Teenage Wasteland, by Donna Gaines

My immediate feeling after reading this article was appreciation. I appreciated it because Donna Gaines decided to look further into why these four teenagers decided to end their lives. Her findings were that the four teens, and kids around the world that are considered outcasts and "burnouts", commit suicide because they have "bad lives" and at the time they felt that suicide was the only way "out" of their misery. Now I can't speak on how this must feel because I've never felt this way but I do think that people who commit suicide, whether a teenager or not, feel like they have no other choice and no one else can help them. I think a way to help stop this is to enforce that YOU ARE NOT ALONE. When people feel alone, like outcasts and they start feeling like they have nothing else to live for, that’s when they think suicide is the answer.

 The words "burnouts", "societal neglects", "f***-ups", "dropouts", "druggies" and "goth" all stood out to me because this is exactly what kids are called if they don't fit into what "society" thinks they should fit in to. For example, to society a "jock" is someone who is really good in all sports, is popular, is really cute or handsome, comes from a wealthy family and has the prettiest girlfriend and a "cheerleader" is someone who is really pretty, usually a blonde or a brunette, is super skinny, wears a lot of makeup, also comes from a wealthy family and is the most popular girl in school.

 Now the reason I can list these characteristics is because when I was in high school, these characteristics and “spot’s” were still around. I remember being popular in school and being popular was more important than doing really good in my classes. I worried about what I was going to eat for lunch and who I was going to sit with, rather than how long I was going to study for my next English test. And just like all the other kids of Bergenfield, New Jersey, I ignored the "outcasts" and the "druggies". I would see them and it was automatically a negative thought behind it. Not once did I stop to wonder about how they felt or about what they were going through. Which I know is how most kids in America, or around the world for that matter, do.

 We grow up to try to "fit in" to these categories and we have no idea who made them or why we even try to fit into them. I think one of the reasons that we try to fit into these categories is to be accepted by society, by our peers, by our teachers, by our parents, so that we aren't left as outcasts, so that we are comforted by idea that we BELONG somewhere. That we aren't alone because there are people "just like us", when indeed, there is no one who is just like you. And there is no such thing as “being you” because in some way, shape or form, everything you do is based on something or someone. Is there indeed such thing as individuality? We all follow each other. A new trend comes out and all of sudden everyone looks exactly the same. A famous singer gets a new haircut and all of sudden everyone has that same hair style.

  Which leads me to think that the “burnouts” who are ending their lives because they “don’t fit in”, are indeed the only ones with just a little bit of individuality because they are going against the “rules”. They’re fighting back against what is the “norm”. They don’t dress the same as everyone else or listen to the same music or have the same hair colors and hair styles. They indeed are the DIFFERENT ones, The INDIVIDUALS. And yet the price they pay for believing that categories shouldn’t be a way to classify themselves is their life.