First in a series of stories on the impact of suicide

SIDNEY – Ashley Fritz is a nurse, and a mother. She also has the memories of her mother battling mental struggles. 

“So, my mom had a long-standing history of mental illness, and multiple admissions to the psychiatric ward when I was a young child. Luckily my aunt, my grandma took care of my sister and I during those times,” Fritz said recently. 

She recalls a time when she and her sister each had a friend over, and their mom attempted suicide. 

“I remember an attempt when I was 14. She and my step-dad had been fighting. He went to work. He worked the night shift. My sister and I each had a friend spending the night. And all of the sudden, there was this blood-curdling scream from upstairs. So, I ran upstairs to see what had happened. She was vomiting. She had fallen on the floor trying to go to the bathroom. There was vomit and feces everywhere,” she said. 

Ashley’s friend, who was old enough to drive, took her sister and her friend to their aunt’s house. Ashley then called the ambulance and waited for EMS to arrive. She took care of her mother while waiting for EMS to arrive; cleaning her mother, the bed, carpet and bathroom. She also called her step-dad at work and he came home. 

She graduated from high school a year early and moved away from home, enlisting with the U.S. Army at 18.  

“I had joined the Army when I was 18 and went to Basic Training in 2005. The last time I saw her alive was at my Basic Training graduation. She drove my sister and a friend of hers out to South Carolina to watch me graduate from Basic Training. I was really surprised, honestly, that she had made it; really surprised, considering the mental health issues she had going on, and how it wasn’t really even safe for her to drive,” she said. 

She had two weeks left of AIT (Advanced Individual Training) when life changed again.

"A Drill Sergeant came into my room, and woke me up and said 'grab a battle buddy. You gotta come out here.' I woke one of my fellow soldiers up and we went out to the CQ desk. They took us to a little room and there was a chaplain there. The chaplain told me that my mom had passed away. And I honestly, was not even shocked. I was because I was like, 'well, that's weird,' like, 'what do you mean?'" 

She said she felt a sense of relief with her mom passing, which resulted in carrying a lot of guilt for a time. She said it took a lot of years to reach the point of feeling relief her mom was no longer in pain.

"Her demons were loud, and I know she was tired of fighting them," Fritz said.