Suicide is the third leading cause of deaths among people 15 to 24 (16) Although lately the rate of suicide is beginning to level off, it has tripled since the 1950s. The suicide rate varies with gender, race, sexuality, and environment.
Males commit suicide four times more than females, yet females attempt suicide four times more than males. Concerning race, Statistics state that white males and females make up almost half of the suicides in the US, which is more than any other race. (2) Homosexuals commit 30 percent of all suicides in the United States. Some one who commits suicide can have a deceiving environment. Most people believe teens that come from a poor home life would have the higher suicide rate, but research shows teens that come from wealthy homes and prestigious neighborhoods are more apt to commit suicide. Keep in mind that suicide among other races and environments do occur, just not as often as those stated above.
The popular belief of why this increase in suicide among teens is the pressures put on teens today that did not exist in the 1950s. Teens are forced to juggle pressures on sex, school, huge expectations, and societys opinion. Many teens feel that they are on the outside looking in when it comes to sex. They are torn between what society and communities think is right and what television, advertisements and radio tell them is right. School is also a great pressure for teens, especially for those who dont do so well in academics. Society plays a big role in homosexual suicides.
Homosexual teens use suicide as an escape from the constant disgust from what society thinks is proper and from what they feel is proper for them. As for expectations, the world in general has many expectations on the new generations. Some expect that the upcoming adults will be the destruction of all they have worked for, yet others put it on the new generations shoulders the weight of many great things like medical cures or technology advancements. Teens feel this is too much to deal with and get away from this by ending their lives. There are a couple of different types of suicide. The main on is just plain suicide.
The person no longer wants to deal with life, so he/she does away with it. Next is called a suicide cluster. This is when, a group of suicides, suicide attempts, or both, that occur closer together than would normally be expected in a given community. (6) When one teen commits suicide, this suddenly opens up a door to other vulnerable teens who have been either experiencing some of the danger signs of suicide or who have been considering suicide all together.
The last is known as a suicide pact. This is when two or more people make a pact to commit suicide together. These people are usually friends and have a common reason for this decision, but are afraid to do it alone. Another scenario are teens in forbidden love, this romantic notion (stemming from the love story Romeo and Juliet) that death is the only way for them to be together, due to dividing forces. (12) There are many reasons that can not possibly be known, as to why a teen might want to commit suicide. However, the majority of the reasons that are known have been combined into six main groups which are stress and pressure, drugs and alcohol, mental illnesses, unloving and/or abusive parents, loneliness, and (believe it or not) curiosity.
Stress, pressure, drugs, and alcohol are the most common among teens. These combined make any person feel hopeless and cloud their judgement. They just want to get away from all their pain. Next in line is mental illness. Their reasons are that, they dont know any better or they know somethings wrong with them and feel they are a burden on their families, so they turn to suicide. (9) Loneliness can leave a teen with no one to talk to or turn to with problems they have.
They just bottle them up inside and think no one understands them. One day they can not take the alienation any longer and do something .
