|
Abstract
|
A 15-year-old Asian-American girl who was enrolled in high school and lived with her parents and two older sisters attempted suicide by ingesting 25 tablets of acetaminophen (each of which were 325 mg). The patient reported that her stress was triggered by an argument with her mother regarding the patient smoking cigarettes. After medical stabilization, the patient was transferred to our child and adolescent psychiatry unit.
This suicide attempt came after a long-standing conflict with her parents regarding her poor performance in school, which the patient attributed to depressed mood with decreased sleep and irritability. The patient began self-medicating with cannabis and alcohol, which eased her inhibitions about committing suicide and resulted in suicidal ideation with a plan to hang herself (which was prevented by her mother) and a suicidal gesture in which she cut her left wrist with a knife (an injury she hid from her mother and did not receive any medical care).
The patient reported a history of extreme anxiety that she attributed to the stress caused by her family's expectations for high academic achievement, which resulted in alleged physical and emotional abuse by her parents due to inability of the patient to meet those expectations. This resulted in maladaptive coping skills with self-injurious behavior such as repeated attempts at cutting her wrists and burning herself with cigarettes to relieve her anxiety. Her extreme distress worsened due to disappointing her parents because of her drug use, her grades (B's and C's), the fact that she was not in honors classes, and that she was not on track to succeed as her two older sisters already had (both of whom were graduates of Ivy League universities)...
Language: en |