The Pain He's In...

I went onto one of my informant’s MySpace page the other day and I noticed that he had added a video from YouTube, so I watched it. It was a video to the song “Perfect” by Simple Plan. The content was of gay teens and the things they face. Starting with a comment made by a father to his young child, “I’d rather a dead son than gay.” It told of how lonely these kids feel and how all they want is to be loved and accepted. Then the statistics started…”Hate Killed Me.” The statistics were of how common suicide is among gay teens, and the video was filled with pictures of teenagers who had killed themselves as a result of not being accepted. I’d say it was a pretty powerful video.

Stephen was the one who put it up. Since I know that he tried to commit suicide less than a year ago for the same reasons, being bullied and not accepted by his family, the video sent up red flags for me. I wasn’t sure if he put it up as an informative thing or if it was his way of telling everyone how much pain he’s in and that he’s thinking of hurting himself again. So I immediately contacted him and he told me that I was right. It is his way of telling everyone how much pain he is in.

He assured me that if he needed to escape his house (or life in general) that I’d be the first he’d call, and that at least for that night, he was going to stay alive…and he thanked me for caring enough to ask about it. I'm kind of worried about him, and I'm not completelly sure what I should be doing...so I'm just kind of trusting that he'll actually reach out if he needs help.

"One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love." -Sophocles