Few options for suicidal teen

By BARBARA WALSH, Portland Press Herald Writer

Copyright © 2002 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.

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CASTAWAY CHILDREN: Maine's Most Vulnerable Kids Follow this three-part series on the plight of Maine children with mental illness and get more information including where to find help, a glossary of terms and how to voice your opinion, here. To top of story

Joey Tracy stares at the winter moon, looming beyond the razor wire, beyond the red-brick building where the door is locked and a guard keeps watch.

The 16-year-old boy lies on his cot comforted by the thought of his mother staring at the same silver crescent illuminating the sky. He tucks his knees to his chest and whispers: "I love you, Mom." As he has done for four months, Joey cries himself to sleep, wondering if he'll ever go home again.

Four towns away, Susan Tracy lies in bed wrestling with her own fears. She too worries that it may be a long time before her son comes home. Like Joey, she stares at the moon, telling her child: "I love you, Doe. Don't give up."

Susan Tracy knows the son she affectionately calls "Doe" is sick and needs help. Joey has struggled with psychiatric and emotional problems since he was 11. Doctors diagnosed him with severe depression, conduct disorder and possibly psychosis, an illness that caused Joey to hear voices. His illnesses make it difficult to control his anger and follow rules and they prompt Joey to get in trouble with the law.

Police first arrested Joey for burglary. He was 13. Since then, he's been caught outside a Portland party with a knife, harassed his classmates and teachers, and threatened to kill himself with a homemade bomb.

Over the past two years, he's been detained by the state for a total of 11 months, waiting for psychiatric help. While in detention, he's tried to kill himself four times. He's sliced his arms with staples and paper clips, jumped off a 20-foot jail tier, and tried to drown himself in a jail toilet.

Whenever he'd talk to his mother, Joey would cry and tell her: "I'm sick of feeling the hurt."

Everyone - Joey's probation officer, state caseworker, attorney, the prosecutor and judge - struggled to find him help. But Maine has few programs for children who need both a locked facility and counseling.

"Some treatment places wouldn't take Joey because he was thought to have too much criminal activity," says Elizabeth Buxton, Joey's probation officer. "In other places, he was considered to have too many mental health problems. He's got a foot in both camps. And it's very, very tough to find a kid like Joey help."

Joey's troubles began when he was 5. He set his bed on fire playing with matches. At 7, he set a dumpster ablaze.

Over the next few years, Joey began hearing voices that told him to shove a bottle down his baby sister Tiffany's throat or throw the family cat out the window. Though he never did what the voices told him, Joey told a psychiatrist the voices confused and scared him and that he "wanted them out of my head." He said he tried to drown them out by blasting loud music in his ears.

Joey also talked about missing his father, who left the family's Portland home when Joey was 4. His mother, who has five other children, sometimes found it difficult to manage Joey.

	Joey Tracy, shown at 16, tried to kill himself four times in the past year.

Joey struggled at school. He frequently fought with classmates. He couldn't sit still or concentrate. He had trouble understanding his teachers, and he often disrupted the classroom.

When he was 13, police arrested Joey and a friend for burglarizing and vandalizing a Portland office building. A year later, he was hospitalized after planning to kill himself with a gun and threatening to make a bomb. He still heard the voices and told a psychologist he wanted help to make them go away.

"They're pretty weird, and I don't know why I hear them," he said.

He cried as he talked about his aggression toward his sisters and told the doctor he wanted to change. His mother worried that Joey had problems like his father, who suffered from schizophrenia.

"His dad's mother always told me, 'Get Joey help before it's too late,' " Susan Tracy says.

A psychiatrist eventually diagnosed Joey with severe depression and oppositional defiant disorder and referred the seventh-grader to a 60-day residential counseling program, where he would learn how to manage his temper and his behavior.

Doctors also put Joey on a variety of powerful medicines - Ritalin, Zoloft, and later Depakote and Wellbutrin. The drugs helped calm Joey some, but he still had trouble paying attention and focusing at school.

When the family moved to Cumberland, Joey's problems grew worse. He felt like an outsider. He taunted his classmates with crude sexual remarks and insults. He threatened the school principal and was suspended from school several times.

In the fall of 2000, after getting caught at a Portland party with knives, Joey ended up at Cumberland County Jail, held with other youths who also needed help for emotional or mental illnesses.

These children sometimes were locked up in their cells 23 hours a day, without counseling and with little chance of finding a treatment bed.

In November 2000, state social workers and Joey's probation officer told Susan Tracy they could place Joey in KidsPeace, a residential program in Ellsworth, if they had custody. The program teaches kids how to control their anger and take responsibility for their actions.

Tracy works as a nurses' aide and couldn't afford to pay for KidsPeace herself. If Joey is in state custody, Maine receives federal money to pay for nearly all his treatment, as well as his room and board.

"They said he'd stay in jail if I didn't agree to give him up," says Tracy. "They made it clear it's not because I'm a bad mother. It's just a money thing."

The state refused to talk about Joey's case, citing confidentiality.

Susan Tracy reluctantly gave up custody of her son. Still Joey had to wait for help. He sat in a locked cell at the Cumberland County Jail for three months, from Nov. 30, 2000, to Feb. 20, 2001, before he was moved to KidsPeace.

"I wake up and look out the window at the snow and wish I was home with everyone playing outside," Joey wrote from jail in December 2000. He was 16 at the time. "I want to be home so bad. Tell everyone I love them and miss them very much. I love you, Mom. Merry Christmas."

	Joey Tracy spent much of the 11 months he was locked up at the juvenile detention center crying. Another boy detained at the center drew this sketch of Joey with a tear running down his face.

Two months later, on Feb. 20, Joey arrived at KidsPeace in Ellsworth. There, Joey had difficulty controlling his temper and fought with another youth. He was transferred to the Hancock County Jail, where he tried to drown himself in the toilet bowl.

The jail transferred Joey to Spring Harbor, a South Portland psychiatric hospital. One afternoon, Joey called his mother, and he was crying uncontrollably, "Please come see me, Mom."

When Susan Tracy arrived at the hospital, her son hugged her for several minutes and wouldn't let go. Later during that visit, Joey asked to go outside. They sat on the picnic tables and talked and when it was time to go back in, Joey told his mother: "I love you so much, but I can't take this anymore."

He ran down the hospital driveway and into traffic, where he bounced off a car and suffered a seizure.

Weeks later, Joey threw an air purifier machine when the hospital staff told him he had to end a phone conversation. He was charged with misdemeanor assault and brought to the Cumberland County Jail.

Soon after, his caseworker started looking for programs out of state for Joey. Since Joey had been kicked out of KidsPeace and Spring Harbor, there were few options for him in Maine. There were only two other secure programs for juveniles with mental illnesses, Stetson in Belfast and Sweetser in Saco. Both of them had seven-month waiting lists.

Susan Tracy was terrified when she learned Maine was considering sending her son to psychiatric hospitals in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Tennessee or Florida.

Although Joey had struggled at in-state programs, Tracy felt sure that he would do much worse if he were thousands of miles away from his family. She feared he'd kill himself if he was sent out of state.

As Joey grew more despondent, Tracy says she begged Joey's state caseworker to keep her son in Maine, close to his family.

The state worker, Susan Tracy says, told her: If you don't let him go out of state to get help, "you'll have one dead kid on your hands."

"I couldn't believe he said that," Susan Tracy said. "It's like they think because my kid is in custody I don't care about him."

A few weeks before Christmas 2001, Joey and the other 40 youths locked up in Cumberland County Jail waiting for substance abuse or psychiatric treatment moved to Long Creek Youth Development Center, the juvenile lock-up in South Portland. Susan Tracy visited her son on Christmas.

Joey told her: "I don't feel like a person anymore." He shared his fears about being shipped out of state.

"I know when they send me away I won't be back. It'll kill me to be that far away. I'll jump off the plane. I don't want to do it."

Before she left that day, Joey hugged her and told her: "Mom, I never want to lose you."

Later that month, Susan Tracy says she called Joey's DHS caseworker a half dozen times, leaving him messages.

"I said I've heard real horror stories about kids going out of state, and I really want to talk to you," Susan Tracy says. "He never called me back."

The DHS caseworker did not return repeated phone calls from a reporter asking questions about Joey's case.

Upset about not receiving any answers from DHS, Susan Tracy wrote a letter to Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine: "My son was never suicidal until he was put in DHS custody. They have never been there for him. They never call us to explain what is going on with him. . . . I feel if Joey goes out of state, I'm gonna lose my son by suicide. . . . I have been having some awful nightmares about all of this. . . . I love my son so much and am very scared for him. . . . I don't understand how they can just rip a kid out of his mother's care and place him so far away. They are very cold-hearted people. . . . Please help me for my son's safety."

A month later, on a brisk January afternoon, Susan Tracy sits on a bench outside Cumberland County's juvenile court. She has come here once, sometimes twice a month to listen to attorneys, judges and state workers talk about where to place her son.

On this winter day, she hopes to learn whether Joey will be sent out of state.

Joey sits at the wooden defendant's table in the courtroom. His light brown hair is buzzed short. A silver cross hangs from his neck. His ankles are cuffed together beneath his jeans.

Susan Tracy, her mother, Joey's great-aunt and cousin sit in the front court bench, behind the defendant's table, where Joey leans back in a wooden chair.

	In a family photo, Joey Tracy is shown at Disney World as a child. By 13, Joey was arrested for the first time on a burglary charge.

"He looks good doesn't he?" Joey's grandmother, Charlene Tracy, whispers. It's been three months since she or any of Joey's siblings have seen him. Only parents are allowed to visit children detained at the youth center.

Because Joey has tried to kill himself four times in the past year, the state is looking for a secure hospital, where Joey can be watched constantly. They are leaning toward Devereux, a psychiatric program in Georgia.

"I think they've been pushing for an in-state residence but because of the lack of services in Maine, chances are pretty slim," says Steve Dasati, the prosecutor.

One Maine program, Stetson, has a five- to six-month waiting list, Dasati tells the judge. Joey has a better chance of getting in Devereux fairly quickly, he explains.

"Devereux does a brisk business with Maine juveniles," Dasati says.

Joey stares at his shackles as his attorney, Julie Linnell, tells the judge, "Joey of course wants to be able to go home or as close to home as possible."

The judge asks how often Maine juveniles go to Devereux.

"In past three months, I've brought four down," says Joey's DHS caseworker, Gregg Currier.

Cumberland County District Court Judge Robert Beaudoin asks Susan Tracy if she has anything to say. She stands up, nervously rubbing her hands as she speaks in a low voice.

"I just don't want him going out of state. He'll be worse away from his family."

The judge resets the case for Feb. 7, so a psychiatrist can evaluate Joey and determine whether the boy is still suicidal.

Joey leans over the court bench and kisses his mother's cheek. "I love you, Joey," she tells him, watching as he shuffles from the room, a bailiff by his side. Later, Susan Tracy stands outside the courtroom, lost in thought.

"I'm worried Joey's going to try and do something so he won't leave," Charlene Tracy says. "I mean it doesn't sound like the place in Georgia is a bad place. It's just so far from home. Why can't they have this program here?"

Susan Tracy falls silent, staring at the doors leading to a now empty courtroom. Later one evening, she dreams about the big silver plane that will take her boy away forever.

"Joey and me we're looking at a plane, and we're saying, 'Oh my God, it looks so big.' We're scared and we don't want to go on it. We've never been on a plane before."

Other nights, she dreams that she and Joey are in court and the judge says Joey can come home. Then, a probation officer says, "Nope, we've found something else in his file, he has to stay locked up."

Susan Tracy wakes from these dreams crying, wishing she'd never given up custody of her son.

For the next six months, Joey would continue to wait, locked up behind razor wire.

The state eventually decided not to send him out of state. A psychiatrist and social worker said it would traumatize Joey further to send him so far from his family. Yet the decision meant Joey would have to wait for one of Maine's treatment beds to become available.

Every month thereafter, Joey appeared in court. Each month, he'd be told a different story, a different date about when he'd be released.

While he waits, he sees youths who have committed more serious crimes serve their time and go home.

"He doesn't think he's ever going to get out," Susan Tracy said in March. "He's given up."

Throughout the spring, Joey continued to cry himself to sleep every night as he curled up in his cot. "Sometimes, I dream about you walking through my door and wrapping me in your arms as if I were two years old again," he wrote in a letter.

In the spring, Joey learned his great-grandmother died of lung cancer. Joey had always been her favorite great-grandchild. He was unable to attend her funeral.

"He was crying so bad," Susan Tracy says. "He couldn't believe he never got the chance to say goodbye to his (great-) grandmother."

Later that month, Joey's despair worsened. In one letter, he drew broken hearts and teardrops.

"I'm not doing too good," he wrote. "Nobody understands why I want to die. Just look at my life. It's a joke. I spend every night and day crying because my life is so depressing. I'm never getting out of this place. So maybe I should just go back to being suicidal."

Joey ended the note with a drawing of a gravestone with his name on it.

He celebrated his 17th birthday behind razor wire on April 29. His mother visited him that Sunday and brought him birthday cards from his siblings, sketch paper, colored pencils and a book with poems.

In a letter written to his mother for Mother's Day, Joey drew another broken heart. He wrote, "Today is going to be a very hard day for me. . . .I want to come home or die. . . Happy Mother's Day, your locked up son, Joey."

On June 13, Susan Tracy walked into the Cumberland County juvenile courtroom for another hearing. Joey ran up to her and hugged her tight. "I'm out, Mom. I'm out," he said, crying. "All this time, Mom. I'm out. I'm out."

The state had secured Joey a place at a new group home in Buxton, Beacon House, seven months after it had locked Joey up.

"Joey couldn't stop hugging me," Susan Tracy said. "It was like a dream. It felt so good to walk out of that courthouse with Joey, instead of seeing the guard take him away with shackles."

Joey will spend six months to a year in the group home, depending on how well he participates in his counseling and treatment. He must earn the right to leave the locked home, to visit his family.

The afternoon Joey was released from the juvenile center, Susan Tracy drove her son to Beacon House. Joey picked his own room and breathed the scent of clean floors, freshly painted walls. Instead of sleeping in a large room with 40 other boys, Joey will sleep in the small group home with seven other youths.

"It's brand new," he told his mother.

His first night there, Joey called his mom. Susan Tracy could tell her son was upset.

"I asked him if he was crying," Tracy says. "And he said, 'Yeah, but I'm crying because I'm happy. I'm happy, Mom.' "

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