Teenage Suicide

Essay by jonis3401High School, 11th gradeA+, March 2004

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Suicide is the third leading cause of death among teenagers and young adults. Nearly all teens committing suicide are suffering from extreme emotional pain and distress and feel unable to cope with problems. Some suffer from mental illnesses and feel helpless about the future. Others that suffer from many different symptoms such as depression, stress build up, self doubt, sexual issues, peer pressures. Feeling helpless and/or hopeless, are committing suicide by the thousands each year, thus making themselves a fatal statistic but unfortunately, intervention often does not come soon enough to prevent teenagers from making an irreversible decision on what may have been a temporary problem.

One of the biggest problems in dealing with suicide is that there are numerous myths and facts that need to be separated. Both, myths and facts make it difficult to realize and/or deal with suicidal teenagers. How can a person tell if the problem is serious or not? Even if a teen is just talking about suicide someone must be notified immediately.

According to Medical Doctor Margaret Hyde and Elizabeth Held Forsyth, sixty to eighty percent of all suicide victims gave some kind of indication of their intentions. They may have speculated about what happens after death, joke about suicide, or talk seriously about another person who committed suicide. If a teen can talk openly about suicide he/she may be considering, and may be asking for help (Frankel 21).

In order to comprehend teenage suicide, the situation has to explained by a number of specific concerns that have emerged over the past thirty years. Barry Garfinkel, a doctor at the University of Minnesota Hospital, states "The total number of youngsters who kill themselves has increased 300% during this time. What's more, suicide attempts have jumped between 350% and 700%. Clearly, one of...