Suicidal Thoughts and Who's to Blame?

[*Don*]

Alright, the reason why I started this thread is due to an incident at my high school.

 

Its no secret that almost all teens have suicidal thoughts at some point during their teenage years.

Most times, these thoughts originate from the various social pressures and other academic strains that are placed upon them.

 

Lately, there was a girl in my class who was an excellent student and had strict parents who forced the best out of her.

A B+ was unacceptable to her and anything less than an A- on her report card was considered as an F.

On top of that, she didn't have many friends and was openly mocked and made fun of by others.

 

Anyways, last week, she failed some tests and was heavily berated by her parents.

She came into the school next day and claimed that she wrote a suicide note.

Her friends (apparently) decided not to say anything (hoping that it was just temporary).

The day afterwards, she attempted suicide by slitting her wrists.

Fortunately, it didn't work and she was saved in the nick of time.

 

This week, we all had psychologists give an assembly on the topic of suicide (and how it can be prevented) and the girl was taken out of school.

However, the question is, who is really to blame for the girl's attempt at suicide?

Is it the parents for pushing her too hard, the guys who made fun of her, or her friends who didn't say anything?

Either way, had her attempt succeeded there would have been a serious outlash.

Some of the school systems throughout America have put psychologists in schools so that kids can come and talk about their problems but many students do not go simply because they are scared of being labeled "emo".

Is there anything that can be done to reverse this?

[Jvstice]

I don't think you can lay the blame at her feet or any teen who struggles with whether life is worth living or not. The decisionmaking part of the brain doesn't finish developing until the 20s, and while teens take in facts and process them as well as adults, they have problems implementing stress and changes in the way they see things into their lives without getting overwhelmed. They just don't have as many tools for coping as adults gain from more years of experience.

 

Who failed her? I'd say to a degree, everyone. One person who cares could make a difference.

 

When a teen is suicidal, usually girls don't succeed and most experts on suicide think that attempts are cries for help, rather than a wholehearted effort to end things. Though they can succeed anyway. Boys try less often, but are almost universally sucessful in killing theselves if they actually get to that point. The adults needed to take her serious from the get go.

[Totenkopf]

I'm not sure you can blame any one particular party/person b/c everyone is different. Some may resort to attempts at suicide as a means of getting everyones' attention, others b/c their coping mechanisms are insufficient or overloaded. Others, like Klebold and Harris or the Korean fella at VT lash out and kill others before killing themselves.

[jonathan7]

Who failed her? I'd say to a degree, everyone. One person who cares could make a difference.

 

QFT

 

A very sad story, I do hope she does/gets a caring friend who will look after here. I must confess I'm not a fan of parents such as her, I think they push their children far too hard, and do not let them enjoy their childhood. The bullies should stop too, I've never understood bullying (I've never been bullied, and have never really bullied anyone else), I hope after this they stop, unfortunatly I think it may only make things worse.

[Jae Onasi]

It's impossible to know who's to "blame" in this case. She may have depression. Whether the parents had unreasonable expectations or not for her and how much of it was her perception of their expectations is unclear. If they were unreasonable, that didn't help. The lack of support from fellow students and the teasing could well have contributed. There could easily be some other factors that she hasn't told anyone about (a favorite relative dying, a close friend leaving, etc.). I don't think you can lay blame on any one thing.

[Arcesious]

Sad story... Her parents sound really mean, and so do her classmates... thank goodness she didn't die. Something all teens should know is that they shouldn't punish themselves for the cruelness of humanity...

now I'm glad that there are councilors in schools... I never really realized how big of difference they make...

 

The decisionmaking part of the brain doesn't finish developing until the 20s,

 

I learned soemthing new today... But I'm not sure if that's true with everybody, because some of the teenage people on here are pretty smart and logical...

[Web Rider]

Yeah, I'd argue "society" in general, which includes her. In this particular case, it's her parents fault for being so cruel, it's her schools fault for not teaching kids to recognize the symptoms, it's her friend's fault for not doing more, and it's her fault for not making more effort to make friends.

 

Society's fault for putting these kinds of pressures on kids, the education system's fault for being so crappy, the government's fault for not pushing education more, and the people in general's fault for not pushing the government to push education, or for letting it get this bad.

 

Yeah, there's plenty of blame to go around. What would be better though is to focus on who can do more keep this from happening.