ATTENTION ROWAN WILLIAMS, DREXEL GOMEZ, HENRY OROMBI: Did you know Gay Teen Suicides are on the rise?

Care to know why?


Scars and Suicidality

¨...I read an article on gay teen suicide not too long ago and it left a lasting impression. The article read like an analytic requiem which I found quite profound. Many people will say only cowards commit suicide, and that it is the most selfish act in this world. People have moral qualms and quite often condemn the deceased to eternal fire and brimstone without actually knowing the person. After all, it is very easy to pass judgment. It is much more difficult to try to explain motives behind suicide. It is much more difficult to explain the why and moreover the existential conundrums.


Gay teens tend to be especially vulnerable due to the fact that most cohabit with their parents, are emotionally and financially dependent on them, and are legal minors with the profound effect that they do not even have complete authority over their lives. I am sure many gay teens are in precarious situations and wish to be legally emancipated yet it is more than often not as simple as the granting of a court order. Parents often lack understanding and view behaviour as recalcitrant – especially when teens act out due to not being able to discuss their true frustrations. Oh, before the Religious Right claims (again *yawn*) that those evil queers are recruiting our innocent kids I shall explain further from personal experience and avoid hypotheses and psychobabble.

I knew I was gay from a rather early age and obviously lived with my parents in a quaint nuclear family complete with mom, dad, 2.4 kids, 1.6 dogs and a single cat. White picket fences there were not as I grew up on a farm in the middle of nowhere during the early years of the New South Africa.¨ read it all, HERE


Gay Teen Suicide: On the Rise

¨The teen years can often times be very difficult in general, but for homosexual teens their problems can turn out to be more than they can deal with. Being gay for many teens is something that they can not live with because society, most of the time, says that homosexuality is wrong. These teens usually have no one to go to with his or her problems for fear of being taunted or harassed. Also, schools rarely have groups for gay students to go to for help and parents are often unaware of what their children are going through. With no place to go and no one to help them, homosexual teens can feel alienated which may force them think of more harmful ways of dealing with their problems, so at times gay teens may turn to suicide rather than having to deal with their problems.


In general teens have a hard time dealing with the changes that happen in their lives in school and with their own personal problems, so some teens become depressed and think suicide might be their only way to get away from these problems. The suicide rates among both homosexual and heterosexual teens have been on the rise. In a study reported on the internet site "Healthy Place" the statistics show that "adolescent suicide has increased threefold in the last 10 years, making it the second most frequent cause of death among youth aged 15-24"(Lindop 2001). In a study done on the population in Massachusetts in 1998 there were 503 suicides and 123 homicides (Healy 2001). Nationwide in 1998, there were 30,000 suicides and 18,000 homicides. In a study done in 1997 on 4,000 high school students, the statistics show that about 10 percent attempted suicide.


Most common ways teens attempt suicide is either by ingesting prescription or nonprescription drugs or by self-laceration (Lindop 2001).


I think one reason for this occurrence is because of the fact that, now more so than in the past, children have to learn to grow up a lot faster. There are many more responsibilities that teens have to deal with like fact that in most families both parents work and the older kids are left being the parent to their brothers and sisters or their parents are divorced and this causes a lot more problems in their home lives. These teens are expected to take on responsibilities that they are not ready for, and this can cause added stress and depression.


When depressed, many people can not find a way to be happy. When people are unhappy with their lives and can not make themselves happy, they think of other ways to relieve their pain, and suicide, along with drug use, is becoming a more common way to end ones pain. For homosexual teens there are far more problems that they have to deal with in their every-day lives.¨ read it all, HERE

· Thanks to Kristin Johnson
· Thanks to Liberal Studies
· Thanks to African Activist, sidebar
· Thanks to Cobus Fourie
· Thanks to Amplifying Africa's LGBTI Voices
· Thanks to Flickr Photo Sharing

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