“I am going to end it now.”

“Go kill yourself.”

These phrases ring through Abington Friends School on a daily basis without fail, just like every other American High School. We have normalized these as common jokes, phrases, and teasing tactics. It isn’t okay, and it never was.

For many, these comments roll off the tongue like a simple hello. No thought behind it; it has become natural. I want to make it clear that although this article may seem like an attack against many of my peers, it is not their fault. We are surrounded by an environment every day at school where this is the norm; of course, we are extremely likely to follow suit. 

It unfortunately took a tragedy for me to wake up to the disgusting nature of this norm. 

I lost my oldest brother, Roman, to suicide on May 8, 2024. Having lost a loved one to suicide, it is horrendous; your whole world pauses while the rest of the world keeps spinning. It feels like you are being left behind. I don’t believe anyone can fully recover from the void it leaves, and yet I am reminded of it every day I attend school.

I am perpetually in a cycle of discomfort as my classmates resort to these common statements. I used to let out a little laugh or smirk, purely because I didn’t know what else to do. However, I realized I am just perpetuating the problem, so now I stay silent. I have tried telling friends not to say it, but then it creates an even more uneasy environment. NOW I CHOOSE NOT TO STAY SILENT.  

I don’t have a solution, and nor should I. I am simply a younger brother of one of the over 49,000 people who die from suicide each year in America. Yes, one person dies every eleven minutes, and here we are making insensitive jokes every day.

Maybe what we need is real suicide education, not an assembly once a year to check it off the list. Maybe teachers need training on how to handle these comments that arise in their classroom. I know teachers try. I see it, I hear it, and they are just as lost as I am, at no fault of their own. These are all “maybes,” not definitive solutions, because maybe there is no definitive solution. 

Nonetheless, I ask you to take this article into mind and reflect on how many times you hear or say one of these phrases a week, and, just maybe, with that understanding, we will have our solution.

This story was originally published on The Blue and White on March 1, 2026.