My health reed

Volume 1, Issue 1

November 24, 2009

The Hard Truth D O N O T F O O L Y O U R S E L F

S u i c i d e : T h e T e e n K i l l e r T h a t i s O f t e n O v e r l o o k e d

Suicide is found to be the number one killer for American teens!

Suicide hits hard, and close to home. Think this only happens in stories???? Well then you are wrong!!!

I N S I D E T H I S I S S U E :

Suicide the Teen KillerMegan Meier

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Suicide the Teen KillerMegan Meier

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Suicide facts- Epidemic

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Suicide poem

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Misconceptions

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Bibliography-Resources

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Suicide is the leading killer in teen and adolescent aged children (learned in class from Ms. Morgan). Often suicides are overlooked as a type of death. The reason being is because most people view suicide as an avoidable accident, and that only mentally ill people are susceptible to this.

In all actuality it is an avoidable situation. Ninety-five percent of the people who attempt suicide do not want to die, but only attempt because they are lacking one of the six ingredients to mental health, self esteem, value system, goals to motivate, character, competence, and fulfilled needs (learned in class from Ms. Morgan). Often the person who attempts to commit sui-

T h e

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Suicide).

Above is the graph of Suicides by age.

cide shows clues about what they are considering doing.

Some clues that people give off are self mutilation, joking about death, depressive symptoms, giving away prized possessions, poor hygiene, and taking unnecessary risks

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. Since all of these symptoms are displayed it is hard to believe that people are not confronted before committing suicide. Often these symptoms are overlooked as just a way to get attention. Sometimes it is, depending on the specific ingredient to mental health that the person may be missing. The attitude that the behavior being displayed should just be ignored and is just a phase, but that is the type of attitude preventing the number of suicides to go down.

Countless examples of this are shown all around the world, and just as often the person considering this is antagonized

M e g a n

The 13 year old who committed suicide after cyber bullying.

(Continued on Page 2)

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question is, what do I do?

The situation of a suicidal person is a very sensitive situation, and the way that a person responds to this can be life or death. Often people feel uncomfortable with the situation of a suicidal friend so they joke about or avoid that person. This is the time that the person needs a friend the most. One way to react to this is to gently mention the topic to them, people

T e e n K i l l e r T h a t O v e r l o o k e d

who are thinking about suicide probably will not do anything dramatic because they are confronted. The suicidal person needs to know that people care about them. If the situation does not seem to be getting better once you have tried this, then the only way to resolve the problem would be to tell an authority figure. Whether it be a parent, teacher, or policeman, it is important to let other peo-

i s

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ple know. If these precautions are taken then the suicide rate will go down. The overlooked and ignored killer that is suicide can be changed by these simple actions.

“Suicide is a perma- Above the picture shows nent solution to a temporary that the U.S. is ranked 30 in problem”. —Phil Donahue male suicides (http:// questionabletopic.files.wordpress.com/2 008/04/suicide.jpg ).

T h e

“Her spirits have been lifted” —Her family said once she met Josh

Megan Meier was a thirteen year old girl who lived outside of Saint Louis Missouri. On October 17, 2006 she tragically committed suicide by hanging.

11 months prior to her suicide she met a boy named Josh over the popular website MySpace. The often lonely Megan was very eager to meet a friend, let a lone an

Embarrassed by all of this leaked information Megan acted irregularly. Showing many of the symptoms that a mentally ill or unstable person would. She then committed suicide.

This situation was handled very poorly. Megan was very

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depressed before she met Josh. The people who antagonized her knew very well of her illness. Put under the pressure of this situation and her illness she made the decision to end her own life.

It is well known that a depressed person drops many hints to their depression, if

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older boy. After exchanging several messages they began a very deep relationship constantly emailing each other.

Over these emails Megan exposed personal information to Josh. Once Josh gained her trust Megan exposed many details to her private life and feelings.

However, Josh was not the perfect boy that Megan

M e g a n

thought that he was. In all actuality Josh was a fictional character created be a mother and her daughter, a former friend, who lived about three houses away. The mother, Lori Drew, exposed all of Megan's personal information to her daughter and her daughter then exposed this information to the close friends of Megan's. (Below)

the people people who faked Josh knew about these, they might not have committed the crime that they did.

Above is a picture of the late Megan Meier.

V o l u m e

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I ss u e

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P a g e

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Bullied at school

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F a c t s

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TOP REASONS FOR SUICIDE

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Trouble at home

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Change in family dynamics (i.e. new baby, older sister moves back home, Grandmother moves in)

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Above is a painting portraying the pain of suicide.

Social struggles

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Balancing school, work, social life, and family relationships

Balancing relationships with divorced or separated parents

Facing an environment that encourages drugs, alcohol, and sex

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Change of schools

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The natural separation from parents

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Difficulties at school

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Dating

E p i d e m i c ( t o t h e l e f t ) A S u i c i d e p o e m ( t o t h e r i g h t ) The epidemic of suicide is as bad as ever, but unlike other epidemics this can easily be stopped. There are several basic things that if people would follow it could be stopped. (for these refer to page 1).

Though it is odd to think that something that is taking the lives of so many people, and teens is something that is so preventable. If people looked at suicide and thought that it was a type of death that could happen to anyone there would be a lot more people trying to stop it. However, that is the problem, the way people see it is that suicide is a dramatic thing that happens at the end of tragic stories, when in all actuality suicide is a lot more common than that.

Re-

lationship breakup

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Learning to accept themselves with or without talents and abilities

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Getting good grades for college/university

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Getting a part-time job

Choosing a college/university (http://www.google.com/ hostednews/afp/

article/).ALeqM5iz_EqW853YSrQfZllzQlmlbFkU5A

- Robert Desnos

To the left is suicide around the world. To the right is a picture of a noose (http:// kidshealth.org/teen/ your_mind/ feeling_sad/ suicide.html ). (http:// www.spur.asn.au/ Suicide_Bomb_29_Oct_ 2001_Narahenpita.j pg).

GO TO MICDS.COM

More facts.

Contrary to popular belief suicide notes are rarely left by the person who committs the act. More misconceptions created by Hollywood, that ultimatly hurt the people who are in need of help and are suicidal. The only way to stop something as horrible as suicide is to understand it, and then understand how to react to it. However, when false information is fed to people by things like the television, it is hard to grasp the reality of the situation of a real life suicidal person. To understand suicide more go to one of the websites or sources bellow.

National suicide hotline http://suicidehotlines.com/ 1-800-784-2433 Kids Under Twenty One http://www.kuto.org/ 1-888-644-5886 National Alliance on Mental Illness http://www.nami.org/ National Suicide

by Martin Gross

B i b l i o g r a p h y

Special thanks to micdslibrary.com