That's a big question Alex, and I don't know what the answer is. It's a very terrible thing. So young. All I can think of is to be understanding and supportive.

I don't want Alex's posts (and concerns) to be met (mostly) with silence.  Several thoughts occur to me ...

Lots of kids commit suicide.  I'm not really sure how much being gay contributed.  I think the core cause is being young and feeling unappreciated and uncertain.  Kids want to fit in and be accepted and, if they live long enough, they find that.  You don't have to be gay to feel you are different and an outsider.  Other causes are:

1. perceiving yourself as too short
2. perceiving yourself as too tall
3. perceiving yourself as too smart
4. perceiving yourself as not smart enough
5. perceiving you are unable to meet the benchmarks by which you feel you are being judged (for instance as a figure skater, or as a singer or as a poitician/organizer like your sucessful dad)
6. perceiving that there is no place for you ... no niche where you can put down your roots
7. perceiving that all the good books have already been written and all the inventions invented
8. ... the list is endless

Note how Jamie put a list of the musicians and "bands" he liked.  Seems like an odd thing to put in a suicide note don't you think?  It is an attempt to explain who he is.  It is an attempt to create an identity by borrowing from the identities of the various persons and groups listed.  It shows that the writer is both inarticulate and confused (or uninformed) about his own qualities (which are the very qualities that make his life worth living).  He doesn't really have a handle on who he is yet.  He has no real appreciation of what a loss his removal will be ... that is a "teen thing" not a "gay thing".

I read an article in the most recent number of (strangely!) National Geographic about the "teen brain". Clinical studies of brain development have shown (unsurprisingly) in the brain of a teen there is a disconnect between action and consequence, emotion often rules, acceptance by peers often trumps all.  Risk taking (and what is a suicide attempt but the ultimate in risk taking?) behaviour reigns.  Teens really are as "dumb" as they seem and given the state of development of their brains they really can't be any other way.  It is a dangerous age and everyone who survives it unscathed can count themselves lucky.  

It is too bad about Jamie (and every one of the many teens who commit suicide or die in adventures and misadventures that upon examination seem suicidal given the risks that the deceased was taking at the time of his or her death).  This boy looked like a person of promise.  Bright.  Talented.  I notice from his note, though, that he may have  become addicted to drugs (or perhaps he was just "cutting").  This is something to which the risk taking  of the teenage brain often leads and it produces outcomes and brain changes which contribute to suicidal thoughts.   

Much more must be done to "protect" teens but their risk taking and approval seeking ways amongst their own peers are essential parts of their development toward productive and creative adulthood and it will not and should not be denied.  In the end we can only try to "be there" for them.  It is a difficult assignment.  Unfortunately we will probably always continue to lose some along the way.

Unfortunately when you are young you don't know much because you lack experience and come to feel that the world (which is small for any 15 year old)  comes more or less as a "given"and will always be the same and that nothing will change.  Teen problems are not appreciated by the teen to be "short term" but are mistakenly seen to be "long term".  With this viewpoint, suicide (which is the ultimate "long term solution" if there ever was one) comes to be seen as appropriate.  For those left to mourn though, suicide remains a "long term solution to a short term problem" and this causes much pain and regret.

The "It Gets Better" line that is being repeated by the Conservative politicians above was coined by Dan Savage who began the "It Gets Better Project".  Dan is gay and remembered his own struggles, doubts, and fears as a young gay person.  He created his project to give gay youth the courage to push ahead.  The site opens with the words ... 

Many LGBT youth can't picture what their lives might be like as openly gay adults. They can't imagine a future for themselves. So let's show them what our lives are like, let's show them what the future may hold in store for them.

The idea was that LGBT persons could tell their own stories.  It was not so that conservative politicians with unsympathetic policies and views could "cover their tracks" with the public during a time of grief. 

"http://www.itgetsbetter.org/

They are the IT and they are not getting better.

LB

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I think we're vastly over-invested in universities. ..... I think the vast majority of young people should be going through non-university, post-secondary training.

      Stephen Harper,  Sept. 15, 2000

I have a couple of bullying stories, too.  Bully's were often attracted to my son.  He is quiet and has a gentle nature.  This is seemingly often interpreted as a sign of weakness.  The bullying ended when one day the bully got physical with him and my son called him out after school (In front of his friends so he couldn't refuse) at which time he used the guy's head as a punching bag hitting him so hard that he crushed one of his knuckles in the process.  The bully had to walk around school all bruised up for the next week or so.  The bullying stopped forever after that but it was too late because my son's experience and sense of high school (which grew into loathing) as a negative place was established and he was never able to alter that outlook and participate positively.

Another time my son witnessed someone else being bullied and assaulted and intervened and was as a result suspended for a week for fighting.  This pretty well killed any possibility that he would ever view high school as anything else but a place to be avoided.  He managed to get his high school diploma ... but just.  His older sister earned a PhD in French literature and teaches at a university.  

It is one my greatest frustrations that this bullying happened to him and had a negative effect on his life.  He was only able to get his diploma and went straight into the world of work where he felt freed and is conscientious and hard working.  Although he is extremely literate and the sort of person who when sent to rent a movie will come home with a Shakespearean play, so demoralized was he about his abilities as a student  that only now, almost ten years after graduation is he beginning to take some university classes.

There is a lot of pain in Jamie's and his parents' story.  How painful life must have been for this child . . . and how painful for his parents to walk this path with him.  My heart goes out to all who knew and loved this young person and are now mourning his loss, missing him, and dealing with their grief in such a tragic death.

A wish, a desire, a want . . . that there would be peace and harmony between all persons on this planet and in every heart of everyone who inhabits it.  Hmmm - a tremendous amount of work to be done for this wish/desire/want to materialize.  Yay to the schools and educators who work hard at implementing and administrating anti-bullying programs.

A few above touched on the examples of the leaders in our country (politicians) and their words and actions in their meetings and interactions with one another.  I feel in both provincial and federal elections the words spoken about their opponents are not examples of respect.  Within work places, homes, churches, schools, there are adults who treat one another badly, disrespectfully, and in bullying manners.  Adults in all walks and areas of life need to change their behaviors to one another if we expect to set good examples for our youth.

"There must be lights burning brigher somewhere,

Got to be birds flying higher in a sky more blue,

If I can dream of a better land,

where all my brothers walk hand in hand,

Tell me why, oh why, oh why, can't my dreams come true"

                written by Walter Earl Brown, and made somewhat famous by Elvis Presley

A dream for peace . . . for all persons, all nations, in all hearts, in all lives . . .

I echo Qwerty's experience.  However in my son's case he couldn't hold on and remain in high school.  No matter what I did to try and build his self confidence it was shattered daily by the reality he faced and everyday I feared for my son's life. 

I was very aware of how fragile the will to live can be.

Perhaps this is why, so far, my son still lives.  Not because of my attempts at confidence building but because I recognized his fragility and I held on to him.  I stopped making promises that it would get better because we both knew that wasn't going to happen any time soon.   I stopped using my own experiences to bolster his self esteem because my reality was not his.   Instead I began to repeatedly promise that I would be there no matter what; if nothing else he knew he wasn't alone.  He knew there was one person that loved him always.

A shattered life takes time to rebuild.  It is a piece by piece process.  You think you have glued pieces together, but something happens, something small even, and a piece falls out and you start again.  It is frustrating, heartbreaking and exhausting.

Yet, every now and then something happens and the pieces hold.  When that occurs hope is renewed and you hold on for another day - not a week or month or a year, just a day.  You get a little stronger day by day and suddenly a year has gone by.

Our sons, Qwerty and mine, are the ones that do not grab the headlines but they are legion.  They are the lost boys of our society.  They deserve better.  Life is hard but it doesn't need to be so lonely.

Right now my son and I are in a hope period.  He is planning on going back to school in January.  He was planning on going in September but reality reared its ugly head and because of the Community College strike he was not able to register.  He managed to get a job and although sporadic is sticking with it. 

And this is life:  There is hope.  There is reality.  One day is better and the next it is not.  All we really can do is hold onto the pieces and see what tomorrow brings.

LB

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I held a moment in my hand, brilliant as a star, fragile as a flower, a tiny sliver of one hour.  I dripped it carelessly, Ah! I didn't know, I held opportunity. 

      Hazel Lee

LB & Qwerty:

My son too suffered bullying.  My daughter has far more self-confidence (I think the different personalities are genetic--they are very close in age and I brought them up the same).

Lotsa problems, I hear you, folks.  My son is now 35 and seems (fingers crossed, wood knocked on, prayers said) to be--if not a roaring success--as least stable now.  His new wife is a very nice woman and they are both delighted with their young daughter.  My son has been working steadily for several years now.  (His wife works too).   His teens--I don't want to think about it.  I can scarcely bear to think about it...no judgment, got involved with seriously weird people, drugs, dropped out of high school (finally did finish after much delay...)

(Of course, as you know, I am willing to do my bit, letting them live with me, rent free--a happy marriage will help him stay on track).

Amen SG

This I believe is the one thing that often gets lost in the discussion.  Who encourages this behaviour in children:  I'll tell you it is adults.  It is entrenched in our culture, in our media,  jokes,  music and speech.

Childhood and adolescence is a time of identity confusion.  No one really knows who they are but they do know what everyone keeps telling them they are.  Into that state of confusion slurs are hurled that attack identity and regardless of orientation the pain those words cause can morph into a generalized hatred of persons who are being used as the weapon.  The damage taints all involved.

I still remember being called a "nigger lover" in grade school - not by my classmates but by a teacher!  Why, because I pointed out that that teacher was being cruel to the one poor black child that was exiled to our rural backwater.  Even as a child I knew that poor boy was totally alone in an alien world and the very adults that should have been protecting him were not. 

When adults permit this type of behaviour, either overtly like that teacher or worse by silent complicity, it sends a strong message to a child.  For many of the children around me at the time of that incident it granted permission to them to treat that "different" child with contempt.  It wasn't long before that 12 year old boy tried to run away and instead of being offered compassion he was locked up in a juvenile detention centre.  All of us learned a lesson and it wasn't a good one.

The people that need to get better are not our children.  We have to stop putting all the onus on them to clean up the mess we create and perpetuate.  Hatred is not genetic, it is learned and it is learned from adults.  Children emulate the adults in their life and will continue to do so unless they suddenly realize those adults have it all wrong.

And it will only get better when we realize that it is never about "them" it is about all of us.

LB

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We accept the love we think we deserve.

      Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Awful, disgusting, mean, hateful, and way out-of-line, are not even strong enough words to describe what some of the adults in your life said to you SG, or allowed to happen to you (or for the comment that LB's teacher made to her.) 

I'm sure that there are many people who think like that, speak like that, and live their lives like that though today.  But I'm hoping (and  hopefully I'm not being too naive) that things are changing somewhat.  That each moment, each day, one biggoted mind, and one hate-spouting mouth is being changed.  I know for the person/persons who are still being bullied for being who they are, that is not enough.  That progress is too slow.  But I'd like to think it is getting better.

I was in a store in the city a few weeks back, in one of those shops that sells kitchen items.  There was a young couple in this particular store who were shopping for an item, possibly for their home now or a future home.  As they did so, they spoke very tenderly to one another as they discussed their wants, and held hands as they did so.  They were two young women, perhaps in their twenties. 

In that moment I was so thankful . . . for wondercafe, for the many who share their personal stories through books, tv, and other media . . .  I was so thankful for the fact that at some point in time, many years ago, questions were formed in my mind - that I began questioning things I had been taught about GLBT persons - by the church, by ministers, by others, by society.  I was so thankful that as I began to question God and myself over the years, that I was led to books published by places like the UCC, that Wondercafe was initiated and very brave people shared their lives and truth on it, that television shows were starting to tell stories about the lifes of GLBT folks.  All of these, and others,  were things that changed my mind about all I had been taught about people who were different from me (I might add taught within the church as an adult, because my parents and home life did not teach me that as a child).  And in seeing these women openly and freely sharing their love (and possibly commitment to one another) in a guesture of holding hands as such, I was thankful, that I looked at that guesture, and the people, the same as I would have if it had been a young man and a young woman.  I could not say I would have felt the same reaction 15 years ago.  While I would not have done or said anything, I know I would have been thinking something.  I am so thankful I am not where I was those years ago.

Society/we will be changed one mind at a time . . . not quickly enough for Jamie, not quickly enough for others who can't take one more second of one more day.  But change is happening - TBTG!

I admire LB and SG for the strength of their moral convictions.

I have an inner core of fragility - which, in all honesty, sometimes makes the moral way difficult for me to achieve.

Morality was emphasised in my family. My Dad came from Scottish Presbyterian stock and my Mum's Irish great-grandfather went to the West Indies to teach the freed slaves English.............

These school stories remind me of a painful incident in High School.

Back then (in the 1960's) in Oz intellectually challenged kids attended the mainstream school. (there was nothing else). I remember we called them "slow learners" then.

Once I noticed these boys and girls gathered around a "slow learner" laughing and pointing at her.

I soon saw that she had her period and there was blood on the back of her uniform.

I grabbed her by the hand - took her to the girl's toilet and told her to stay there until I returned with a pad.

Did I feel good about my actions?

No. Not really.

After that she followed me around the school - and I was taunted with "who's your smelly friend?".

To my shame, I asked her to leave me alone.......

At that time I was fragile, thought "odd" - except when I played sports for the school.

More than anything, I yearned to be popular - to be part of the "in crowd".

With hindsight, I can see that although the "slow learner" was the most fragile - so was I - and so was the taunters.

A strong sense of ethics and morality IS important.

But, IMO, until we has a society address the wider implications of fragility - often an underlying cause of bullying in any form - we won't make progress.

Sadly, there will always be more folks out there that are either damaged or fragile than those who are strong...........

Again, PilgrimsProgress, thank you for being honest in telling your story and showing that this kind, caring, loving woman we know was once someone who asked a slow, lonely girl to leave her alone rather than face the scorn or taunt of others....

People can change, life can be better... when you feel you cannot hold on, be held on to.

Hope... if each of 7 billion people did one thing....

PP, just like me, and everyone else on this planet . . . you/I are a work in progress, God isn't finished with you/me yet . . . but look how far you've/i've come.  While perhaps you feel still fragile and damaged in ways as that young school girl was, I think you are stronger and wholer than you were in your youth.  TBTG - we don't travel alone . . . I believe God and others walk with us.

Whenever someone, especially someone with a previously existing mental illness like depression, talks about suicide directly, it is an emergency situation, and expert assistance is needed now, not tomorrow. If a less direct statement is made, like "hit bottom and I've been down there a long time now", you need to ask your friend, relative, or church brother or sister "Have you thought about ending your life?" You won't put ideas in their head if they're not thinking about suicide, and it may be a relief to discuss and a reason to seek treatment it if it's something they've ever considered, or a lifeline to emergency assistance if it's something they have got to the point of desperation of at this time. Suicide is a very badly understood phenomenon in society, perhaps because it's still so rarely talked about. Here's a good informational website:

http://suicideinfo.ca/

PilgrimsProgress,

I recall once saying something to the effect that "we all have a shadow side" and the person I was talking to thought I meant S&M or some kind of kink  LOL

Beloved,

There are ways every single one of us can make a difference.

EasternOrthodox, 

We hear all the time how harmful and scarring emotional abuse is, we do not tend to want to believe it. You recall that because of being the target, the middle group. It warns another teacher, it helps another student....it teaches empathy....

If each of us was willing to be vulnerable, without all the posturing, the playing things up and playing things down, the attempt at illusions of perfection and all the damn pretending.... to be real... to show our humanity.... to let the Spirit move between us and through us.... 7 billion people might see 7 billion other people....

It never hurts to dream....

Do gay retirement communities exist in Canada?  Would they be only for the better off?

They are having trouble in the US, according to this articles, because the financial crisis has crashed the value of property.

Raises some interesting points, including how unwelcome gays feels at some regular retirement communities.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/29/us/gay-retirement-communities-struggling-in-the-recession.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha23&pagewanted=all

This spoke to me - I give a , too! 

This is how they react in Holland...

In any language, hate is hurtful.

Chansen, fortunately through pressure that "exemption" clause was removed....

Michigan's 'Matt's Safe School Law,' Anti-Bullying Legislation, Exemption Dropped By Senator
 

However, as one activist said, it won't be effective.  Legislation against anything only takes effect *after* the event, thus does not prevent bullying.  There needs to be a profound shift in our culture's attitude toward how we deal with others, particularly those who differ from us either physically or culturally.

We live in a society that promotes a dog eat dog mentality where any sign of weakness or vulnerability is a permit slip for attack.  As long as aggression is rewarded it will remain.

LB

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It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power.
      David Brin

Oh I have no doubt that some who claim religious piety use that position to bully specific targets.  What I do not accept, because personal experience has taught otherwise, that such behaviour is unique to the churched.

The human race, IMO, has never had a time when it was not dog eat dog - we have had brief moments of experimentation with a more benign existence but have, so far, not been able to sustain the ideal on the grand scale.  People tend to treat others as they are treated - each targeted individual will target their persecutors.  For protection the individuals form groups - security in numbers - these groups then perpetuate the aggression, and the next targeted group repeats the behaviour.  On and on it goes.

The only way to ever come close to the ideal is by rejecting the concepts of superiority of one group, culture, nation, whatever one's preference is, over another's.  That notion is, of course, an exercise in superiority as well in that it will reject those who do not participate, but it is one that will permit a more compassionate and free society where each of us is allowed to be who we want to be as long as doing so harms no other.

For those of us lucky enough to find ourselves in a reasonable democratically governed environment, each of us has to recognize that we play a role in how that environment functions.  Each of us has to accept our individual responsibility in whether the behaviour is nurtured or not.  We can not blame others for a behaviour if we participate in the same with only the target being different because it is the behaviour, not the person or group, that is the root of the problem.

In the Michigan example, one individual or group, tried to impose their viewpoint on the whole.  They were denied by individuals from all walks becoming a collective and saying loudly enough that that viewpoint was not acceptable and btw that collective was not just in Michigan I was invited and added my voice to an international petition against the clause.  A diverse group of Individuals came together, exerted pressure and changed the course; this is the only way that cultural change can be, has ever been, created.

We, you, me, the people in the church or not, create our world.  We shape our governance, religious or civic, to fit our purposes and those purposes are created by our daily interactions with one another; they grow or die by what we, collectively and individually, support.

LB

----------------

Hands up, anyone who thinks you've got it right.
Yeah, there's always one.
I can see you.
If you want the position of God, then take the responsibility!

     Orbital, You Lot

And more wisdom from the young...

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This is what bullying feels like (click title for full article)
kate hammer
From Saturday's Globe and Mail (includes correction)
Published Friday, Dec. 02, 2011 10:12PM EST

Every year in Canada more than 200 teenagers feel alone and scared enough to kill themselves. For many, including Marjorie Raymond, life has been made unbearable by bullies.

The 15-year-old Quebec teen's suicide earlier this week, and the apologetic note she left for her mother, have prompted the province to review anti-violence programs in its schools. In Ontario, where two other tormented teens recently took their own lives, policy makers and educators are considering new laws that would create tougher consequences for bullies.

A 2009 survey by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health found that one in three students is bullied.

The ratio is even higher at the East Alternative School of Toronto. Many are here because their previous school had become a living hell, a place where they were taunted, picked on, beaten up or just ignored.

The 68 students in Grades 7 and 8 are the ages where research shows bullying is at its peak. The school provides something of a safe haven – a specialized school with a focus on social justice in which bullying is given as much attention as dodgeball or long division.

The Globe and Mail asked students to share their thoughts.

WITNESSES

[...]

Justin Vriend

Few of us can say that we are not witnesses. Not bystanders. Witnesses, I have had the privilege of being safe from much bullying. I have always been one of the tallest students in my class. I am white. I have high grades. I have no allergies, disabilities or mental handicaps. I am very lucky.

I have, however, stood next to the bully and did nothing. I have hidden behind a half-hearted grin, afraid to stand up lest I be the next victim. There’s the key word. Afraid. Fear of children my own age.

What world is this that playgrounds have become killing grounds. The murder of hope, love, creativity, passion, ingenuity, individually. This goes unpunished. Unnoticed. Why? When these die, our very person dies.

How do children’s executions come without a herald? Fear. Adolescents, children, minorities, even majorities. These get picked out of the crowd like slow calves by unprovoked coyotes.

I am overjoyed that the few wolves from my old school did not find their ways to this new haven at EAST. I feel safe here. Safe in the knowledge that no matter how hard a wolf nips my toes, the shepherds will protect me.

Hundreds of suicides happen every year because bullies are not banished from schools. Students’ don’t feel as if adults can make things happen and there is no anonymous reporting system. Shepherds, up your game across Canada.

[...]

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