watched glamorizing Columbine school shooters. She worries about what her daughter wrote about, and what she watched. She's talked to other moms in the county who've also lost their children.
She's found there are no easy answers.
"Every suicide is different," Seitz said. “What I want to see is a community come together."
She wants to start this weekend.
Community event:
In honor of her daughter, Seitz is inviting the community to a friendship bracelet event this Sunday. It’s happening here at Legacy Living Florence.
March 2 - 6:30 p.m.
8520 Gunpowder Road
Florence, Kentucky
...
More resources, suggested by medical experts:
Suicide prevention: https://www.cincinnatichildrens.org/patients/suicide-prevention
Teens and suicide: What parents should know
https://afsp.org/teens-and-suicide-what-parents-should-know/ [afsp.org]
What to watch for: Subtle behavioral changes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ius3NPmZARo [youtube.com]
