Bullying and suicide.

We all assume that they are connected in every case involving teens. What some people don’t realize are the many other possible reasons behind suicide, rather than just bullying.

The Huffington Post published the article “Bullying and Suicide: The Dangerous Mistake We Make” on Feb. 2, 2012, by Katherine Bindley. To be honest, I’m very surprised more people aren’t talking about this.

It’s important to know not only for our school systems and staff, but for parents of kids in high school.

This article tells the stories of multiple teens in high school who committed suicide, and their reasons behind it. Many of the parents blamed everything on bullying. But studies have now proven that bullying may not be the only reason.

Depression, anxiety and stress are all major issues that school systems and teachers seem to forget about, including parents. Bullying is an important aspect, and should not be ignored. But it also shouldn’t be put as the main cause of the suicide.

Nicole Cardarelli, 27, admits that killing yourself because of bullying was easier to understand; she believed that for years after her brother Greg’s suicide in 2004. In high school, Greg had met a “girl” online that he thought was serious. It turned out that it was two of his friends playing a prank on him.

Hours later, he had killed himself.

At the time, Nicole didn’t see the signs that Greg was already troubled. But in recent years, she has thought about his behavior in the few months before he died. “I believe he was depressed,” she said recently.

Even though suicides often prove to have many different factors, most experts still say that bullying can be harmful and worsen depression, and increase suicide risk, and its seriousness shouldn’t be minimized.

I know this wasn’t entirely on bullying. But I felt like people need to know this. In the Huffington Post article, it says something that stands out to me: “Clayton Cook, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Washington, argues that because mental health issues are often a common thread running through bullying and suicide, schools should not have a narrowly focused solution.”

This is what I want to change in schools, including THS. Bullying is an important factor, don’t get me wrong. But we shouldn’t train all of our focus on that. We should open up to our students.

Surprisingly enough, a lot of teens have depression. And I feel like we don’t do enough to help.

Doing more school activities, and talking about current events, could help many teens of both bullying and depression status.

I’m not saying I’m entirely right, but I’m not entirely wrong either.