Teenage Suicide: A Real Epidemic
Human life is one of the most precious things on this earth. The loss of any oneslife is detrimental to family, friends, and the community. Furthermore, the unexpected death of a child is even more heart-wrenching—it is a life unfulfilled. “I find myself deep in a hole of sorrow, too far to bother, too far to try, too far to get out. So I think I will just wait here and die.”- Douglas Stewart 1978-1995. (The Associated Press, 2005) Statistically, a teenager encountering thoughts of suicide will call out for help in one way or another. The excerpt provided by Douglas Stewart is a poem his mother came across before he committed suicide. She did not take any actions and a few months later, he was found dead. He was seventeen years old. Teenage suicide is the third leading cause of death in adolescents fifteen to nineteen years old and the second leading cause of death for ages nineteen and twenty-four. (www.teenagesuicide.com, 2005) Teenage suicide is becoming more and more of an epidemic. The hardest part of researching this topic is that the subject of study no longer exists for an interview. Adolescence is a time of physical, psychological, and social change and it is generally considered a stressful period during normal development. (www.teenagesuicide.com, 2005) Teenagers are already at a tender moment in their life, so suicide may seem to them as their only way out. In this paper, the researcher will enlighten her audience on every aspect concerning teenage suicide.
There are many hard-hitting statistics provided concerning teenage suicide. For example, in 2002, there were over 132,000 suicide attempts made and there were about 4,000 suicides that were carried out. (www.teenagesuicide.com, 2005) The researcher discovered that a suicide attempt is just as important as the actual suicide. The breakdown of gender statistics is that male adolescents commit suicide at a rate four times greater than that of female...