Throughout human communications, certain subjects are left out; most of these topics are considered controversial and not appropriate to bring up. I believe suicide and matters of self-mutilation should no longer remain unspoken, but rather in the foregrounds of discussion, considering it’s literally a matter of life or death. Most people do not think of it any more than it just being a selfish act, but those who consider it would argue otherwise. On average, a young person (ages 15-24) commits suicide every 2 hours and 12 minutes, and suicide is the 11th leading cause of death. Estimates suggest that 4% of the population suffer from inflicting self-pain. Why would this happen? It’s simple: emptiness, loneliness, inability to understand of express feelings, fear, past abuse, and depression. I think that if people were more educated in how to handle such things like this, the numbers would decrease tremendously.

It is stereotypical in today’s society to associate self mutilation with a group of people often referred to as being ‘emo’ or short for emotional. What society fails to comprehend is that hurting ones self comes after the title. Studies show that people often feel pressured to become what other people label them as, and so they often do. Just because someone enjoys wearing black, or listening to metal music others begin to put them down for not conforming to the “norms of society,” which in return makes them feel lonely and depressed. They often resort to hurting themselves because that’s how people expect them to deal with their problems. Most of the people involved in this vicious cycle don’t even realize the negative impacts they have.

One of the most important things people should realize though is you don’t have to look like you’re depressed to be depressed. How many times have you had something horrible going on at home, yet acted completely fine at work or school? It’s a lot easier to smile and make everyone happy than to express how you really feel. This fact is even more real when you consider the crude judgments humans often have towards each other without trying to fully understand the situation. With saying this, think of the fact that you can never truly know how a person is feeling on the inside so you have to be careful what you say or even how you act towards them. Most people wouldn’t say the horrible degrading things they say if they truly took the time to comprehend that person’s standpoint and emotions.

People should be more aware of what others around then are going thorough, and if they aren’t willing to that they should at least take steps towards being nicer to others. Whether it be a family crisis, unemployment, being made fun of due to sexual orientation, or even difficulties with developing one’s identity- people are hurting out in this world and the last thing they should be resorting to is hurting or killing themselves. Is putting someone else down to make yourself feel better really worth his or her life? Is making that ‘gay joke’ worth a boy cutting wounds onto his own arms because the pain in unbearable inside of him? When you really think about it, is suicide really selfish? Or are the people causing others to miserable the selfish ones? If more people realized the truth about this subject, the world might just be a better place, so why not talk about it?