Bloomington High School South, The Gothic, 1985, Page 24

Description:	Miscellaneous, etc.iSuicide:nationalepidemicSuicide in Americahas become, in truth, anational epidemic.It has become thethird leading cause ofdeath for peoplebetween the ages of 15and 24, behindaccidents andhomicides. More than6,000 people in this agegroup have committedsuicide in the past yearand a half; and forevery one of those6,000 suicides there are50 to 100 unsuccessfulsuicide attempts.This high rate ofsuicide is only a recentoccurrence: it hastripled within the last25 years. As of spring1985, the U.S. isamong the highest innumbers ofsuicides—evensurpassing the amountin Sweden and Japanwho are known for theirproblems with suicides.If the statistics dontcause much concern,the recent series ofsuicide clusters do.These clusters haveshocked towns andcities across thecountry. The suicidedeath of one persontriggers the suicides ofnumerous others.Sometimes the victimsknow one another andsometimes they dont.Usually, however, thesuicides seem to comeout of the blue. Theclusters have occuredthroughout history butthe recent suicideepidemics are moreperplexing because oftheir random nature.There is no onereason why somepeople take their ownmixture of social,psychological, andmaybe even physicalfactors. First of all,there are more youngpeople in America thanbefore, due to the post-World War II babyboom. This means morecompetition than everperson even moredepressed.Adolescence hasalways been a time forgrowth and painfuladjustment. This mayaccount for the reasonfor approximately halfof Americas youngpeople consideringlife, just as there is noone type of person thatcommits suicide.Suicide, not being anillness, is notcontagious. But overlypublicized suicides maypush others intoconsidering suicide;thus creating theclusters.Although suicidesare often attributed toone single cause, it isntusually for that onereason. The cause is,instead, a complexbefore for grades,colleges, jobs, andattention.Because of the rateof divorce, morechildren grow up insingle parenthousehold, and becauseof the increasinginstance of two careerfamilies, less time isspent with children.More and more teensturn to drugs andalcohol to fill in thisvoid. Drugs may makean already depressedsuicide by the time theygraduate from highschool. It exists at everyage, however, butwhatever theimplications, teenagershave beendisproportionatelysusceptable to suicidein recent years.Now is a time to beopen and communicate;a time to listen and careabout each other.Working together as aschool family, othersolutions can be found.24 Student Life
Source:	http://cdm17129.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/hs-bloomsouth/id/2191
Collection:	Bloomington High School South

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