The phone call came early in the morning of January 9, 2019.
A voice at the end of the line got straight to the point: Honey Beuf’s 19-year-old daughter Liv, a student in her first year at college in Colorado, was in hospital. She had tried to take her own life.
‘I immediately grabbed my car keys and drove up to the ER,’ remembers Honey, a mother-of-three, who was living in Boulder at the time.
It took 45 minutes to get there and every minute she prayed the outcome would be different from the deepest fears gripping her.
Sadly it was not to be. Liv died just a few days later.
‘For over two years after she died, I would wake up every morning and think, “Oh it’s a new day”,’ says Honey. ‘Then a second later, I’d realize my child was gone and I’d feel instantly devastated. It made me feel physically ill and shattered.’
‘I miss her so much and the quiet in the house is still unsettling.’
An ’empathetic and warm’ young woman, Liv was clearly close to her mother. So close that she had a honeybee tattoo on her wrist in her honor and was always telling her how much she loved her.
Honey received a call early one January morning to say that her daughter Liv, 19, had been admitted to hospital after trying to take her own life. (Pictured: Honey with daughter Liv)
The night of her suicide bid, she wrote as much by text while her mother was sleeping.
‘If only I had been awake and seen the messages,’ the 65-year-old retiree says now.
Though a heartbreaking process, Honey is determined to share her daughter’s story in the hope it will help other young people and parents in the midst of what is fast becoming a nationwide youth mental health crisis.
Suicide is one of the leading causes of death in adolescents and young adults in the United States, with suicide deaths among 10 to 24-year-olds increasing by 62 percent from 2007 to 2021.
Alongside Liv’s older sister Tess, 34, and a team of mental health professionals, Honey has set up The Liv Project, a non-profit organization in honor of the late teen.
She says she’s thought of Liv’s compassion towards other people every day since her daughter died. ‘She had so much ahead of her,’ she says.
On Liv’s last visit home from the University of Northern Colorado, she had been excited to tell her mother that she wanted to change her major. She’d been studying early childhood education but hoped to become a therapist.
‘She said: “It’s because I want to help kids who have gone through what I’ve gone through”,’ Honey recalls.
While Liv never got to achieve those ambitions herself, Honey is determined to keep her daughter’s dream alive.
‘What haunts me most is the thought of how much pain she must have been experiencing to do what she did that night,’ she adds.
Liv’s college friends said she had come back from a party, where she’d been drinking. It appears she took the steps to end her life on the spur of the moment.
While shocking, it wasn’t the first time Liv had tried to commit suicide. She’d spent a lifetime struggling with mental health issues.
Honey, pictured with baby Liv on the day of her baptism in 1999, remembers watching her daughter move around in the hospital crib as if she felt uncomfortable in her skin.
As a little girl, Liv (above at the age of six) was troubled by everyday things such as the sound of people smacking their lips. She’d say: ‘Mom, I feel physical pain when I hear noises like that.’
Honey admits Liv had always been a different child from Tess and her older brother, now 34. The night Liv was born, Honey remembers watching her move around in the hospital crib as if the infant felt uncomfortable in her skin.
As a baby and toddler, she had a hard time sleeping and startled easily. Her wariness of strangers went beyond the common reticence of young children. Her mother would place her in the cart in the grocery store and other shoppers would come up to say how adorable she looked with her shock of red hair.
‘She would flinch because she didn’t want any kind of interaction,’ Honey says. ‘I would have to scoop her up and hug her to try and make her calm.’
The little girl was troubled by everyday things such as the sound of people smacking their lips or eating. ‘I’d say, “I know it bothers.” And she’d say: “Mom, it’s not that it bothers me. It hurts. I feel physical pain when I hear noises like that”.’
Aged four, around the time her parents divorced, Liv was diagnosed with a non-verbal language disability and sensory processing disorder. She was helped by a team of specialists including occupational therapists and mental health professionals. And she made great strides – particularly in speech – picking up coping skills when she felt uncomfortable.
At 14, she started taking medication for anxiety and depression and had regular psychotherapy sessions up until she died.
Honey, the former co-owner of a staffing company, worked flexible hours and was glad she could step in when Liv was struggling in school.
‘In high school, she would call and say she was having a panic attack,’ she says. ‘I would calmly say: “I want you to take a break, go to your safe spot or safe person, and then go back to your classroom.” If it was bad, I would go pick her up.’
But, Honey says, the depressive episodes were sporadic. She had a piano in her room and her friends would come round for sing-alongs.
In fact, there were many highs. Liv was never happier than when she was performing music, whether it was the piano or ukulele — which she taught herself to play by watching tutorials on YouTube.
Liv was never happier than when she was performing music, whether it was the piano or ukulele — which she taught herself to play by watching tutorials on YouTube
Six years after the tragedy, Honey still asks herself whether there was anything more she could have done for Liv (pictured above aged 8)
Her friendships revolved around choirs and musical theater. Honey says her fellow performers were ‘her people’. She wasn’t anxious when she was singing or acting. ‘All of that disappeared when she was on stage.’
She would joke about being uncoordinated but auditioned for cheerleading as a lark – and couldn’t believe it when she made the team. Outwardly she appeared to be a charismatic, friendly girl who put others first, but, behind the scenes, Liv struggled with dark, intrusive thoughts.
She had body dysmorphia and thought nobody could love her because she believed she was overweight. She’d binge and purge food.
Social media made things worse. Like many teens in middle and high school, she compared herself to impossible images of perfection. She started cutting herself to procure an emotional release. Mercifully, she stopped after therapy.
Then, horrifyingly, at the age of 15, she was sexually assaulted at a party hosted by older kids. The assault led to her first suicide attempt. She was found by her father, at whose Colorado home she was staying at the time, and was airlifted to the hospital where, thankfully, staff saved her life.
Liv spent a month recovering in a mental health facility before returning to high school. She was mortified and scared at the thought that people knew what had happened but, ‘she didn’t want to fall behind her peers,’ Honey recalls.
Despite her mother’s suggestions that she take a gap year to ease the pressure of starting somewhere new, she began her first year in college in Greeley, Colorado, in the fall of 2018.
She would occasionally return at weekends but loved her social life as a student. She drank alcohol and smoked weed. ‘It wasn’t a good combination, especially with her medication,’ says Honey, who stressed the dangers to her daughter.
Ironically, the weekend before she died, Liv told her mom that she didn’t think cannabis was ‘working’ for her. ‘I’m going to stop smoking,’ she said.
Six years after the tragedy, Honey still asks herself whether there was anything more she could have done for Liv.
‘There are things I wish I had known while raising a child,’ she says.
She calls out social media apps such as TikTok and Instagram for damaging a young person’s self-esteem and believes parents should delay getting kids a smartphone for as long as possible.
‘Consider a flip phone until they reach 18 so they can’t be exposed to social media for hours on end,’ she says.
And she’s keen to stress that parents should be listeners first, rather than fixers. Honey says that when Liv was struggling, as her mother she would immediately go into problem-solving mode. She’d try and arrange more therapy sessions or have her psychiatrist change her medications.
‘But more than seeing their parents try to solve things, kids need to know they’re validating their feelings,’ Honey says, adding, ‘They want a safe space where people aren’t saying, “What are you talking about? Life’s great!”‘
Honey admits: ‘Liv didn’t openly confide in me about her suicidal thoughts, because she knew how scared I would be.’
As for red flags, they include emotional volatility, changes in behavior and lack of interest in what once gave them joy. Some kids start to give away their belongings or ‘joke’ about killing themselves.
‘Don’t be afraid to ask if they’re having thoughts about ending their life,’ Honey says, noting that some parents fear if they do they’ll put the idea in their head.
She says that medical professionals say the data doesn’t support that and these conversations can be a relief to any child who has suicidal ideations.
‘Liv didn’t openly confide in me about her suicidal thoughts, because she knew how scared I would be,’ she says. ‘My experience has taught me that parents need to make themselves available to their children, so we tell them, “There’s nothing too frightening to me for you to share with me”.’
She established the non-profit organization The Liv Project shortly before releasing a film about her daughter’s life and the lessons the family has learned. The initiative — which hosts presentations in schools, churches and businesses — brings together young people and parents to discuss suicide prevention.
‘I tell my daughter’s story in the hope other lives won’t be lost and other families left in despair,’ says Honey, who admits she finds it particularly hard to see Liv’s peers reach milestones in their own lives such as career success or an engagement.
‘Liv will be 19 forever,’ she adds.
If you are having thoughts of suicide, for confidential support call the National Suicide Prevention Line on 1-800-273-8255
Do you have a powerful story to share with the Daily Mail? Please email Jane Ridley, Real Life Correspondent at jane.ridley@mailonline.com
