Imagine creating a world where kids are so fucking upset by a simple relationship breakup and loss of place on a track team that they feel driven to suicide. That these things are given such incredibly high importance in their lives speaks to the complete and total lack of anything else within their lives and communities as emotional rocks to build their lives around.
This is literally all this kid felt he had in his life. These two things. His girlfriend and his spot on the track team. Losing them was the complete loss of everything in his life. He clearly didn't feel like his parents were in his life, nor anything else, nor anyone in his community... And that it was impossible to get back what he lost or build a life of anything else.
This is what neoliberalism is doing to children. This is what mass individualist culture creates. This is what incredible emphasis on nearly meaningless bullshit has built and extreme competition with their peers.
It's awful.
I feel such incredible sorry imagining this kid, with a handgun, going into his school and crying out that nobody can help him. That mental state is so terribly difficult and such a mess. Like... Really? Losing a girlfriend and your spot on a track team is enough to do that? Something is deeply TERRIBLY wrong if these are the only two things in someone's life, that their whole life has been built up around only those things and that they feel absolutely nothing else is worth living for, that they don't even have any connection with their family.
It's really disgusting and awful. Neoliberalism is what does this. I remember it myself, the upbringing, the focus on rather meaningless goals rather than human being and human relationships and our connections in our communities. Just an endless series of aspirational goals to slot into the capitalist system as a worker, nothing else matters.
It's so fucking easy for kids to just not learn anything other than "the system" and end up in this state.
Smash it all.
The narrative that suicides are spiking is being pushed by the right wing as a reason that all pandemic precautions need to be abandoned. Just FYI for some context.
There are people arguing pandemic precautions is the root cause of these suicides?
from day 1 chuds were arguing that shutdowns/measures similar would result in lower mental health outcomes.
i mean they're not wrong but also working during a pandemic doesn't seem like something that would increase it lol, just give us some fucking money to pay for food and rent plz.
They also don't give a fuck if it does, they're just trying to make people with any empathy argue against their general beliefs
The lockdowns suck, but the biggest driver of suicide is eviction and financial destitution brought on by an artificially created scarcity of housing and resources. They cut everyone off from UI benefits then handwring about how suicides are rising while doing nothing to prevent people from losing their homes.
The ones in the article seem to date back to 2015 so no. But they are blaming everything bad that has happened since the pandemic began on the lockdown measures to control the virus.
People are committing suicide not because of the measures, but because the pandemic has created a crisis that has pretty much wiped out their livelihoods. Shouldn’t we be talking about how capitalism is the root cause?
“keeping people cooped up is driving them to mental issues and suicide.”
Tragic. This is probably because of flips through the Malcolm Gladwell book I keep in my handbag we aren't painting the walls of Raytheon offices pretty enough colors
even if communism eventually wins, we've already failed so many fucking people
the stains on the hands of humanity will never be washed off
Young people are simultaneously told that they're the least important, laziest, people in society and also that what they do in their youth defines them and is the most important stage of their lives. No wonder depression and anxiety are high
I'm just imagining being this poor kid, who is ashamed of being poor, being told that he lost his scholarship and girlfriend at the same time. Not only do you have to face the prospect of being trapped in the service industry and/or gig economy for the rest of your life, but now you feel like you're facing it alone. On top of the general apocalyptic mood that permeates society.
It's no wonder kids feel like they don't have a future.
Yeah it's almost like they're not stupid, and can see the vast expanse of scorched rock where once their futures lay.
Unironically, if it was possible to do it painlessly: I'd probably have done it myself around their age. And this was a decade or two back. There's absolutely been no improvement in quality of life since. You throw in social media and bullying, and it's not hard to see why some folks would feel like taking their life because they have no hope left.
This fucking article made me so mad. Suicide prevention is walking around with signs saying "You matter"? Handing out pamphlets and joining an org called NotMYKid, because it's fine when it's someone else who dies? What about actually changing the fact that these kids' futures were derailed by typical teenage mistakes? I am so sick of all these people acting like suicide is some sort of "mind virus" and never a rational response to conditions. If you sent me back to high school and made me go through that shit again, even with the certainty that it would get somewhat better eventually, I'd fucking kill myself. It would be merciful. There are levels of suffering that make life not worth it. But we can't say that, the silly teenagers will get some crazy ideas.
