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After three students from Gunn High School in Palo Alto committed suicide this year by lying down for their final nap at the East Meadow Drive crossing, Caltrain plans to hold a press conference today. With the most recent suicide occurring last week -- a 13-year-old girl killed herself a little before 11 p.m. on Friday night -- former Palo Alto Mayor Victor Ojakian, who lost his son to suicide, spoke out about the tragedies. "To make sure that individuals who are in a state of maybe despair or hopelessness know there are other options other than taking their lives," he said. "To look at not just what is happening on Caltrain or with this particular incident that involves another Gunn student but to look at the County overall and try and do something about suicide prevention." The Santa Clara County Mental Health Director also announced a new "suicide task force" to help curb the problem.
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You live in a suburban hellhole full of pseudo-wealthy assholes. Do you:
a. Run away from home
b. Kill yourself
c. Blow your mind doing a shitload of drugs and having a lot of sex (often simultaneously) and treat Steal This Book as a survival manual until you make it out of high school alive?
This is why we need to teach kids about drugs, condoms, and subversive literature.
Darfur is a hellhole. The Calcutta slums are a hellhole. Gary, Indiana, is a hellhole.
Palo Alto isn't everyone's bag, sure, but I wouldn't call it a hellhole that you need to do "a shitload of drugs" in order to prevent killing yourself. That just sounds like, well, suburban angst.
I lived in Palo Alto for about 7 years. I think Xenu's characterization (and proposed solution) is pretty spot-on.
Life's so hard down there, isn't it. No one understands!
My condolences...I'm impressed you survived.
Dude, I grew up in Palo Alto. I'm speaking from experience here.
13 yrs old - perhaps not a HS student at Gunn yet - which is perhaps even more sad.
pay attention to your fucking kids
Suburban teen angst seems silly and counterintuitive, but it is a very real cause of suicide.
Being trapped in Pleasantville is a very maddening thing. Yes you don't lack for food or shelter, but you lack for sanity as your parents and neighbors try to keep you locked up in a 50's fantasy of what "good kids" should be like. Your only social interaction is through high school and its cliques.
So you're at a point in your life where you're genetically predisposed to be off hunting for the tribe, fighting a war, exploring distant lands, and having lots and lots of sex, but instead you're locked into a world of lawn gnomes and who's dating who for the prom. Yes you still might get laid in this mess, but it's a huge social muddle in the process.
People who grow up in a more urban environment tend to have more friends outside of school and more diverse social lives. They also get exposed to more kinds of value systems. Who's going to prom isn't so important when your life does not revolve around high school.
You really hit the nail on the head there. Suburban life is maddeningly boring, especially for someone who's in their formative years of adolescence.
Plus, all the activities to build your resume for college. Some of them probably start out fun, but eventually it feels like you are going non-stop.
"Happy Harry Hard-On, signing off..."
the one thing in common with these kids is they all go to the same EDCUATIONAL SYSTEM.........the abuse or mistreatment of these kids driving them to suiciide is coming from inside the school.......in my opinion and experience.