Jeanines Story.

Jeanine committed suicide at the age of seventeen, and her mother remembers the day like it was yesterday.

"After about forty five minutes I thought she had probably calmed down and I had better go in and see how she was. Her door was closed. When I opened the door I found her hanging there. At that point it was like a dream. It was such a shock. I screamed and screamed. She hanged herself from a curtain rod with an exercise rope. It was like I was in a dream world. I felt shame. It was an intense sense of shame. And there was a sense of relief. It is okay to say that now. And then I was ashamed of that relief sense. All these feelings that washed over me were unbelievable" (11).

The reason Jeanine killed herself was that she could not handle her imperfections. She constantly wanted to please her parents, because they expected so much from her. They never told her that it was okay if she was not perfect all the time. Her parents seemed to know that something was wrong, but they never properly helped her. Untreated depression often leads teens to think about taking their life, and in Jeanine's case, that is exactly what happened. Depression and suicide not only affect the person experiencing it, but everyone else around them as well.