Yes, please….We should all do something about bullying. Yes, please reach out and make a safe environment for youth. Yes, teach acceptance and love. But also, teach about mental illness. Teach about the effects, about its symptoms, about its signs. Teach what to do when you or someone you know is struggling. Teach how to prevent suicide. End stigma. Treat the illness like the medical emergency it is. It takes more than love and good intentions to cure depression. Depression messes with your logic so that you don’t know the difference between realities and your own messed up version of it. It may seem uplifting to tell someone who is suffering, ‘It gets better. You have so much to live for. Look how many people care about you’. But to someone with mental illness, they hear, ‘You’re weak and selfish. See how many people love you? You couldn’t hurt them any longer if you weren’t here. etc.
Like Jamie said, “In your world, The thought of wanting to die is crazy. In my world, you’re the crazy one who wants to live”.
Jamie Hubley was a 15 year old boy and he committed suicide. He spent three months chronicling his pain on Tumblr with “angst-filled quotes and startling images of self-harm.” Even though Hubley hated being the only openly gay kid at his high school—and felt sad about being called a “fag,”—the Ottawa teen’s suicide seems to have been prompted primarily by a chronic depression rather than bullying at school. Hubley’s depression is evident through his desperate posts; they paint the image of a young teen with few friends and a painful desire for a loving boyfriend.
Hubley loved acting, dancing and singing. He tried out for his school’s talent competition by signing Amy Winehouse’s “Rehab” and he acted in a few plays. He also loved Glee and hated that his experience being a gay high-schooler didn’t even remotely resemble the show’s depictions of out characters like Blaine and Kurt.
On his YouTube channel, Hubley enjoyed singing songs by Katy Perry and Jason Mraz, and Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way.” He had a beautiful voice, shaky and untrained but earnest and touching nonetheless. He uploaded sixteen videos in all; he stands alone, wistfully looking into the camera, singing into the vast silent expanse of the Internet. Most of Hubley’s clips were short on comments before his death. Now strangers have gradually started to express sorrow with the familiar refrain that he had so much to live for.
Away from the camera, Hubley regularly cut himself with straight razors and drank vodka to dull the pain. Two months before his suicide, he was hospitalized for depression and put on medication, which didn’t seem to abate his pain much. Then, on Friday, he posted his goodbye to the world.
Hubley’s death continues a wave of LGBT teen suicides that have slowly shifted focus from at-school bullying to non-stop cyber-bullying and teen depression. But in this instance, at least from his online statements, it seems like Hubley’s suicide was prompted by a clinical depression and feelings of alienation and loneliness, not real-world torment at the hands of bullies.
As far as I must say, Jamie you were an amazing boy. You had a great heart, loved, and never backed out on what you believed in. I truly must say that you have touched my heart…. I will always remember you a an amazing Unicorn <3
R.I.P. Jamie Hubley <3
