Preview

"Thirteen reasons why" and teen suicide essay

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
2906 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
"Thirteen reasons why" and teen suicide essay
Suicide

Suicide, from the Latin word ”suicidium” which means ”to kill oneself”. Suicide is one of the growing problems all over the world. Every day about 105 people take their own life in America, and that’s about one person every 13,7 minute, and 1 million people every year all over the world. Most used ways to commit suicide today is by firearm, suffocation (drowning or hanging) or by poison (painkillers and etc.)
Studies show that 90% of people who have committed suicide, have a diagnosable and treatable psychiatric disorder at the time of their death.
Today, many teenagers have thoughts about death every day, and many teenagers have a tendency to get depressed easily, and this is where suicide often is the “easy way out”. But suicide attempts are often also just a cry for help, because studies show that many teens who have died by suicide have done up to 25 suicide attempts before “finally” taking their own life. 1 Many teenagers often use suicide attempts to cry for help. Many often just take just the “right” amount of pills to get in the hospital, but not enough to so it becomes deadly, and this is can get very dangerous.
There are many reasons why teenagers commit suicide. Maybe they aren’t happy at home, bullied at school, or it’s just like Hannah Baker in the book we’ve been reading, it’s the snowball effect.
Thirteen Reasons Why – Hannah’s story

The snowball effect. That’s what Hannah called it. It is when like a small snowball rolling down a hill – picking up more snow on its way down, getting bigger and bigger, and at the end it breaks – that’s what happened to Hannah. One reason led to another and another, and thirtheen reasons later the “snowball” fell apart – Hannah committed suicide. With Hannah there wasn’t one reason to why she committed suicide – it was thirteen. Thirteen reasons done by twelve people.
But before Hannah committed suicide, she wanted to tell her story. And mostly, she wanted the people who led her to it, know.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Each year, thousands of teenagers die, not from accidents, cancer, illness, or diseases but by their own hands. Children have begun turning to suicide for a way out. Teenager is becoming a larger problem in today's society. There are certain groups of people are higher risk than others, there are many different reasons people turn to suicide, and many warning signs that are easy to pick up on to help someone in need.…

    • 721 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Teen Suicide

    • 1514 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Often times, teenagers become despondent because of the pressures of their academic lives, social lives, and family lives. Unfortunately, parents like Scott Fritz who lost his 15-year-old daughter to suicide, had no idea teen suicide was even a…

    • 1514 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    chocolate, blue nail polish, filling out surveys, making and reading poems… a typical teenager. I bet you wonder what could've driven Hannah, that sweet girl, to commit suicide. The real question is not what made her commit suicide, but rather who caused her to commit suicide and what did they do to her to cause something so extreme?…

    • 345 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Hannah Baker was just an average girl that did everything average high school girls did. But during her high school life many events happened that led to the end of her short life. All of these events played a vital role in why she committed suicide; she lost trust in people, believed no one cared about her, and just gave up.…

    • 488 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The number one cause of death in teens is suicide? Looking back to one of the most commonly known and most devastating…

    • 931 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Thirteen Reasons Why

    • 765 Words
    • 4 Pages

    I became curious as to why Hannah would have killed herself over a sequence of embarrassing but not quite devastating events, however, I began to recognize that it was part of the point. I started feeling sympathy for Hannah when I realized her depression had to do with the psychology of adolescence. Hannah’s events of what she thought was torture revealed her underlying assumption that every action of other kids in school was about her and that she was somehow central to the student’s attention (in a bad…

    • 765 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Teenage suicides are associated with manic-depressive disorder. The suicidal teenager feels isolation, despair, hopelessness, and estrangement. They also feel that they cannot handle today and nothing will ever be better tomorrow. The teenagers also feel ambivalence. Simply stated, it means that opposite desires are experienced at the same time. The depressed person wants to live and die at the same time. In a PBS video about teenage suicide, Teenage Suicide- The Ultimate Dropout, one teenage female spoke of the fact that she felt that her parents were only using her as a stepping stone as the reason for her suicidal attempt. She was more or less tired of her parents' constant demands. Her feelings about getting even with her parents resulted in her decision to swallow a massive amount of pills, which she took from her family's medicine cabinet. By killing,…

    • 712 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    One of the leading causes of suicide is depression, which can be caused by numerous reasons. Some of the reasons include: abuse, neglect, financial hardships, health problems, addictions, marital problems, and bullying. Most of the recently names problems can be resolved by treatment or counseling; sadly not everyone is aware of the help that is available to…

    • 737 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Pig Paper

    • 914 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The recent research has shown that suicide is the “third leading cause of death among young people fifteen to twenty four, fourth leading cause of death for ages between twenty five to forty four, the eighth leading cause of death for ages forty five to sixty four” (2012). Over all suicide is the tenth leading cause of death in the United States. One of the main questions about suicide is why. The research shows that the “number one reason of suicide among youth is untreated, undiagnosed or ineffectively treated depression”(Gould).…

    • 914 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    A.The pressure is mounting, the pain is unbearable, thoughts are racing through your head, you just can’t go on any longer and then the erry sound of silence. B.Suicide has been defined as "any death that is the direct or indirect result of a positive or negative act accomplished by the victim, knowing or believing the act will produce this result" [Maris 1991]. Teen suicide is a growing health concern in the US as it is the third leading cause of death among young people. C.Teenagers die every day in the United States, not just from illnesses or accidents, but by their own hands. Here in Alexandria, Louisiana, my daughter’s classmate just committed suicide a few days ago. D.In order to better understand teen suicide, it is important to explore the causes of teen suicide, what are the symptoms and/or signs, and what can be done to prevent teen suicide. E.To start with examining some of the causes, and the signs and/or symptoms and determine what can be done to prevent teen suicide.…

    • 328 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    suicide with work cited

    • 1992 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Statistics show that suicide is the fourth leading cause of death for adolescents between the ages ten and fourteen. Also, the Center for Disease Control reports that it is the third leading cause for death, behind accidents and homicides of people aged fifteen to twenty four (teensuicidestatistics). 14.5 percent of high school students have made actual plans for committing suicide. In the United States someone dies by suicide every sixteen minutes and someone attempts every one minute. Internationally about one million people die by suicide each year more than war and homicide combined. 2/3 of suicidal deaths occur on the first attempt. Girls think about attempting suicide about twice as much as boys do. Boys, however, are actually four times more likely, than girls, to actually die by killing themselves. Each suicide death, intimately and profoundly affects at least six people (peoplepreventsuicide). In 1997, more adolescents died from suicide than AIDS, cancer, heart disease, birth defects and lung disease (ncpamd). Suicidal people think that there is no one out there to care for them. Therefore…

    • 1992 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Have you ever stopped to think about how many people you have affected throughout your life? In the book Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher this question is looked at through the perspective of a girl who commits suicide, the tapes she left behind for her “thirteen reasons why” she committed suicide, and a boy who was one of these reasons why. This is an extremely important topic especially within the lives of teenagers today. The pressures society puts on kids and the things that go on inside and outside of school has major effects on mental health and the actions of many kids. Within this novel, Asher explores how different people lead Hannah to make her final decision and how the snowball effect shows that even the smallest of actions can…

    • 1287 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Suicide is the 11th leading cause of death in the U.S. It is the the 3rd leading cause of death for 15- to 24-year-olds. Suicide rates are highest among young people and those over 65. More than 425,000 people with self-inflicted injuries are treated in emergency rooms each year. There has been a 60 per cent increase in worldwide suicide rates in last 45 years. Men are 4 times more likely than women to die from suicide, however, 3 times more women report attempting suicide.…

    • 309 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the past thirty years, suicide has been steadily increasing. Unfortunately, the larger portion of those numbers is teenage suicide. According to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), suicide is the third leading cause of death in people aged 15 to 24. Even more shocking, CDC states that suicide is the fourth leading cause of death in people aged 10 to 14. This startling fact shows that teen suicide is becoming a major issue in the United States, and makes one wonder what is causing our teenagers to become suicidal. Many people fail to realize that bullying, depression, and parental divorce are some of the reasons why teenagers are committing suicide.…

    • 400 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    For people aged 10-14, suicide was the third leading cause of death within the United States. Also, suicide was the second leading cause of death for the age groups, 15-24 and 25-34 (CDC, 2015). Additionally, there were more suicides in 2013 compared to 2005 within the age gap 15-34 (CDC, 2005, 2013). The prevalence of suicide within this age group is very alarming. The fact that younger people are more likely to commit suicide than the rest of the age groups should be a red flag for public health officials. Interestingly enough, in 2013, suicide was promoted to the second leading cause of death in the age group 15-24, as compared to the third leading cause of death in that age group for years prior (CDC, 2010,…

    • 1617 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays