My Social Cause is Teen Suicide

          I initially chose to do my blog post on the topic of teen suicides for a plethora of reasons. For one, I have time and time again come home to find yet another in a list of articles and reports of teen deaths. These deaths are often caused by the teens themselves; and as such, I feel as though it is necessary to shed light as to what actually causes teenagers to at times resort to such severe solutions to their problems. Perhaps knowing the reasons can help lead to its prevention. It is for this reason that I chose Teen suicide as my social cause; one can only hope that the information obtained from this post leads to suicide prevention amongst teens.

          Upon researching the topic, I learned that teen suicide is one of the leading causes of death amongst adolescence. These suicides are often a climax of depression or emotional distress. Said causes are a result of several different factors, ranging from environmental to social means. For instance, bullying, abuse, or a broken relationship, all of which make coping with life difficult for many. Despite these known causes and symptoms, the irony of the matter is that a only fifth of teens with depression and emotional distress get help. Furthermore, it is safe to say that the media, in its efforts to showcase unfortunate deaths in young individuals, actually promote suicide itself. This is known as copy-cat suicides, in which teens crave the same media coverage that others are receiving from there deaths. All in all, it is important to recognize these symptoms, their causes, and help teens cope with them to avoid the unthinkable.

5 Key issues regarding Teen Suicides

• Suicide is the third leading cause of death for adolescents and young adults. (
Zur, O. 2014)
• About 2/3 of people who complete suicide are depressed at the time of their deaths. Depression that is untreated, undiagnosed, or ineffectively treated is the number 1 cause of suicide. (Dosomething 2015)
• Nearly 800,000 people die each year from suicide. (NoBullying 2015)
• For every suicide death, there are 100-200 suicide attempts made by adolescence. (HealthyPlace)
• More youth die from suicide than from cancer, heart disease, AIDS, birth defects, pneumonia, influenza, and chronic lung disease combined. (wtw 2014)

          A recent article published by The Washington Post in February addresses the issue of suicide. The discussion is in regards to the site 'Tumblr', in which two transgendered teens attempted suicide (one of which succeeded) and left a post on the social media site as to why they chose that route. The jist of the article sheds light on the 'copy cat suicides' previously mentioned in this blog post. It goes on to say that the death of the first teen seemingly romanticized the idea of suicide amongst teens, eventually leading to the second teen attempting to take her own life. Furthermore, the article goes on to say that when a suicide gets media coverage or attention, other suicides are likely to follow in hopes that they can receive the same attention for their deaths as those before them. All in all, suicide is a big issue, and is present in both the straight and the LGBT community, it is an issue that should not be taken lightly.

Below is a political cartoon of the discussed Article: