Wonderful Blogger Annie of What Annie Wears tagged me to write seven things about myself…

Even with a blog, I can be kind of an introvert. I’m not shy, but it takes a lot for me to talk about something. Once I do though, I can’t really shut up. Anyway, I’m sure you guys don’t care about these next seven things, but since I don’t have an “about me” page, let’s do it to it.

1. I’m the first person in my family to be born in the good old US of A. My parents came from Belarus in the late 1970′s when my sister and brother were very young. I speak Russian fluently, albeit, terribly.

2. Teenage Dream is a guilty pleasure. Don’t hate.

3. When I was in Kindergarten, I had to memorize a poem and recite it in class. My sister taught me “I’m nobody, who are you?” by Emily Dickinson. It started a lifelong fascination and love of her and her poetry.

4. I almost always sleep with socks on.

5. I am a clothing hoarder

6. I love shoes, but suck at walking in super high heels

7. I once dressed up as Macaulay Culkin in college. It wasn’t Halloween.

tagging 7 people: E/D/T of Chicksdigbeer, I Play Favorites,Life on Mars?, Capsule Capsule, Solo Lisa, AndWhatElseIsThere, HelloSteph

and I know some of you won’t want to do this, but I’m tagging you guys anyway in case you do!

I’m reusing this picture because it’s one of my favorites.

You’d think I’d find this news exciting, as I’m obsessed, but I actually really like my fellow Russian Mila Kunis, and plus, they’re really cute together, and also, I’m really not a creepy Macaulay Culkin stalker. Seriously, I swear. Granted my Best Friend answered for me when I was asked who the sexiest man alive is during a New Year’s day game of drunken truth or dare (obviously the answer was Macaulay Culkin). Ok, really I’m kidding. He’s not the sexiest man alive, cmon now! But he’s cute, and he was always my childhood crush, and I love how he’s fallen off the face of the famous world and how he paints his nails. I hope it’s the first hoax of the New Year.

Also, Happy New Year! I’m quite excited to get some January posts in, it’s my birthday month so expect lots!

Although this blog primarily focuses on documenting adventures, exposing new designers and basically just talking about shit I like, today I’m going to talk about something completely different.

During the past month, there have been five reported suicides around the country by gay  teenagers, or teenagers bullied for supposedly being gay. I want to stress “reported” as suicide was the third leading cause of death for teenagers aged 15-24 in 2007 (last statistics on government websites). The national institute of mental health gives us the following statistics (from 2007)

• Children ages 10 to 14 — 0.9 per 100,000
• Adolescents ages 15 to 19 — 6.9 per 100,000
• Young adults ages 20 to 24 — 12.7 per 100,000

The numbers are staggering but they’re also from 2007; suicide rates have risen since then. The NIMH tells us that teenage boys are 5 times more likely to commit suicide than their female counterparts, and with the recent rash of suicides, all by teenage boys, this has only been further confirmed.

Although there are countless resources online for LGBT teenagers, ( such as The Trevor Project- a leading national organization focused on crisis and suicide prevention in LGBT and questioning youth)  not all teenagers have access to computers at home, nor do many of them feel comfortable going on a public computer and and basically exposing themselves to anyone who should walk by. The fact of the matter is that many teenagers have no where to turn to; they’re tormented at school by their peers, their school’s administration looks the other way, and many have parents that would not support them if they came out.

I think a great project going on right now is the It Gets Better Project featuring videos being produced around the country by LGBT adults, celebrities and their straight allies. These videos are aimed at gay teenagers struggling with bullying both at home and school, to tell them that it really does get better and in part to raise awareness for the struggles gay youth face. These adults are telling them that they can leave their tiny towns for better lives in bigger cities (as many of the men and women in these videos have done), that they can and will be happy and that life get’s amazing, if they just stick it out right now.

I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and although I’m straight, I have always had close gay, lesbian and bisexual friends. Growing up in any city is of course much easier than a small town but I have seen friends go through their share of problems either in school or at home. In junior high school, a good friend at the time was constantly tormented about his supposed sexuality, but he also had a close group of friends that stood behind him and supported him. We lost touch, but I later saw that he had grown into a really handsome, successful and openly gay man.

High school brought about a lot of openly (at least in the punk, goth, etc. circles of the school) lesbian students. My school had an openly gay art director, an LGBT club and openly gay students, and was situated in a city with countless organizations offering support. And still it was more difficult for male students to be as open about their sexuality as their female counterparts.

From watching many friends blossom into successful and happy adults, in amazing same-sex relationships, the only thing I can say is that it really does get better. Whether you’re bullied, tormented or just struggling internally with coming to grips with how you actually feel, it all gets better. You will be happy, you will be successful, you will find friends that accept and love you. And you will find romantic love, and it will be amazing. The cliche that time heals all wounds? It’s one of those cliches that is so amazingly true, time will heal your wounds and bring about age and wisdom and freedom.

Please check out the founder of this project, Dan Savage, and his partner, Terry Miller, with their video for It Gets Better:

Suicide amongst LGBT teens is becoming an epidemic, bullying and cyber bullying is so prevalent that it’s commonplace. As a blogger, albeit a fashion blogger, I think it’s important to expose what’s going on to my readership (even if it’s small). Please do your part to help; write about this, donate money, make a video for the project, tweet about it, or whatever you can do no matter how small. Although I love Depeche Mode, they made a mistake; everything counts even in small amounts.