Eastern Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute in Philadelphia – EPPI – used to be the place where teenagers who attempted suicide ended up.

The day room was large and open, if not airy, and kids littered the chairs and floors with the drugged-out stares and low moans of the over-medicated.

EPPI was like some freaky camp for some of us. I was there for a while in tenth grade, after slashing my wrists and taking an overdose of pills.

My best friend, Laura, also spent some time there after her suicide attempt in 11th grade. Another wrist slasher. She was more depressed than I was and took all the Thorazine they gave her while I hid mine under my tongue. Debbie was there after her overdose in tenth grade. Amy was there, too, after she tried to suffocate herself with a dry cleaning bag after she took a whole bottle of aspirin.

 For a time it seemed like every lesbian who ever attended my all-girl’s high school ended up attempting suicide and taking a short trip to EPPI because of it.

 That was the 1970s, however, and being an out lesbian was rough. Very rough. Laura, Debbie, Amy and I were all living very different lives from our straight peers. Suicide seemed like the trump card we held, the get-out-of-hell free card.

 In 2008, being queer is considered acceptable among a majority of Americans of all ages. More than a third of teens in urban areas identify as bisexual. Access to support groups, in schools and on the Internet has eroded the isolation of the past among LGBT teens. 

Lesbian and gay teens today needn’t feel the hopelessness or fear that the LGBT youth of my generation felt.

 Or do they?

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