Hey,

You may have read the short story I wrote called Inside Of Me. My reason's for using such a... tender? subject are simple. The story is dedicated to Clare, my 13 y/o couson. Claire decided life was too hard to deal with so she ended it.

I've been left asking myself why? I mean what the hell drives a 13y/o to take their life? She never left a note, so we'll never really have an answer as to what she was thinking. I wrote the story as a kind of release. About 1AM on the night I was told of her death I was in bed staring at the celling thinking. I wondered if I'd made more of an effort to know her would I have helped?

Maybe I would have maybe I wouldn't have, I'll never know. Well anyway, I was in bed and my mind was wandering. I started to have this idea, like a setting. I imagined how the people left behind would feel. So I wrote this little idea out in my head, the got up out of bed and wrote a few paragraphs. I continued the next day writing a little more, then I had a conversation that included this.....

Stop me if I've already laid this all on you -

but something like 30-40% of gay teens consider or attempt suicide

and when I learned that, I was horrified enough - until I thought about it a little more, then I felt even worse

because in my high school, there were 1200 students

assuming 1/10 were gay/bi/questioning, that is 120 kids

so between 30 and 50 kids in my school - kids I KNEW - thought about or tried to kill themselves

so that was just a bit of a reaity shock

and I could go into all the reasons I think gay kids do that

but f**K...that's just tragic

So I decided I needed to finish it. Now I dont know if reading it affect anyone. But I pray that there could be one kid out there that comes to this site. Now maybe that kid is depressed with the life and has thought of ending it. If that kid reads it then maybe they'll consider the people that love them enough to get help. Then maybe Claires death wont have been totally in vain.

Dave