Causes and Prevention of Suicide among Teenagers

Category: Psychology

Introduction

In most cases the desire to commit suicide occurs as rampant trend among teenagers. A suicide refers to taking away the life of one for different reasons. The demeaning within the age group or certain stressful situations may result to the thoughts that suicide is the only way out. In addition, it appears as the third leading cause of death among youths around the world. The only health related issues that surpass suicide in the world include homicide and road accidents. This leaves a lot to desire concerning the complete growth of the young generation. The main causes of suicides among the youths include social and psychological factors. Moreover, other environmental factors also may be the outcomes of it.

Body

First of all, the suicide may be as the consequence of mental sickness.. In addition, such risk- factors as ethnicity, constant stress and gender problems can be associated with suicide. According to the Centre for Disease Prevention and Control in the US, it appears clearly that most suicides occur among youth aged between 15-24. This age group appears as the most productive in the society thus, as the trend of suicide continues, the level of productivity occurs at high risk.

Statistics has shown that most of the suicide cases occur due to the risk of mental disorders. The National Institute of Mental Health reported that most of the teenage suicides occur due to mental illnesses that may occur because of immense abuse of drugs. On the other hand, there are a lot of cases where mental illnesses may have an impact on suicide thoughts. During the teenage life, a boy or girl undergoes the main of adolescence. At this time, teenagers possess varied expectations and require a lot of attention and care from their friends and family. Their aspiration may be destroyed by different factors such as peer pressure and social problems. . As such, they may end up developing certain expectations that may expose their vulnerability. Failure to achieve what they expect may cause them immense stress the consequence of which is unpredictable.

For instance, a teenage boy may appear in a group of friends who deemed that drugs or other substances are the best way to gain fame. In addition, it will help you to improve your personal life, to find the right girlfriend. . Thus, the teenager will indulge in this activity in order to meet all the expectations. However, being young and inexperienced person it is difficult to think ahead about the outcomes of doing certain actions. Sooner or later the teenager will realize that everything was just the illusion. Since he exposed his vulnerability, he only feels more vulnerable. As such, he consumes more drugs, which may lead to mental illnesses that include hallucinations.

As a result the life of the boy is distorted and the feelings of regret and stress may overwhelm him. Therefore, there is a great risk of that the boy will commit suicide, because in such cases when people are left alone especially in a tall buildings or a house the possibilities of suicides are even higher (Huddle, 2011).

Other situations that may cause stress among teenagers constant bullying, frequent punishment and sexual harassment. A teenager who constantly experiences punishments from an elderly person tends to feel despised and hated. Moreover, if the punishments are extremely severe and painful, this makes the situation even worse. Eventually, when a teenager encounters immense psychological torture, feels hatred or less important in the society it is not surprising that thoughts about suicide occur.

Other teenagers may resort to suicide after a sexual assault incident. Most teenagers tend to remain silent about such kind of assault. This occurs due to the threats that come with sexual assault. Particularly, the rapists tend to threaten these victims to kill them or expose them negatively if they attempt to report about the matter. As such, the teenager appears to deal with the entire ordeal by him or herself without telling anyone. The assault may result in unwanted pregnancies that may increase the stress, which may lead them to commit suicide (Murphy, 1999).

Bullying also appears as another cause of stress that may lead to suicide. Bullying appears as a factor that still occurs in some schools around the world. Some of these bullies go to extremes of making their victims slaves. For instance, they may use their victims as a point of releasing their own stresses by beating them up. They may also constantly assault them sexually in different ways. As such, the victim is under the constant stress that may lead them to commit suicide since they get tired of the abuse (Schleifer, 1999).

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Some teenagers tend to resort to suicide when there are violent actions from the members of the family. Some parents tend to apply marital violence in the presence of their children. Furthermore, sometimes even the children are involved. This may include sending them away or beating them up severely. Due to the helplessness, they tend to accept it, they resort to activities such as drug and substance abuse in order to avoid thinking of the situations at home. The worst happens when the parents get divorced since the teenage children tend to feel more vulnerable. Continuous drug and substance abuse may lead them to commit suicide due to the immensely developed psychological torture.

As much as the society tries to look into ways of reducing suicide among teenagers, it seems to be an inevitable act, as the societal factors that trigger these acts exist. The risk- factors that may induce a teenager to commit suicide still occur within the families and the entire community. Bulling at schools, raping issues increase the possibility of suicide. Besides, most of these rape cases still go unreported by victims. Eventually, the victims tend to deal with the repercussions without informing the relevant authorities. As a result teenagers, who go through immense stress, suffer from being underestimated. They feel that their counterparts are better, not realizing the fact that the atrocity that occurred was not their fault. Eventually, they sought to suicide in order to get rid of the stress and a feeling of degradation.

However, as the cases of teenage suicide tend to increase, there is the hope that to prevent those catastrophes is possible. First, the person should be aware of the sighs of possible suicide of other person. a . For instance, such individuals tend to portray an alteration in their regular sleeping patterns. Moreover, their character may also change with time. A person who initially appeared social and outgoing may start secluding him or herself from the society.

Other signs of suicide include the heated discussions about death... Furthermore, people may also express disgust at life as they think it contains nothing but troubles or pain. In cases where the individual experience a loss through death of a close family member, they may also want to take away their own lives. In such cases, they tend to think that the painful situation they experience will never end and the suicide is the optimal solution. Others tend to feel less important among others. They feel that the rest of the family would feel no loss if they died. The low self-esteem is one of the crucial factors that influence the person to commit suicide. If the society observes such signs in a teenager, the right measures should be introduced (Sperekas, 2000).

Statistics has shown that one out of five teenagers consider suicide as the best solution to the problem. In addition, most of those who prefer suicide have been rescued while scores died through this act. Therefore, it appears fundamental to take care of the teenagers who appear at a risk of committing suicide. The government should ensure that the special hospitals offer appropriate solutions for patients who are at risk of committing suicide.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the act of suicide is triggered by certain social, environmental and psychological factors. It revolves around all age groups but teenagers are the most vulnerable as it is the most difficult and problematic stage to deal with. Most of young people opt to commit suicide since they think that their problems have no other solutions, because of mental illnesses that arise from drugs abuse or losses in the family. As such, the society should find the effective methods to prevent the cases of suicide.

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