"She had the voice of an angel. She was so smart, so nice, so pretty." One of my best friends told me this about her. She. She was a student. A 15 year old student who went to Issaquah High School. She was my age. I might even have seen her at the Issaquah-Redmond football game, or maybe at Costco, or at the mall, or on the street. She may have been a part of the background of my life- I don't even know. All I know is that in 2013, during the last week of February- she took her own life.
This is the second suicide I've posted about on my blog and it's the fourth one that's been commited by a high schooler in my discrict, just in 2013. Given that I belong to one of hundreds of school districts in Washington alone, hundreds that are filled with pressured and bullied kids, over any span of time. Those statistics are frightening.
Did you know that the average American high schooler in 2013 (this is average, mind you. This doesn't count the kids taking 6 AP classes a year, quarterbacks who need the scholarship to go pro, or the one girl who eats her sandwich on the bathroom floor) is as stressed as a psychiatric patient in the 1950's? What does this have to say about our world? Our society.
She gave up her life because of bullying. Cyber-bullying- which in my opinion is the cruelest form. With cyber bullying, the bully doesn't have to deal with reactions or emotions. It just requires some typing and a click. I cannot stress this enough. PLEASE DON'T LET YOURSELF BE BULLIED. You are beautiful. You are amazing. And most importantly, you were put on this planet with a purpose; to touch lives, to make differences, to cause reactions. Nobody and Nothing can take that away from you.
Rest in Peace Claire Shen.
But I will not rest in peace. I will constantly, every day, smile at strangers in the hallway. I will watch what I do online. I will try to make myself an approachable person; someone who people can come to. And I will constanly encourage other people to do the same.
He gave up his life because of pressure. Because he couldn't deal with the amount of hard work and constant worries that he had to put up with to make it in this horrible Hunger Games we call high school. He didn't want to recieve a rejection letter from a college, or see a dissapointed look on his parent's face. The truth is that I don't really know. All I can hope and pray is that he can rest.
Rest in Peace.
But I will not rest in peace. Throughout my life, I will make myself strong so that I can handle the many, many rejections to come. I will be there for other people when they face rejections of their own, trying to somehow share their pain. I will try and try, until I succeed, to create an environment around me when in the end- grades and school and pressure will not matter- all that matters is being true to yourself, and being true to other people.
R.I.P victims.
I will not rest.
I will fight my own and other people's battles.
Each and every day.
This is the second suicide I've posted about on my blog and it's the fourth one that's been commited by a high schooler in my discrict, just in 2013. Given that I belong to one of hundreds of school districts in Washington alone, hundreds that are filled with pressured and bullied kids, over any span of time. Those statistics are frightening.
Did you know that the average American high schooler in 2013 (this is average, mind you. This doesn't count the kids taking 6 AP classes a year, quarterbacks who need the scholarship to go pro, or the one girl who eats her sandwich on the bathroom floor) is as stressed as a psychiatric patient in the 1950's? What does this have to say about our world? Our society.
She gave up her life because of bullying. Cyber-bullying- which in my opinion is the cruelest form. With cyber bullying, the bully doesn't have to deal with reactions or emotions. It just requires some typing and a click. I cannot stress this enough. PLEASE DON'T LET YOURSELF BE BULLIED. You are beautiful. You are amazing. And most importantly, you were put on this planet with a purpose; to touch lives, to make differences, to cause reactions. Nobody and Nothing can take that away from you.
Rest in Peace Claire Shen.
But I will not rest in peace. I will constantly, every day, smile at strangers in the hallway. I will watch what I do online. I will try to make myself an approachable person; someone who people can come to. And I will constanly encourage other people to do the same.
He gave up his life because of pressure. Because he couldn't deal with the amount of hard work and constant worries that he had to put up with to make it in this horrible Hunger Games we call high school. He didn't want to recieve a rejection letter from a college, or see a dissapointed look on his parent's face. The truth is that I don't really know. All I can hope and pray is that he can rest.
Rest in Peace.
But I will not rest in peace. Throughout my life, I will make myself strong so that I can handle the many, many rejections to come. I will be there for other people when they face rejections of their own, trying to somehow share their pain. I will try and try, until I succeed, to create an environment around me when in the end- grades and school and pressure will not matter- all that matters is being true to yourself, and being true to other people.
R.I.P victims.
I will not rest.
I will fight my own and other people's battles.
Each and every day.
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