Tim Barrus: New York Times
I teach boys at-risk who have HIV. Cancer and HIV are formidable. I have seen teenagers decide they cannot endure what they call poisoning. Adding antiretrovirals into a pharmacological regimen can be hard.
Easier said than done.
Especially with kids whose compliance is iffy, and who are not undetectable. TV courtroom dramas between medical professionals, what the kid wants, guardians, hospital concerns over security if the kid attempts to run, kids who see needles, especially if their parents are addicts, in a very negative light, kids who understand what they face with chemo, and deeply resent being treated like a child, or patronized, kids with mental health problems described as emotionally disturbed, and are often sexual abuse survivors, and adolescents who simply have a very bad attitude, and are rebellious in ways awesome to behold, kids who have been imprisoned, kids who do not trust adults (with reason), kids who do not understand what is happening to them, and some poor judge who is going to have to wade through all these issues, and none of this exists in any way inside a soap where all these dramas unfold in sixty minutes of televised angst. Welcome to reality.
We refuse to accept that many of these kids are suicidal in the first place. Losing your hair is one kind of issue for an informed adult. It is another issue for an adolescent who is developing his sexuality through how he looks.
Explosive stuff.
You won’t accept a kid who chooses death. But I will.