Montoya

Henry Montoya
Professor Noh
English 114A
1 November 2015
The Epidemic of a New Generation
In Everyday by David Levithan, A encounters a series of social issues
that A has to deal with in any body A is manifested in. The social issues may
be from suicides to sexuality awareness to even racism. These different kinds
of social issue are surrounding everyone in our daily lives even if we dont
experience first hand. In our communities there are different acts of violence,
hatred, and depression that can all lead up to teen suicides. Suicides
amongst teens are becoming more present in our society with having
different commercials and advertising help in public schools, it is no question
why different programs are being developed to help the youth with such a
difficult time in their lives.
Suicides in our communities are at an all time high, especially with
teens. According to the American Journal of Public Health, Statistics show
that for every suicide death there is, there have been 25 attempts within
teens, and these are just the attempts that have been reported. Different
factors are put into place when a suicide attempt is committed. For example,
bullying is a major reason why teens even think about if they are good
enough in life or not. In our surrounding areas, there are different awareness

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events that make it so recognize bullying and what the outcome of harassing
someone can be.
Sexuality can also be a questioned cause of suicides. According to The
Family Acceptance Project, Even though there are not any reported cases
where a person with a different sexuality preference has committed suicide
since legally the government cannot categorize sexuality, the LGBT
statistical information says LGB youth are four times more likely to commit
suicide then their straight peers. Especially LBG youths coming from
rejecting families are 8.4 times as likely to have attempted suicide. Verbal
and physical harassment increase self-harming acts by 2.5 times in the LGB
youth community. Bullying and Sexuality can be tied together on this
disturbing topic.
Mental illnesses are also a huge factor within out community related
suicides. In different public schools, there are starting to be random mental
screening to see if a child is depressed or in the early stages of depression.
Since depression is a huge factor towards suicide attempts, it is starting to
become a response priority where a child with the case of depression will be
monitored. Not only depression but also mental illnesses that dont allow a
person to have control over their cognitions may also be a factor with
suicide. If a person is not fully in control of his/her body and they attempt to
commit suicide, what is the real thing committing the act? It might be the
cognitions and it might be the person but no one will really know that.

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Teen suicides are an uprising problem in our communities. There are so

many cases on the new and social media on how another teenager has taken
their own life due to either their sexual preference or from bullying. Other
has taking their lives without even having control over it. There are different
programs for help and even anonymous hotlines that can help get through a
dark state of mind. Different opportunities are being developed within
communities to help these struggling teens with a very hard time in their
lives. Different supportive people are always there to help like teacher,
suicide awareness activist, psychologist, and even a random person that
might be going through the same rough time. There is always a way with
different opportunities coming out for everyone.

Work Cited
Family Acceptance Project. (2009). Family rejection as a predictor of negative health
outcomes in white and Latino lesbian, gay, and bisexual young adults. Pediatrics.
123(1), 346-52.
IMPACT. (2010). Mental health disorders, psychological distress, and suicidality in a
diverse sample of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youths. American
Journal of Public Health. 100(12), 2426-32.