Friday, October 21, 2011

Ottawa teen's suicide

One sad item that has been in the news recently is the suicide of Jamie Hubley, the 15 year old son of Ottawa City Councillor Allan Hubley. Jamie committed suicide because he was an openly gay high school student who was massively bullied at school by cruel fellow students for being gay. He wrote in his final blog posting that as far as he could see, the bullying would never get better despite the slogans of the anti-homophobic bullying campaigns (that it will get better). He wrote in his blog how depressed he was and that he was cutting himself. Cutting oneself is a well known action of depressed teenagers. Teenage depression is a very big problem even without bullying. Bullying causing depression and suicide among teenagers is a big problem even without homophobic bullying. I want to state very clearly that homophobic bullying is not acceptable under any circumstances whatsoever. There are no exceptions at all -- never ever acceptable.
Also, bullying of any kind is not acceptable under any circumstances and there are no exceptions at all to this either. The Ontario government needs to continue and ramp up its anti-bullying campaign, including fighting homophobic bullying.
Jamie expressed thoughts of suicide for weeks before his suicide. I wish someone could have noticed the suicidal thoughts and done an intervention before he killed himself. Changing high schools would be a good option to escape the bullying, for him and other teenagers like him. There has to be more consequences for bullies in high school, which also means catching and reporting bullying more when it happens.
RIP Jamie Hubley and condolences to his family, friends, and all those who knew him.