I am concerned that our society (and I don’t just mean parents and teachers, both overworked and under-compensated for their efforts, but our society as a whole, all of us combined) is producing a generation of youth transfixed by their own navels. Of course they are, we encourage them to be! They don’t see the suffering of the world around them, only their unique brand of suffering. And all this talk of chemical imbalance in the brain and no personal responsibility infuriates me. Research has shown that talk therapy changes brain chemistry as well as any drug, and this to me means we do have power over our own thoughts. When I heard the hushed “oh, so tragic” and the community depression hanging like a cloud, I was desperate to hear some anger, too, and not just at parents/ teachers/ drug pushers, but at the youths themselves. So let me be the voice of anger. I am not talking here of the tragic situation of a person who is in unmanageable pain due to some terrible, incurable disease, that is a different circumstance. But let me tell you, if you are a teen contemplating suicide for emotional reasons, what you are doing is not romantic, it is not self-sacrificing (just a waste of yourself), and it is not thoughtful. Your act is an act of extreme violence against the very people who love you and who put so much effort and time into your well-being, and whom you love so little, it seems. Maybe you enjoy the thought of your friends’ hurting after you? Oh, yes, they will hurt badly, but eventually they will get over it and lead normal, productive lives. Get a hold of yourself, look outside of yourself for a second and find some meaning in your life by helping others in need. There is plenty you can do to help, but I suggest you start at the menial jobs first, because these need to be done, too. And, oh, go visit some poor places in the world with your parents’ money and see how other people live and suffer and work through their suffering, before you make any more plans to die.