As far as my program goes, I only know of one girl that killed herself. She had attended the Morgan Yacht, Gandy, then finished up at the Sarasota program. Last time I saw her I was 17 and a high school graduate and she was considered a "bop" as she had just turned 14 that summer. I saw her on Sarasota Beach, said my hellos and that was it. I never got her number because of the NO GUY GIRL RELATIONSHIP rule. Had I given her my number and her parents disapprove, instant refresher time. I think this rule caused more harm than good if you ask me. Rather than have someone to talk to, it forced people into 'cliques' where no one talked about themselves, just about all the messed up outcast 7 steppers that were on the fringes. After Ann C. disappeared from the scene in summer of '80, I heard that she was put back in the program on a refresher. Kim Hyde helped to invent the seven step refresher, as she was the first seven stepper to ever be forced back into the program. Her transformation to staff must have been like watching a horror movie and I am glad I missed it.
From other posts, I gather the same thing happened to Kathy Winn. As far as this so called girl who hung herself, I aint buying it. For one, the timeline does not add up, secondly what 40 year old woman would still be living at home with her parents? The Texas program was'nt even in existance in the late seventies.
As far as the girl in Sarasota goes, I heard it was pills, alchohol, a car left in the garage with the motor running, then death. I also heard she shot herself in the head with a chrome plated Ruger .357 so who knows? I even live down here, but the way things are, if there is ever a suicide, the family and press all but sweep it under the rug and it is lost forever.
In closing I must say that it takes an incredible amount of strength to be able to kill yourself. There have been times that I have done some crazy things, not caring whether I lived or died, and spent countless wasted hours thinking up creative ways to die, but when it all comes down to the wire, I never had the nerve.
There was however a time that a lady I was dating tried to drown herself as a way of ending the date. We had just done the deed on Sunset Beach and it was about 1 a.m. and had put our clothes back on and were just making small talk. She goes on about how she feels trapped at her job and has to give so much of her check to her sister for rent and on and on. She then kissed me deeply, drew back and gave me a long hard look and says, "I want to remember you just like this forever." Then she asked me for another beer. As I turned around and dug through the icechest she asked me if drowning was a bad way to die. I said something like it was'nt the greatest way because your body will keep fighting for air. I turned around to see her feet kicking up white flashes of sand in the darkness. A huge chill went through me as I realized that she was serious. I hauled ass to the water and barely could make out her outline in the moonlight. She was only 5'1" and was trying to get out over her head, but the waves kept knocking her back, plus she was pretty drunk as well. When I got close to her, I could hear her cussing and crying because she kept getting knocked back by the waves, when all of the sudden a really big one picked her off her feet and slammed her into me, knocking us both off our asses. Incredibly, she came up laughing. I was too freaked out to do much of anything other than put my arm around her and lead her back to shore. We went out for dinner and a movie that Tuesday like nothing had ever happened. To this day I don't know really whether it was a game or not. She was 6 years older than me and had alot of doubts about the relationship.
For those of you trying to picture her, she looked and sounded exactly like Meredith Baxter Birney in that movie called "The Kissing Place" and was just as crazy too. I guess what I am trying to say is that even though people want to die and see living as a burden, they will always leave clues and hints and it is up to the ones they love to take the time to listen.
