Teen Suicide is On the Rise: Prevention is Essential
Mental disorders, drug and alcohol abuse, eating disorders, and social stigmas are all pulling on our youth of today. Per the CDC, [Center for Disease Control and Prevention] “Suicide is the second leading cause of death for ages 10-24” (2014 CDC WISQARS). Prevention is essential to save the future of the youth of tomorrow, that they may reach a healthy adulthood. Concurring with Cheryl Williams, head of our local NAMI [National Alliance for the Mental Illness] stigmas must be broken for them to seek help without judgment from peers. Although the triggers of suicidal tendencies may change due to the differences of society’s advances, suicide can be placed in one or more of three categories:
…show more content…
Many teens dabble with drugs and/or alcohol depending on their environment or circumstances. What they do not know is it intensifies depression and mood swings which they do not understand. (Anderson, 2004) Some teens already have mental disorders, which make them seek self-medication through alcohol and drugs. This pushes them over the edge, turning to suicide to ease their pain. Prevention is essential. Intervention must happen for them to be off drugs and alcohol, they need counseling to deal with their environment or circumstances which drove them to self-medication. Many times, self -medicating is a way to deal with a much bigger problem, such as; Depression, Bipolar Disorder, and …show more content…
Feelings of being down or blue are part of being a teenager, but when they are ignored or minimized, feelings of hopelessness, worthlessness, and serious depression can set in.” (Anderson, 2004 p24) Depression must be treated. The stereotypes must be taken down for our teens to reach adulthood safely and unharmed. Communication must be opened with peers, counselors, parents, or physicians for this epidemic of suicide to stop. Prevention is eminent.
As researchers Dhawan, Balhara, Natasha (2007) have explained, “Over 90% of children and adolescents who commit suicide have a mental disorder before their death.” Bipolar Disorder is hard to diagnose correctly, many times it goes undiagnosed for years. A lot of teens self-medicate before being diagnosed as being Bipolar. However, once diagnosed many would rather not take the medication prescribed because of the way it makes them feel. In between this cycle, on meds, off meds; that is when suicide attempts occur. It is an overwhelming cycle, proper diagnosis, and help for prevention are
Vidourek, Rebecca A., Ph.D., and Keith A. King, Ph.D. “Teen Depression and Suicide: Effective Prevention and Intervention Strategies.” Prevention Researcher Nov. 2012: 15-17. Print.
According to Fowler, Crosby, Parks, and Ivey (2013), suicide and nonfatal suicidal ideations are significant public health concerns for adolescents and young adults. While the onset of suicidal behaviors is observed as young as six years of age, rates of death and nonfatal injury resulting from suicidal behavior are moderately low until 15 years of age (Fowler et al., 2013). According to Fowler et al (2013), the most current available statistics in the United States (U. S.) reported suicide as the third leading cause of death among youth aged 10-14 and 15-19 years, and it was the second leading cause of death among persons aged 20-24 years.
A 17 year old boy, Douglas Stewart, came home from school to find his mother lying on the sofa with a strained back. Being concerned for her he rubbed her back briefly then put on some easy listening music. Douglas then proceeded downstairs to his bedroom. Two of his friends came to the door. His mother waited to see if he would return to answer it; minutes later she answered and then yelled for him to come up. When he did not come, she went downstairs to get him. That is when she found him strangled and her son’s body dangling from the ceiling. This is a senseless tragic sight for a mother to endure. The mortality rate from suicide in 1996 showed 9.5 per 100,000 for 15-19 year olds. This also shows boys are four times more likely to commit suicide then girls. However, girls are twice as likely to attempt suicide. (American 1996) It is imperative to reverse this trend and in doing so we need to understand the characteristics, behaviors and events associated with youth suicide.
There are many things which can drive a teen to commit suicide some of them are as simple as making fun of the “fat” kid in class; others can come from the mental images from witnessing a shooting. There are four major issues which contribute to teen suicide such as depression, family problems, risk factors, and teens reactions to there climate. Depression, unfortunately, is one of the biggest factors of today’s teenage suicide problems and some of the reasons for it are from the student’s own peers, “being depressed is triggered by loss or rejection (Joan 59).” Depression can be f...
Although the incidence of self harming and suicide among adolescents is shocking and disheartening it is not hopeless. Many treatments exist to help teens overcome these issues and go on to lead full, successful, and more importantly, happy lives.
Suicidal tendencies in adolescents begin around the ages of 10 through 19, with warning signs, prevention, treatment, and the causes and effects it has on the human psyche. Suicide is when someone decides to take his or her own life because and are suffering from a painful mental treatable illness and have lost hope in who they are. Because when hope is lost, some feel like suicide is the only solution to truly make the adolescents pain go away permanently. Scientific evidence that shows the people who have committed suicide had a diagnosable treatable mental disorder or substance abuse disorder (The National Institute of Mental Health, 2010). Those people might have been suffering from illness such as depression, mood disorders, personality disorders and or suffering from bullying. Being a victim of bullying can be linked to suicidal thoughts as well as behavior in adolescents. Other causes might also include having family problems at home, problems at work, school and or with school peers. Suicide is a serious problem though it not only affects the victim, but it also affects family members, loved ones, along with friends.
Teen suicide can result from a number of scenarios. When you hear of teens who commit suicide, a lot of people would think it's due to the most common cases which are unhappiness or depression. But in fact, there are different factors to what causes suicide. For an example, as stated in the article Teen Suicide from Kids Health, teens attempt suicide for multiple reasons. These reasons revolve around psychological problems such as anxiety, bipolar disorders, or drug abuse or even dealing with bisexuality or homosexuality in an unsupportive family or hostile school environment. The individuals who usually face th...
Depression in teenagers is a very serious condition. Many are thought to be attention seekers, moody or just going through a phase typical of the age, yet, each year the amount of teenagers committing suicide is alarming. Suicide is actually the third leading cause of death in people between the ages of 10 and 24 years old at a rate of approximately 4,600 deaths a year (Pappas, 2016). More teenagers die from committing suicide than from car accidents, cancer, heart disease, stroke, pneumonia, AIDS and influenza combined.
The suicide rate for adolescents has increased more than 200% over the last decade.[2] Adolescent suicide is now responsible for more deaths in youths aged 15 to 19 than cardiovascular disease or cancer. Recent studies have shown that greater than 20% of adolescents in the general population have emotional problems and one-third of adolescents attending psychiatric clinics suffer from depression.[3] Despite this, depression in this age group is greatly underdiagnosed, leading to serious difficulties in school, work and personal adjustment which often continue into adulthood.
There are many growing issues in our society, and suicide is one of the largest. Teens everywhere are finding reasons to end their life. The leading cause of suicide in America is a mental disease, next comes depression, and then the feeling
Teenage suicide is often carried out as a result of despair and is a serious problem that can take a toll on families and friends. It is defined as intentionally taking one’s life or as an intentional self-inflicted death. Many overlook the problem of teen suicide. However, according to teen suicide statistics, there are 4,600 youth suicides each year between the ages of 10-24, 12 averages per day with 575,000 per year (Statistics Brain Research Institute, 2015). Stress definitely plays a huge role in teenage suicide and can make a teenager vulnerable. Many children today
Suicide is the third leading cause of death for 15 to 24 year olds, and the sixth leading cause for 5 to 14 year olds. Suicide accounts for twelve percent of the mortality in the adolescent and young adult group. Young males are more common than young woman suicides. These are only children who followed through with the suicide. For every successful suicide there are fifty to one hundred adolescent suicide attempts. In other words, more than five percent of all teenagers tried to commit suicide, and the number is still rising. It is scary to think that four percent of high school students have made a suicide attempt within the previous twelve months. In a small safe town like Avon, in the Avon High School where you and I practically live, you can see the faces of 22 students that have tried to commit suicide. That is enough to fill a classroom.
Now the eighth-leading cause of death overall in the U.S. and the third-leading cause of death for young people between the ages of 15 and 24 years, suicide has become the subject of much recent focus. U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher, for instance, recently announced his Call to Action to Prevent Suicide, 1999, an initiative intended to increase public awareness, promote intervention strategies, and enhance research. The media, too, has been paying very close attention to the subject of suicide, writing articles and books and running news stories. Suicide among our nation’s youth, a population very vulnerable to self-destructive emotions, has perhaps received the most discussion of late. Maybe this is because teenage suicide seems the most tragic—lives lost before they’ve even started. Yet, while all of this recent focus is good, it’s only the beginning. We cannot continue to lose so many lives unnecessarily.
The feelings of helplessness and hopelessness that accompany depression can fuel a downward spiral of health and self-esteem, which can have potentially deadly results: In one study of teenage suicides, 60 to 70 percent of the teenagers had been diagnosed with a depressive illness prior to their deaths. An alarming 90 percent of the sample had some form of psychiatric diagnosis -- depression, mood disorder, or substance abuse
A young, teenage girl sits with her friends, talking, laughing, and making jokes. She seems completely normal and happy, even. What people don’t know is that this is nothing but a mask covering the loneliness that seems to run through her veins, and the unexplainable sadness that never goes away. She fears speaking of it, of admitting the uncontrollable hatred she feels for everything about herself, so much that she contemplates ending it all. The fact is, suicide is the third leading cause for death in people under the age of twenty-five. Our country needs to stop seeing this as a casual thing. Depression, anxiety, and suicide in youth are real and serious issues that we need to be more aware of in today’s society.