Driving to school I can’t help but wonder what ignorant statements I’ll hear in the next eight hours.
“Try going down the river, not across the stream.” Or “Next time just take the razor to your throat, do us all a favor.” Maybe if I’m lucky “I don’t understand why people cut themselves. If you were real you would stab yourself.”
My personal favorite is when someone decides it’s okay to ask me in front of people who don’t know so much, “Do you really cut yourself? I heard it’s on your thigh. Is it because it hurts less or is it just easier to hide? Why are you even doing it, your life is perfect.”
I’m barely surviving school as it is, and on top of that all I hear is comments from people who just don’t understand.
These words are said every day by ignorant self-obsessed people who were never taught any better or never listened, and nothing has been done about it.
By the end of the year thousands of kids across the country will have killed themselves, left their families wondering why, but if teachers and administrations won’t listen, we all know the public will.
I was almost a part statistic, and I very much wanted to be. Suicide is scary, but what’s scarier is the idea that a young girl was less afraid of death.
It’s time we stop making jokes, and I think it’s about damn time we wake up. No one wants to be treated differently, we just want to be surrounded by nice human beings. SO BE ONE.
Quit the shit, okay? Let’s start here: your jokes are never funny. They weren’t funny last year, they won’t be this year, and nothing will change next year.
You are hurting people, and don’t pretend you don’t know that.
So text it, tweet it, or make a funny caption out of self-harm, suicide, or mental illness by name, but only the assholes you surround yourself so easily with will think it’s funny.
Would your mom be so proud? How about your grandparents? Would they just marvel looking at their perfect son or daughter while you are making people hate themselves more than they already do because of something they can’t control?
I walk around my high school with the words Anxiety, Depression, and Bipolar painted on my forehead, and I won’t take any more of it.
We need to teach our children about mental health, teach them that jokes are never okay, and please teach them that it’s okay to not be okay.
To that kid we all know: please stop making the cutting jokes, or saying cutting is weak or “just kill yourself.”
You may think the people around you are fine, but statements like that make people a statistic.
Your jokes weren’t funny last year, and this year I’m done with your shit, and so are the rest of us.
About The Author
Lauren Andre
I began writing as a way to say the things that I felt I had no one to tell, and the majority of these writings I kept to myself. As I’ve grown into my 20s, I felt that in sharing my personal stories and thoughts I could help just one person who feels the way I did. Even if it only reaches one person searching for the answer, I hope that what I write can be a source of comfort when the world feels cold.
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