You sit in class joking with your friends. You tell your friends that you have been grounded. “I should just kill myself.” It’s ok for you to say it, right? Since everyone else is? I mean you have heard it six times in the class you are in. The friends you were around just laughed at it. Except for one. You don’t think much about it and go home for the weekend like normal. When you come back to school on Monday, your friend is not there. The teacher tells you that your friend killed himself. Your heart drops. “If I never made that comment, would he still be here?” Echos in your head. 

Using these phrases has become a joke. People think it’s funny. But what’s not funny is according to the CDC in America there was 1 suicide every 11 minutes in 2021. According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, there were 1.7 million attempts in 2021. According to the World Health Organization, there are more than 700,000 people who commit suicide every year. The scariest part is that according to CDC the number of suicides is increasing by the year.  

The statistics show that this is not a funny topic. This is very serious. The 11th greatest cause of death is not something that should be thrown around as a joke. Anyone can be struggling with the thought of killing themselves. They can appear to be the happiest person on the planet. You can never know who is struggling, and then they have to hear a very serious problem for them being joked about. 

You can’t know if your friend is struggling. For that reason, you shouldn’t make these “jokes” at all. Someone you know will likely end up killing themselves. Do you want to regret it?

If you or someone else is struggling or has the thought of suicide please contact a suicide hotline. 988 or 741741