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Teen suicide causes and prevention
The effects of suicide on teens
Teen suicide causes and prevention
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Suicidal tendencies in adolescents begin around the ages of 10 through 19, with warning signs, prevention, treatment, and the causes and effects it has on the human psyche. Suicide is when someone decides to take his or her own life because and are suffering from a painful mental treatable illness and have lost hope in who they are. Because when hope is lost, some feel like suicide is the only solution to truly make the adolescents pain go away permanently. Scientific evidence that shows the people who have committed suicide had a diagnosable treatable mental disorder or substance abuse disorder (The National Institute of Mental Health, 2010). Those people might have been suffering from illness such as depression, mood disorders, personality disorders and or suffering from bullying. Being a victim of bullying can be linked to suicidal thoughts as well as behavior in adolescents. Other causes might also include having family problems at home, problems at work, school and or with school peers. Suicide is a serious problem though it not only affects the victim, but it also affects family members, loved ones, along with friends.
Suicide in adolescents is the third-leading cause of death in the United States between the ages of 10 though 19 (National Center for Health Statistics, 2012, 292). More adolescents who think even about attempting suicide are mostly the ones who are unsuccessful at it. Females for example, are more likely than males to attempt to commit suicide by either over dosing on sleeping pills or self harming. Most adolescents’ girls will not succeed in actually committing suicide. Males on the other hand, use more drastic ways of committing suicide, adolescent boys usually with a firearm rather than another meth...
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...people perceive it be and can be very helpful to the adolescent by showing them that they are not alone in this battle no, but they have others fighting it as well. Meditation is also a helpful way to reduce stress and emotional reactivity. The final way to prevent bad thoughts to occur would be to exercise regularly to help improve the adolescent’s mood and take some frustration out.
In conclusion, suicidal behavior can affect not only the adolescent but their family as well.
Works Cited
Graber & Sontag (2009)
Gould et al. (2003)
Lauren. (2014, May 20). Rx for the Mind: 5 Ways to Heal the Hurt Inside [Blog post].
National Center for Health Statistics (2012)
National Institute of Mental Health. (2009). Suicide: A Major, Preventable Mental Health Problem.
Santrock, J. W. (2014). Essentials of Life-Span Development (3rd ed.). New York, NY:McGraw-Hill.
People have different reasons to die by their own hands. Emotional, environmental, and, mental are the three categories that most people's reasons fall into. Undoubtedly, emotional causes often spur from breakups, or other drastic negative changes in social life. Oftenly, teens will commit suicide to “ escape feelings of pain, rejection, hurt, being unloved, victimization, or loss”(Tracy, 2016). Consequently, when teens have no solutions for their problems they feel that suicide is the solution. “Bullying, cyber bullying, abuse, detrimental home life, loss of a loved one or even a severe breakup” are ways that the environment can increase the chances of voluntary death (Tracy, 2016). Also, “Most teens who attempt suicide do so because of
Approximately 24% of 12-17 year olds have considered suicide and up to 10% have attempted suicide.” (Suicide Intervention Training PG 3). Teens today are very likely to commit suicide for various reasons. In today’s society there are a lot of judging and bullying cases around the world. No matter how much we promote a bully free zone there will always be a couple of cliques, or individuals, who want to bring others down and who do not know the seriousness of bullying. Although bullying is a big cause of suicide, the leading cause is a mental illness that many people are familiar with called depression. “Psychiatric disorders can affect diverse aspects of an individual’s life.”( Dispelling Myth Surrounding Teen Suicide, PG 1). If you or someone you know seems down most of the time, the best thing to do is to go see someone about your despair. If you are diagnosed with depression, prescribed depression medicine can help and can be one way to prevent suicidal thoughts or actions. “There is a lot of evidence that suicide is preventable.”(Cont. Principles of Suicide Prevention, PG
According to Fowler, Crosby, Parks, and Ivey (2013), suicide and nonfatal suicidal ideations are significant public health concerns for adolescents and young adults. While the onset of suicidal behaviors is observed as young as six years of age, rates of death and nonfatal injury resulting from suicidal behavior are moderately low until 15 years of age (Fowler et al., 2013). According to Fowler et al (2013), the most current available statistics in the United States (U. S.) reported suicide as the third leading cause of death among youth aged 10-14 and 15-19 years, and it was the second leading cause of death among persons aged 20-24 years.
A 17 year old boy, Douglas Stewart, came home from school to find his mother lying on the sofa with a strained back. Being concerned for her he rubbed her back briefly then put on some easy listening music. Douglas then proceeded downstairs to his bedroom. Two of his friends came to the door. His mother waited to see if he would return to answer it; minutes later she answered and then yelled for him to come up. When he did not come, she went downstairs to get him. That is when she found him strangled and her son’s body dangling from the ceiling. This is a senseless tragic sight for a mother to endure. The mortality rate from suicide in 1996 showed 9.5 per 100,000 for 15-19 year olds. This also shows boys are four times more likely to commit suicide then girls. However, girls are twice as likely to attempt suicide. (American 1996) It is imperative to reverse this trend and in doing so we need to understand the characteristics, behaviors and events associated with youth suicide.
There are many things which can drive a teen to commit suicide some of them are as simple as making fun of the “fat” kid in class; others can come from the mental images from witnessing a shooting. There are four major issues which contribute to teen suicide such as depression, family problems, risk factors, and teens reactions to there climate. Depression, unfortunately, is one of the biggest factors of today’s teenage suicide problems and some of the reasons for it are from the student’s own peers, “being depressed is triggered by loss or rejection (Joan 59).” Depression can be f...
Suicide is the act of deliberately causing one's own death. It is often carried out as a result of despair, the cause of which is credited to a mental disorder such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, alcoholism, drug abuse, as well as stress factors such as financial difficulties, troubles with personal relationships, and bullying. It is a tragic reaction to stressful life situations. Suicide is a devastating event with strong emotional results for its survivors and for families of its victims - and the most terrible is that it can be prevented.
In 2011, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention established that 6.3% of high school students have attempted suicide in the preceding year. Given the lethal consequences of suicide attempts, determining risk factors among adolescents becomes especially important. Generally speaking, psychiatric disorders and substantial psychosocial impairments are known to be associated with suicide attempts. However, previous research attempting to identify specific risk factors in adolescents is somewhat ambiguous. Nonetheless, one thing is consistent. When measuring the risk of an adolescent committing suicide, information must come from a variety of sources and perspectives. These sources may include but are not limited to a clinical interview with the adolescent, information provided by the parent or guardian, standardized assessments and previous psychiatric documents from the individual.
Bullying is very serious. It pushes people to do drastic things that will affect others’ lives for the worst. Bullying within teens cause teens to commit or think about committing suicide. Other teens have to watch what they do and say to teens, because teens take everything to heart. Bullying is the biggest cause of teen suicide because it pushes people to believe that it is the only way out, makes people feel worthless, and causes the most mental problems in teens.
At the end of chapter 9 in the section of “Other Myths to Explore”, there are eight myths about suicide that all have clarifying truth to it. In 2013 there was 842,000 suicides, making it the 10th leading cause of deaths in the world (2015). The myths of suicide range from not having a warning, to what season suicide happens the most, and what gender commits suicide the most. Most of these myths
Smith, M.A., Melina. "Cutting and Self-Harm." : Self-Injury Help, Support, and Treatment. Helpguide, Jan. 2012. Web. 16 Apr. 2012. .
There are multiple negative effects of teen suicide. Large numbers of teens that do not have support from friends, peer groups, family, or religious association may and can feel isolated from the world and disconnected. (Larry’s). The tragedy of a young person dying as a result of overwhelming hopelessness is devastating to everyone. Suicide rates differ between boys and girls. Girls think about and attempt suicide about twice as often as boys, and attempt suicide by overdosing. Boys die by suicide about four times as often as girls, due to using more lethal methods, such as firearms, hanging, or jumping from heights. (Nock). There are several different factors that may lead a teenager to take their life, but the most common is depression. Feelings of hopelessness and anxiety, along with feelings of being trapped in a life that one cannot handle, are contributors to teen suicide. It is important to be on the lookout for signs that your teen may attempt suicide. Some of the warning signs are similar to normal adolescent behavior. At times, preventing teen suicide means treating teen depression. Since 75 percent of the people who commit suicide are depressed (according to the University of Texas), it is a beneficial start to begin treating the symptoms of teen depression. (Teen Suicide Overview).
Now the eighth-leading cause of death overall in the U.S. and the third-leading cause of death for young people between the ages of 15 and 24 years, suicide has become the subject of much recent focus. U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher, for instance, recently announced his Call to Action to Prevent Suicide, 1999, an initiative intended to increase public awareness, promote intervention strategies, and enhance research. The media, too, has been paying very close attention to the subject of suicide, writing articles and books and running news stories. Suicide among our nation’s youth, a population very vulnerable to self-destructive emotions, has perhaps received the most discussion of late. Maybe this is because teenage suicide seems the most tragic—lives lost before they’ve even started. Yet, while all of this recent focus is good, it’s only the beginning. We cannot continue to lose so many lives unnecessarily.
Suicide is the third leading cause of death for 15 to 24 year olds, and the sixth leading cause for 5 to 14 year olds. Suicide accounts for twelve percent of the mortality in the adolescent and young adult group. Young males are more common than young woman suicides. These are only children who followed through with the suicide. For every successful suicide there are fifty to one hundred adolescent suicide attempts. In other words, more than five percent of all teenagers tried to commit suicide, and the number is still rising. It is scary to think that four percent of high school students have made a suicide attempt within the previous twelve months. In a small safe town like Avon, in the Avon High School where you and I practically live, you can see the faces of 22 students that have tried to commit suicide. That is enough to fill a classroom.
... 4 out of 100 become seriously depressed and anguished to the extent that they are ready to commit suicide. The reasons are bad grades, relationship with family and friends and alcohol or drug abuse. The upshot of depression is always devastating. It is estimated that every 30 seconds a teenager commits a suicide. The reason is the same, ‘depression’.
There are many different risk factors that can contribute to the cause of suicide. There is so much pressure on teen, like fitting in with socially and performing academically, that puts them under a ton of stress and worry. Major life changes and bullying can include parents divorce, moving, death of someone close to the teen, or parents leaving due to military services. This puts thoughts into teens’ minds that they are different. But the most common factor is