As many of us have heard, one of the pioneers of the famous “It Gets Better” video campaign, Eric James Borges, has passed away from the exact thing his videos were meant to prevent. This is a tragic event for his friends, family, and the LGBT community.
This just goes to show everyone that there are many factors that bring someone to suicide and it takes more than words from the public to prevent these unfortunate phenomena amongst LGBT youth. I believe it takes action from those who are close to the person, friends, family, and peers. I believe we have to personally show the people who are close to us, whom we believe to be showing signs of suicide, whether we are sure they are LGBT or not, that you care for their life and that you will be there for them. The reason I say this is because it can happen to someone who is struggling with their own sexual identity or being harassed because they are perceived to be gay or bisexual, as this website shows.
The sad possibility was that because he was so involved in a project to prevent teen suicide, nobody close to him thought he would do this to himself and any clues that this would happen were ignored, which is logical. Hopefully Eric James Borges’ passing won’t be in vain and will show that no one is “immune” to suicide.
Here are some resources for suicide prevention among LGBT youth:
LGBT Youth Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-866-4-U-TREVOR
http://www.thetrevorproject.org/lifelinechat
http://www.sprc.org/library/SPRC_LGBT_Youth.pdf
http://www.afsp.org/index.cfm?page_id=6FB9BA00-7E90-9BD4-C33BD398EAAE73C0
http://www.hhd.org/resources/story/lgbt-youth-suicide-risk-and-prevention
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