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An Essay About Suicide

Suicide: Facts, Misconceptions, Causes,
And Prevention.

by

David Holt

English 10

Ms. Swicegood

May 2004

Holt 1

A sixteen-year old boy sat in his fourth period class crying because he had just broken up with his girlfriend. As he sat there, he tried to think of a way to ease the pain in his heart of the whole situation. His only conclusion was to try and take his own life. This is an attempt of suicide, which was luckily stopped because of a note that he had given to his girlfriend describing his plans that she, in turn, had given to the Guidance Counselor of the school. The truth is that an attempt of suicide is not always the person's fault, there are several factors, which are contributed to the cause of suicidal thoughts, or feelings that lead to suicidal attempts, and with various treatment methods these conditions can be controlled not necessarily eliminated.
Suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people ages fifteen through twenty-five. After making that statement one would come to the conclusion that this age group is responsible for the most suicides, but that is not true the elderly ages sixty-five and older account for more then twenty-percent of all suicides. Considering on average eighty-four people die a day from suicide, that means, that there is an elderly person dying every ninety minutes from suicide, and fifty-four percent of all elderly suicides are committed with a firearm, but after saying that consider this that the elderly only account for thirteen-percent of the U.S. population, and suicide is the eighth leading cause of death among the U.S. population (SAVE). Sixty-percent of suicides among young people are committed with a...