Suicide

Suicide is the third leading cause of death for people age 15 to 24. Accidents are number one and homicide just passes up suicide and come in second. According to the National Mental Health Association, “Each year, almost 5,000 young people, ages 15 to 24, kill themselves. The rate of suicide for this age group has nearly tripled since 1960…”(1). More and more teenagers are being pushed to the edge, as explained in the story of eighth grader, Luis.

Luis was the skinniest eighth-grader in his class. He also wore glasses and had braces on his teeth, and the other students picked on him every day. They thought it was fun to push Luis into lockers and steal his money, because he was too weak to fight back. The teachers never did anything about it. "I should just kill myself," he thought, "then they would be sorry." He pictured them all at his funeral, wishing they had been nicer to him. After one very hard day at school, Luis decided it was time to teach them a lesson. He swallowed about twenty sleeping pills. Then hey just lay on his bed and felt glad that the other kids were going to regret making his life so hard (Schleifer 25).

Teen suicide effects everyone; whether friends, family, or peers. There are many things that cause the need for suicide; there are many obvious warning signs, and also many ways to prevent someone from committing suicide.

Even though most teens know that suicide is not a good way to solve their problems, there are many things that just push teens over the edge and cause them to commit suicide. Teens often feel alone, abandoned, ignored, or rejected and they feel that the only way to get some attention is to try to kill themselves. A feeling of hopelessness, depression, low self-esteem, and feeling like a failure are all of the main reasons why suicide is committed so often. Pressure can come from family, work, school, or friends to try to do better then the teen can actually achieve. Everyone knows how it feels to be close to someone and when that relationship is shattered, so is the person's esteem. When breaking up with a significant other, teens often feel very alone and that life can't go on without that other person who is now missing in their life. Even if that important relationship wasn't a romantic relationship, it can still greatly affect a person. If a teen moves away or has a close friend move away, th...

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...no one can talk them out of it. Most of the time teens don’t want to die; they are just trying to reach out for help. If you try to help them, they will probably not go through with it. Talking to a depressed friend or family member about suicide will not put ideas in their heads. If anything, they may have been considering suicide and will most likely not go through with it if you talk about their problems with them. According to Suicide Wise, “The attempted suicide rate for high school females is more than twice as high as for males”(6).

Teen suicide is a very hard thing to deal with considering there are many causes, effects, and ways to prevent suicides from happening to those who are close to us. A way to summarize what all of the possible causes for suicide are, is pretty much anything that would make someone very sad, depressed, or just very stressed out. Teens who feel they need to commit suicide often leave warning signs that are very obvious. They are just looking for someone to talk to and somewhere to get help with their problems. Suicide is the ultimate act of selfishness because teens do not understand how many people they are hurting by carelessly ending their life.