I'd Rather Die: The Catastrophe of Growing Up As A Girl

A study from Northern California reveals unsettling truths about suicide risk in teenage girls

Welcome to The Frontier Psychiatrists, among the more regularly published health-themed newsletters on the internet. This article is a team effort. It starts with thoughts by Owen Scott Muir, M.D., DFAACAP, (OM) and includes thoughts from David Carreon, M.D. (DC).

OM: I recently flew back and forth to London. My wife was asleep on me for much of the flight there, which made writing less of what was happening. Instead, I watched the Hunger Games movies back to back, all four of them. These are way better movies than I remembered. They also hold together better together than separately, separated by years.

In The Hunger Games, a malicious and Machiavellian government in a central capital decides to keep its 12 out-lying districts in line by “reaping” one boy and one girl from each of the districts and having them kill each other on live TV until there's only one surviving Victor. This is done every year. In short, children murdering children for political sport was the conceit, a…