Heartbroken Woodlands mom opens up about daughter's suicide

THE WOODLANDS, TX - A Woodlands-area mother says she never saw her daughter's suicide coming. Cassidy took her own life in December of 2015, at the young age of 16. Her mother says she wasn't depressed. She didn't show warning signs of suicide. She wasn't bullied. so this was just a huge shock to her family.

Two years ago, her life changed forever. "It blindsided us," her mother said. Cassidy was not the typical picture of a suicide victim you would think they would look like. She wasn't depressed. She wasn't unhappy. She had no history of any mental health concerns. She was just the opposite. She was 16. She was a cheerleader. She was happy. energetic and full of life.

"We still can't put our finger on one single cause of her suicide.  We think it was just a lot of little things built up to it. We did find out that she was being harassed by friends through social media." Cassidy's mom said. Investigators took her phone, and they did not identify it as a classic case of bullying or anything like that.

"She was struggling in a few classes. All these are little things that she could have talked to us about and that, you know, that shouldn't have built up to suicide." That's where the pressures of life come in. "It's so important to have that release, to talk to our children about the release. with a family like this" said licensed therapist Mary Jo Rapini. "With you never seeing it coming, if you're looking in, it looks like everything is fine, but sometimes we internalize these things."

Rapini continued, "She may have thought she was a good friend and she was helping hold up other people and she loves you and her dad so much. She may have felt guilty for, like, dumping her problems on you or talking about them. I think that's another thing that a lot of parents hesitate to have the talk."

She added this important parenting point, "As parents, our kids want to reach out to us.We have to open up the conversation and make it easier for them and give them a safe environment, that's nonjudgmental."

Now Cassidy's mom is having events to raise awareness at Cassidy's high school in the Woodlands. Their first event is September 27th at The Woodlands Methodist Church in the Woodlands.