How 13 Reasons Why Helped Me Cope With My Own Student’s Suicide

Suicide is one of the realest things you will ever have to deal with, if you’re one of the unlucky ones. For the rest of y’all, I envy you. Hopefully, and I genuinely hope this for each and every one of you, the topic and discussion remains firmly outside your comprehension and life experience. Now, to all of the young boys, girls, men, women, students, parents, mentors, mentees, and every Gender Neutral individual out there. Welcome. Welcome, all my neglected and skeptical. All the scared and wounded. All the scarred and depressed, mistreated and spurned. To every rejected, and dejected human on this floating, orbiting, decaying blue and green rock, you are not alone. There are people out there who want to connect with you, hear your message and need your truth in order to help them unearth theirs buried deep beneath a mantle of fake smiles and empty words. I truly hope anyone reading this knows they are truly loved, wanted and appreciated by many out there in this vast expanse. There are ALWAYS options. Your life is valued. More than you probably know.

This is something Hannah Baker did not know. But there are lessons to be found everywhere, even in death. Hannah’s suicide and the 13 tapes she left behind turned into one of the more jarring moments of my life. I thought I could handle this story with ease. I didn’t think my own students death would impact me very much. I was wrong. I was so very wrong. It fucking HURT. I fucking cried. An action Black men are conditioned t…