Suicide

Youth Suicide Statistics

• Suicide is the SECOND leading cause of death for ages 10-24. (2010 CDC WISQARS)
• Suicide is the THIRD leading cause of death for college-age youth and ages 12-18. (2010 CDC WISQARS)

More teenagers and young adults die from suicide than from cancer, heart disease, AIDS, birth defects, stroke, pneumonia, influenza, and chronic lung disease, COMBINED 





This is epically sad to me. I know the pain and despair that would make someone want to end it all. Now I know for sure that there are many others who have experienced far worse than anything than anything that I could even imagine. I won't try to diminish these experiences or the effects that they may have on the human being.


I will say, that while I may have never experienced the load of pain and sadness that can be inflicted by those cruel beings known as man, I have seen sadness and depression. I have seen the bottom of the World and that has allowed me to see the top. You can let these negative experiences own you, you can own them, or you can simply step aside and disown all of it. Letting those experiences own you is to fall into a depressive state, to lose sight of the world and to let those who may have done you wrong get the best of you. To own those experiences is to simply accept them, realize that an event cannot "un-happen" and to continue to make the best of life that you can. This does not mean pretending everything is "peachy". It means doing your best to move on, accept life and make the best of what's left of it.

 Stepping aside I say as a last resort. If you are unable to cope with life as it is, please realize there are infinite alternate ways that life can continue. Please do not confine yourself to 2 options- life as it currently is vs. a quiet end to it all. The world is not so simple as this. If you're living a sad life in Oklahoma and cannot see a positive end to it, maybe you just need to broaden your perspective. Would your friends and family be sad to see you leave and pursue a brand new life in Texas as an artist or in Costa Rica as a surf instructor? Maybe. But would they be more sad over that, or more sad to find you dead one day because the world was too much for you to handle? Surely the continued life of your own choosing would be better. If not, we need to have another talk. Your family and friends are toxic and they are the problem. This is a relatively easy fix. You need some positive people in your life, and while they may not always seem readily available to you, I assure you they are out there by the bushel. You are in the right place.

Suicide is never the right option. Most often when someone commits to end it all, they are not seeing it all. I strongly urge you to press the edges of existence first. Seriously, if you have a few hundred dollars in your pocket (or even some objects you can liquidate.. after all, you aren't intending to use that X-Box anymore, right?) and are considering ending it all, fly to The Azores. See if you still feel there isn't anything worth living for. At the very least, you owe it to yourself to explore the options out there! If you're going to commit suicide, do it in Chile after you've seen the Andes Mountains and determined that they just aren't all that special and there could not be anything out there worth seeing. Explore the world a bit and see that there are people out there with NOTHING who are clinging to life with two hands while you are ready to let it slip away. This concept is easy to dismiss from afar, but facing it head-on you can't escape it.