The other day my school principal walked into my classroom. The words that came out of his mouth were not what I suspected. One of my classmates committed suicide the night before. My class was in shock. No one saw it coming. According to Suicide Awareness Voices of Education 30,000 teens die of suicide each year, and 750,000 teens attempt it. This is why people should be more aware of suicide. Words hurt: emotionally, mentally and physically. Depression is everywhere, some people just may not realize it.

The Internet is where it may start. Cyberbullying NCPC says 43% of teens have been victims of cyberbullying in the past year. Sixteen year old Amanda Todd was too a victim of this nasty crime. Pure-sight Online Child Safety has her story. Amanda constantly switched schools and therefore people at her previous schools would find and lash her until she was lying there hopelessly confused. Then one day she confessed and made a YouTube video of what was going on in her life and what had happened to lead to the bullying. One month later, after she made the video, she killed herself. Just like that. Gone, forever.

Was it because of appearance? Self image plays a big roll in American society today, especially in enabling someone to make a wrong and destructive decision like suicide itself. Self image and low self esteem have a tremendous or have a huge impact in teenagers suicide exceedingly. Depression is often associated with this, but the problem can usually be prevented with proper treatment such as counseling or anti-depressants. But who wants to go through that? If the teen does not do anything to get help, their depression will trigger, and trigger fast into attempting suicide. For example, when someone calls themselves ugly or any negative comment about her or she, they may not be looking for attention or sympathy. They may just want hope for themselves.

Most people don't know what that person does or goes through when they get home. To Write Love On Her Arms states that 4% of the population struggle and suffer with self-injury. Which may include: cutting, burning, picking or interfering with wound healing. Infecting oneself, punching/hitting self or objects, inserting objects into skin, bruising or breaking bones, or some forms of hair pulling. Soon this won't be good enough for that person and they will start to do even more harmful things. And maybe worse, take their own life.

So people may not know if someone is suicidal. The warning signs of an adolescent wanting to take their life is as obvious as a blinking billboard on the highway. The longer people are in denial or don't want to believe that someone that they care about may be contemplating suicide, the longer they have to commit the act before anyone notices. A lot of things can lead to one contemplating suicide, and most the time a doctor would say depression. Most of us feel this way at one time or another for short periods. The people who feel this way for a longer period of time are usually diagnosed with Depression. A way to figure out if one is contemplating suicide is the way they act. If they are pulling away from family or friends, not doing things that usually make them happy or their grades are dropping. Signs like that should be a concern to people and to whom they are seeing the victim in that condition. When things happen like that, people just think otherwise and don't put it into their precautions.

Therefore, any teen who mentions committing suicide should be taken seriously. All the things above are real life situations and nobody really knows how big the issue is becoming. Society needs to be more aware of the causes and signs. Because we are society. We are the people that are choosing to treat others like this, and its just not acceptable. Otherwise if society keeps up with this ugly addiction, one day someone else other than myself might have a dead classmate.