Will's Choice : A Suicidal Teen, a Desperate Mother, and a Chronicle of Recovery

On March 11, 2001, seventeen-year-old Will ingested a near-fatal dose of his antidepressant medication, an event that would forever change his life and the lives of his family. In Will's Choice , his mother, Gail Griffith, tells the story of her family's struggle to renew Will's interest in life and to regain their equilibrium in the aftermath. Griffith intersperses her own finely wrought prose with dozens of letters and journal entries from family and friends, including many from Will himself. A memoir with a social conscience, Will's Choice lays bare the social and political challenges that American families face in combating this most mysterious and stigmatized of illnesses. In Gail Griffith, depressed teens have found themselves a formidable advocate, and in the evocative and fiercely compelling narrative of Will's Choice , we all discover the promise of a second chance. Gail Griffith Chronicles Her Efforts To Save Her Teenage Son From The Throes Of Teen Depression, Sharing How Her Son's Suicide Attempt Impacted Their Family And Her Own Feelings Of Self-worth. The Bears Downstairs -- Pulled From The Wreckage -- Tunnel Vision -- Like Mother, Like Son -- Lethal Secrets -- Broken Hearts, Deep Wounds -- Lost Horizon Ranch -- California Rocket Fuel -- Calamity And Clarity -- Time, Sweet Time -- Epilogue: In Will's Own Words -- Megan's Biography -- Organizational Resources For Families Of Depressed Teens. Gail Griffith. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [311]-320). These days my dreams are unnerving flights of fancy, laced with anxiety: my children are always small-somewhere between two and six years old; they are always troubled-there are tears-and they are beset by myriad tiny agonies.