Teenage Suicide and You

We have all heard about the casualties of teenage suicide that take place all around the world daily. Many wouldn’t expect to hear it, but suicide is the third leading cause of death in teens ranging the ages of 15 to 19. What may be even harder to swallow is that suicide is the fourth leading cause of death in preteens ranging from age 10 to teens through the age of 14 (Teen). How can these statistics possibly be true? What causes these young adolescents to take their own lives when they have lived so little of it? There are clear signs that we all can read if we just take the time to do so. Due to the decade we currently live in, I’m sure each of us knows at least one teenager who has divorced parents. Perhaps there is a chance that the divorce their parents went through was an easy one filled with little stress and ignorant bliss. The fact of the matter is, if things were perfect from the get-go, a divorce most likely would never have happened. Divorce and violence in the home are top causes of teenage suicide. Because divorce is such a delicate time with the filing of the paper work and meeting with attorneys, the child may experience a time of neglect. Teenagers are already egocentric enough, but throwing in that they aren’t getting the attention they once were can send them on an emotional roller-coaster (Colman). Whether it is losing the attention of a parent or losing a loved one all together, unhealthy thoughts and feelings can arise. With experiencing a loss, the adolescent can go through many stages of grief. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance are all stages the teen may feel (Kübler-Ross). However, many do not cope well with the depression aspect. If your whole life fell apart with one signature from the Recorder of Deeds, do you think you’d be able to recover quickly? If the teenager suffering from this loss cannot get passed the stage of depression, the chances of them committing suicide increase greatly. If we

Cited: Colman, Warren. Understanding and Preventing Teen Suicide. Chicago: Children’s Press, 1990. Pages 22-56. Kübler-Ross Model. January 2010. . Nitschke, Philip and Fiona Stewart. The Peaceful Pill Handbook. Waterford, MI: Exit International US, 2007. Pages 16-60. Suicide in the United States. 1 January 2010. . Teen Suicide Statistics. 1 January 2010. .