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If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health, suicide or substance use crisis or emotional distress, reach out 24/7 to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (formerly known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline) by dialing or texting 988 or using chat services at suicidepreventionlifeline.org to connect to a trained crisis counselor. These purported diary entries began circulating on the Internet in April 2001. Cutting straight to the chase, we've found no record of a Lisa Gonzalez having killed herself in November 1999 in Michigan or at any other time or place. No obituaries under that name turn up, in Michigan or elsewhere. Example: Why the exercise in creative writing, you then ask? We can but guess. Perhaps its writer meant to impress upon others the clear and ever-present danger suicide presents in the lives of teens through framing such a statement as a true story. Often when a message is considered important, those looking to trumpet it care little for the truth, seeing the value of what they have to say as eclipsing the manner in which they choose to say it. Yet the message about adolescents and suicide doesn't need the over-the-top fictionalization this treatment gave it. Forget about lame-ass boyfriends who date a girl for two-and-a-half years before announcing they'd only done it on a dare (makes you wonder how bright that fella was), teenage suicide is a chilling reality. It's the 6th leading cause of death for those aged 5-14 and is the 3rd leading cause of death for those in the 15-24 age group. In 1998, more teenagers and young adults died from suicide than from cancer, heart disease, AIDS, birth defects, stroke, pneumonia and influenza, and chronic lung disease combined. Current estimates place the number of attempted teen suicides at 500,000 per year in the U.S. alone. Faked-up diary entries don't begin to rival that.
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