Not Funny

I hate how people jokingly say that they are going to kill themselves over something. The phrase, “I want to kill myself” or “you should just go kill yourself” comes up so often in normal day conversations around me, well, it makes me sick to my stomach. When I went to go see Les Miserables in the theatre, after the one main character killed himself, someone started a slow clap. And you know what was worse? Other people joined in. I want to yell at those people.

Do you understand how offensive that is to me? Do you know how long I’ve considered killing myself? Do you know my friend killed herself? Do you know how disrespectful you’re being right now?

As soon as I hear someone say something about wanting to kill themselves over a bad grade, or losing a girlfriend, I turn away and try really hard to keep myself from crying. I can’t understand how so many people could make fun of something so serious. Because honestly, the people who have been thinking about committing suicide have thought about doing it for a long time.

And the thing that hurts the most is that some of my close friends don’t even know how sensitive I am to it. The one day, my friend was telling me about how stressed and irritated she was with school, and did the gun motion with her fingers, “shooting” herself in the head. I didn’t let her know how that brought back all those painful memories for me. It had been only about a month after my friend’s death.

Please think before you say or do something insensitive.