We should be spending more time worrying about teenage depression and suicide rather than stressing about how your new Instagram picture looks, and how many likes it’s getting. Teens attempt/commit suicide and or have depression, like adults. But people have underestimated the amount of pressure being put on teens. In the day and age I live in now, I can only say, ‘Wow.’ So many people don’t even believe they’re real things anymore, or how out-of-hand it’s getting. How long will it take for the human race to understand that what they say to people actually hurts?

“Depression is the most common mental health disorder in the United States among teens and adults.” This shows how big of a problem teenage depression is, and, “90% of suicide victims suffer from a mental illness, and suffering from depression can make a teenager as much as 12 times more likely to attempt suicide.” People aren’t taking these illnesses seriously. A website states that when people make fun of suicide, it doesn’t encourage people to get help. Instead, it makes them feel like no one cares or they are not being truthful.

There have been so many people making jokes about suicide and depression. There was a man in his twenties who made a video of himself mocking a 12-year-old girl who hung herself. In the video, he used toilet paper as a noose and stood on the edge of the bathroom tub, while saying things like “it’s all too much”, and you can hear laughter in the background from his girlfriend. The video got taken down, but there were comments telling him to stop. How is that funny? The truth is, it’s not, so why make fun of it?

The amount of knowledge about suicide and depression is devastating — people think that kids can’t get depression. But 67.3% of adolescents in the US had a depression episode, and were 12-17 years old in 2014. I agree with this comment about depression and suicide from a teenager  If we follow through with this plan to educate more people, hopefully the ‘funny’ joking will end. “I think that people should be educated much more about teen depression. The ignorance about this subject is overwhelming in not only people my age, but also adults and even teachers. For every one person that legitimately understands the subject, there seems to be five or more that are clueless about it. Too many times I have heard that the condition is a “farce,” and that is actually just a part of growing up.

There is a difference, a large one, and it has been proven time and again…..often times too late.”