15 Year old Commits Suicude
15 Year old Commits Suicude
15 Year old Commits Suicude#1
Posted: 10/17/11 at 4:29pm
When will enough be enough?
15 Year old Commits Suicude
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/19/08
15 Year old Commits Suicude #2
Posted: 10/17/11 at 5:36pmI can't get the story to open, but geez. Another one?
15 Year old Commits Suicude #2
Posted: 10/17/11 at 5:57pm
I have the sad feeling that this was a copy cat type deal. He thanks Lady Gaga and a bunch of other performers. Perhaps picturing heart tugging memorials in his name?
Being gay and a teen is possibly the most difficult position to be in these days. When I was coming up there was no mention of people being Gay. The country was agog when a man went on Donohue and openly said he was a homosexual.
Today we have celebrities coming out left and right, I guess giving, on one hand, positive role models. however the dynamics of the Middle school peer presure has not changed. The more out out young teen aged youth are the more they become targets for the bullies. A cunundum.
15 Year old Commits Suicude #3
Posted: 10/17/11 at 9:09pm
Saddened by this poor kid's decision to end his life. It may well be too soon to discuss this epidemic of rash decisions objectively and unemotionally, but I can't help but ask... What is going on? Really? What is actually driving these teenagers' actions?
It's 2011... Teen bullying has been a part of social dynamics since we were rolling rocks around caves. People have been teased mercilessly, relentlessly FOREVER about weight, acne, attractiveness, disability, skin color, religion, country of origin, lack of wealth, sexual orientation and the list goes on...
Is it morally wrong? I don't know. People enjoy taking things out on others, usually when they feel bad about something within themselves. I was taught this at a very young age...
Now I'm not a heartless jerk--
Does it suck to be on the receiving end of it, OF COURSE IT DOES, but so does getting rejected when you ask someone out on a date, not getting the job you applied for, having people you think are your friends turn on you, finding out something you believed to be fundamentally true isn't... All life lessons you learn and grown from.
Somehow people managed to make their way through this thing called life a little tougher and a little scrappier, ultimately realizing it is, after all, a fight.
So, what I don't get is how in an age where there has never been more gay visibility, more social progress and anti-antigay sentiment is this epidemic possible?
Obviously I know the Teen years are fraught insecurities, hormonal changes, histrionics and all that but this just baffles me. What makes this particular case off to me is the blog. I think it speaks more to the age we're living in than the bullying... There's an element of it that just seems like a soul crying out for attention that it never received and perhaps couldn't have received.
People then rush to make these "It Gets Better" videos and though I understand the desire to reach out and reach these kids, isn't there another way? I never had a "Your Life Is Going to Improve once you can pick your friends and get the Hell out of a close-minded, ultra conservative town" and yet my life did improve. Again, I'm not insensitive to the situation I'm just wanting to discuss the disease vs. the symptoms.
Is there an "It Gets Better" series for large people who get teased into eating disorders and substance abuse and depression (and likely in some cases) suicide?
Where is the "STAND UP FOR YOURSELF" message?
15 Year old Commits Suicude #4
Posted: 10/17/11 at 11:07pm
CAX, you are not awful. You are being honest and I have wondered some of the same things myself. I believe some of your questions will be studied by those in the mental health field. Issues of resiliency and such.
Having a role model for suicide is one of the contributing factors for why people complete a suicide so it is possible that other gay teens would replicate, most recently Jamey. He got a lot of attention and Lady Gaga did talk about him.
Also, young people, "the millennials" are proving to be less resilient and less able to tolerate distress and sad feelings. I believe the field of psychology will be doing more research on this.
With all that being said, it is tragic that this young man took his life. From what I read it appears that he suffered from major depression and that seemed to cripple him as well. I hope he and his family find peace of heart and mind.
15 Year old Commits Suicude #5
Posted: 10/17/11 at 11:07pm
CAX, you are not awful. You are being honest and I have wondered some of the same things myself. I believe some of your questions will be studied by those in the mental health field. Issues of resiliency and such.
Having a role model for suicide is one of the contributing factors for why people complete a suicide so it is possible that other gay teens would replicate, most recently Jamey. He got a lot of attention and Lady Gaga did talk about him.
Also, young people, "the millennials" are proving to be less resilient and less able to tolerate distress and sad feelings. I believe the field of psychology will be doing more research on this.
With all that being said, it is tragic that this young man took his life. From what I read it appears that he suffered from major depression and that seemed to cripple him as well. I hope he and his family find peace of heart and mind.
15 Year old Commits Suicude #6
Posted: 10/17/11 at 11:09pmIt makes me furious that things like this happen because too many people are self righteous and cruel. It doesn't end with children. I think adults can be even worse.
15 Year old Commits Suicude #7
Posted: 10/17/11 at 11:21pmAdults, teens, and children can be cruel. I do not understand why it is so hard for people to just love one another. Isn't that what we all want?
15 Year old Commits Suicude #8
Posted: 10/17/11 at 11:57pm
"Having a role model for suicide is one of the contributing factors for why people complete a suicide so it is possible that other gay teens would replicate, most recently Jamey. He got a lot of attention and Lady Gaga did talk about him.
Also, young people, "the millennials" are proving to be less resilient and less able to tolerate distress and sad feelings. I believe the field of psychology will be doing more research on this."
A high school in my area a couple of years ago had a major problem when something around half a dozen suicides happened within a calendar year, or something to that effect. There was talk of a pact, but I think it was just that those kids looked to those suicides as an option to end their life after seeing classmates do it. School administrators normally don't clamped down when it is just one suicide, but when it becomes three, four, five, etc. then there is a major crisis.
It reminds me of the movie Heathers, as strange as that sounds. There were about two characters in the film who were actually in crisis and were portrayed as miserable with their lack of self-worth and only contemplated it after the 'suicides' earlier in the film. Nobody in the school learned except to cling to slogans of 'Teenage Suicide, Don't Do It'.
I definitely think that the rash of gay teen suicides and how it has been portrayed in the media as something hopeless could lead to other gay teens following in that path.
15 Year old Commits Suicude #9
Posted: 10/18/11 at 12:19am
Maybe it's that with more gay visibility, kids come out younger, not realizing what's in store for them. I wasn't out in high school and I was still tormented relentlessly for being perceived as gay. I can only imagine how much worse it would have been if I had actually come out.
I dunno. When I read what the poor kid wrote, my first thought wasn't that he was crying out for attention. If anything, I think these kids suffer from too much negative attention. I think if they were left the hell alone they'd probably grow up a lot healthier.
Or we could just blame the kids who are bullied for not being strong enough to take it. THAT seems like the most logical leap to make it. I mean, kids are always gonna be awful, right? Might as well make sure the kids who are being bullied understand early on that they are just part of a system that is old as time and that the problem, of course, is them.
Adults, teens, and children can be cruel. I do not understand why it is so hard for people to just love one another. Isn't that what we all want?
Is that what we want? I think CAX wants the gay kids to stop being such goddamn pussies. At least that's how I read it.
Updated On: 10/18/11 at 12:19 AM
15 Year old Commits Suicude #10
Posted: 10/18/11 at 12:38am
Actually, Phylliss, I wouldn't mind if ALL teens stopped being such "pussies" and started standing up for themselves.
Admittedly, I don't have many teens in my life right now but I often find myself teaching early 20 somethings and have seen the fallout of the me me me, I'm the victim/I'm special/I'm... fill in the blank mentality. Our kids' skin is thin thin thin. They take to blogs before they take to standing up for themselves... They retreat into cyberspace.
Again, don't get me wrong. I don't wish cruelty on anyone and I can recall my own private teenage hells. As I said, when I was a kid I had my share of issues. Many of them I hated and fought long and hard to correct in my mind. But I always held firmly to the belief that as long as another person did not physically harm me they were entitled to say or think what they pleased regardless of its basis in fact.
15 Year old Commits Suicude #12
Posted: 10/18/11 at 12:59amyou read what you chose to read. I never said I wanted gay teens to stop being anything. Those were your words. They didn't carry the sentiment of my initial post but i'll take them.
15 Year old Commits Suicude #14
Posted: 10/18/11 at 1:06am
"But I always held firmly to the belief that as long as another person did not physically harm me they were entitled to say or think what they pleased regardless of its basis in fact."
But a lot of kids respond that way because they know they have no grounds to complain unless the situation gets physical a lot of the time. So they internalize it. In the case of girls, this is especially complicated. Normally, girls do not 'settle' things by getting physical (though my time in high school saw 'cat-fights' rise considerably). It is almost impossible to use cyberspace as a retreat, if anything it is just another arena for those back and forths or just plain abuse.
I was personally bullied in middle school and it never got physical unless you count getting tiny balls of paper in my hair a 'physical act'. I said nothing and basically played the silent game if it meant they would lay off- they didn't. The last straw happened in an event too complicated to write out. That was when my mother found out about the bullying, and she wondered why I said nothing to her all this time.
I had friends who got screwed by the school administration (including one who had to leave school because his bullies were telling the whole school he was having suicidal thoughts) with their issues of bullying so I had doubts of my situation getting resolved no matter how hard my mother would try. It never really did get formally resolved except those bullies disappeared into background of high school by the end of freshman year.
Unfortunately, the people who bullied me never really changed, all wrapped up in a sense of grandeur that never got taken down to size. They were the kind of people you hope to see at the HS reunion to see if they had failed at life.
I am just glad social media did not explode until during my end of high school.
15 Year old Commits Suicude #15
Posted: 10/18/11 at 1:13am
I don't know if it's the fact that kids are more thin skinned then they used to be, but it does make some sense to me. Kids aren't allowed to ride their bikes without knee pads, gloves and helmets now. Everything on their playgrounds are covered in protective rubber and the ground is covered with that foam or soft wood chips. They're led around on actual leashes by their parents, for Christs sake and when they're not right next to them they have their cell phones with the GPS tracking so they can be found at any time. So in a way, I do think these kids are growing up today a lot more protected and not able to handle things.
When I was a kid during the summer and the weekends, I would say goodbye to my parents in the morning and come home at night after riding my bike around town with my friends all day, causing trouble, hanging out or whatever. Sometimes we did get into trouble and some of my friends would get into fights. But we learned how to survive and we learned that while skinned knees and skinned palms hurt and burned like a motherfvcker, it wasn't going to kill us and we were more careful next time. We also learned how to stand up for ourselves. And I think we were the last generation that was able to do that. You can't stand up for yourself anymore. There's "0 tolerance" policies everywhere so if you are being bullied and stand up, you get in trouble as well. If someone steals your lunch money and you go and get it back, you're suspended from school. This problem goes beyond bullying and I really think it's the way kids are being raised today, where they're so sheltered they don't know what the hell to do when these situations come up because they were never allowed to figure it out for themselves.
15 Year old Commits Suicude #16
Posted: 10/18/11 at 1:18amSections of the media and some celebrities have chosen this apparent epidemic as one of their hot topics, but I'm not sure if it is as new a phenomena as it seems. I wonder how many took their own lives with grieving relatives never knowing the reasons behind it - homosexuality being much more of a hush-hush subject all round.
15 Year old Commits Suicude #17
Posted: 10/18/11 at 1:21am
The high number of gay teenagers who take their own lives has never been a secret statistic. And in my post above I wasn't just referring to gay teens, I'm talking about ALL kids nowadays.
But I think now with the internet and facebook, youtube, twitter etc. it's more visible and there are people who want to make sure they're known after they complete the act.
15 Year old Commits Suicude #18
Posted: 10/18/11 at 1:26am
On the one hand bringing these tragedies to light exposes a real problem that must be dealt with. But I worry that the more gay teen suicides occur the more it may seem like a viable option to depressed, scared, and confused kids.
15 Year old Commits Suicude #19
Posted: 10/18/11 at 1:30am
Jordan--
This was the gist of my point.
As far as the internet, I do think people use it to hide. I've never seen more passive aggressive poppycock than I see on FB. People writing things they don't have the balls to verbalize to the people they're talking about. Blogging about things they feel are important in hopes that those thoughts will be validated by other people reading and commenting on them, etc.
I think schools are sorely missing the misfits. The real misfits. Who weren't in the in crowd and didn't give two sh(ee)ts what you said about them. I have sympathy of course for the sensitive and know everyone can't be the fearless rebel, but that spirit of "I'm gonna do me regardless of what you think" is what has led to innovation, discovery, sociological change, leadership and the rest FOREVER.
If it's not your sexual orientation it will be something and as adults we KNOW this. You will eventually become the guy who smells funny, the jerk who sends the annoyingly long emails, the chick who pisses people off because she heats up her leftover Vindaloo in the company breakroom microwave, the hopeless temp who can't get the phone lines right and therefore earns the ire of the entire floor, that annoying actress who shows up the the casting call despite the fact that she's no longer and ingenue and can't act her way out of a paper bag... Judgements continue, cruel things continue to be said (or worse thought and left unsaid)... People are beasts. We must be prepared to fight for ourselves. plain and simple.
15 Year old Commits Suicude #20
Posted: 10/18/11 at 1:33amYou're absolutely right and parents, schools, society as a whole is taking away kids ability to deal with life under a blanket of "protection". They weren't afforded this "protection" and they turned out ok. They weren't led around on leashes and somehow they managed to find their way back home.
15 Year old Commits Suicude #21
Posted: 10/18/11 at 1:41ami have to admit... the leashes crack me up. I recently saw a mom with a kid on the leash and the kid was holding the leash of the small family pooch.
15 Year old Commits Suicude #22
Posted: 10/18/11 at 1:42amI thought Jordan was just using a metaphor - it must be worse than I imagined.
15 Year old Commits Suicude #23
Posted: 10/18/11 at 1:43amAnd parents wonder why little Timmy is made fun of in school.
15 Year old Commits Suicude #24
Posted: 10/18/11 at 1:45amThe Victorian clothes don't help.
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