CHICAGO â€" On the day Duane Christopher Peterson Jr. committed suicide in 2007, he appeared to be looking toward the future. He had spent the morning working on his resume, writing that his objective was to land an internship so that he could work while attending college.
It seemed that Peterson, 18, had found his footing after a two-year struggle with depression.
His mother, Charlene Mabins, remembers being in the kitchen that Sunday afternoon, preparing dinner, when she asked Chris to sit down so they could talk about his plans. He asked whether he could first go upstairs and fax the resume to a potential employer.
Initially, she said no. She isn't sure why.
"But he had this blank look on his face, and he didn't say anything," Mabins said. "I said to myself, 'You're overreacting, Charlene.' I told him, 'Go ahead and come back, and we'll talk.' He ran up the stairs, and that's how quickly I heard the gunshot."
He had placed a revolver â€" which her partner, a Chicago police officer, believed she'd hidden â€" in his mouth and pulled the trigger. Chris died in the master bedroom.
Since the death of her son, Mabins has finished a master's degree in social work, volunteered with homeless youths and started a nonprofit called Christopher's House of Hope, which helps desperate young people explore their emotions through creative processes, such as writing.
She said her mission is to encourage more people to talk about depression, mental illness, kids bullied by gangs and the suicide rate among young blacks â€" particularly boys.
"Nobody wants to talk about suicide and young black men because it's overshadowed by homicides," said Mabins, 46. "And mental illness is still a taboo subject in our community. Without dealing with any of it, it's hard to intervene."
Mabins said Chris was an affectionate child who loved flowers and sushi. She said they were living a good life, and he was maturing into a kind and sensitive young man. But when he was 12, she became ill and couldn't work. They lost their home.
Her ex-husband offered to care for Chris until she regained her health. She moved in with a friend.
"He stayed with his dad for two and a half years, but when we reunited, he was your normal teenager," Mabins said.
Chris was about 15 when she began noticing changes in him. In elementary school, he'd earned A's and Bs. In high school, his grades plummeted, and his life started to unravel.
Mabins said her son spent hours isolated in his bedroom, playing video games, and often skipped school. He said he was angry because he couldn't get along with his teachers or peers.
"The school tried to help him," she said. "They put him on the football team so he could work out some of the anger. They assigned him a counselor who was mentoring him. At the time, we thought it was normal teen depression and rebellion."
By the time Chris was 16, he would lock himself in his bedroom.
"I got suspicious, and I entered the room one day [when he wasn't there], and I noticed that his clothes were slashed up and he'd hidden them in between the mattress and under the bed," she said. "He'd smashed his radio. He was destroying his gym shoes, picking them apart. He'd even busted a hole in his wall."
She said Chris would emerge from his depression during football season and slip back into it when the season ended. He wouldn't hang out with friends. He sometimes sneaked out of the house at night.
"I asked him if he was in a gang or if he was doing drugs," Mabins said. "He admitted to smoking marijuana. He didn't say he was in a gang, though he had been bullied by them. But he would always say, 'You think you know me, but you don't.' "
Mabins said that when his depression worsened â€" he was sleeping less and, during the day, dressing in all-black outfits â€" she tried to have him admitted to a hospital.
But a psychiatrist suggested an outpatient program, which seemed to work. Chris eventually transferred to another school, a boot camp in central Illinois, where he flourished, again earning A's and Bs.
He graduated ahead of his class and returned to Chicago to attend a community college, where he seemed to be thriving. But the demons returned.
After Chris took his life, Mabins said, she learned he had been planning suicide while he worked on his resume. A two-page note found in his pants pocket, titled "Farewell," included instructions for his funeral.
She doesn't know when he found the gun, or when he began to slip away.
"I know now that once you start recognizing those patterns of desperation, you have to make your environment safe," Mabins said. "If you have a gun, buy a lockbox. There is no hiding place for it. We learned that the hard way."
dtrice@tribune.com
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