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Teenage Suicide

Teenage Suicide

Summary: Each year thousands of teenagers commit suicide. The individual, in seemingly hopeless conflict with the world, decides to end his or her existence in what he or she considers to be the only way out. These are usually teens who are experiencing intense psychological pain from unmet needs.

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The teenage years are a period of turmoil for just about everyone. These young adolescents are learning new social roles, developing new relationships, getting use to changes in ones body, and making decisions about ones future. The killing of own life intentionally is referred to as suicide. Each year thousands of teenagers commit suicide. The individual, in seemingly hopeless conflict with the world, decides to end his or her existence in what he or she considers to be the only way out. These are usually teens who are experiencing intense psychological pain from unmet needs. These unmet needs, such as having family problems, pressure from friends and being socially accepted, and drugs and the media, turn into depression, which causes the individual more pain. That is why the mental disease of depression is the immediate cause of teenage suicide.
It is a devastating fact that the suicide rate of teenagers has shot up in the past 40 years. Suicide is now the second leading cause of death among 15 to 24 year olds, after auto accidents (Needlman, pg 1). One misconception of the past was that depression meant and looked like sadness. In reality, depression in teens sometimes appears when there is a loss of interest in activities that were once important, failing grades, or irritability. These teens tend to not care about anything at all, and are simply living their life with no goals for the future. Not many people realize that the number of teens who consider suicide is extremely large, and continues to grow. More than half of the teenagers from grades 9-12 in Canada...