Strange how little attention is given to the perspective of Trevor:

1) he was intense, smarter than his peers (probably a lot), and also physicially superior to them. You might think this is good, but think about it for 5 seconds: it's extremely isolating.

2) he got rejected ... and rejected ... and rejected. First, by his classmates and schoolmates ... then

3) the schools responded to this, not by figuring out both sides of the story, but by dumping schools him, despite Trevor obviously putting in extra effort to satisfy everything demanded of him

4) Trevor's skiing is striking: clearly, 99.9% of the time, Trevor was using willpower to satisfy whatever he thought others wanted of him. He must have done this a lot since even in situations where it was beyond obvious nobody suspected this is what he was doing.

5) it is mentioned that both of his parents had similar habits. Both parents were driven, and kind, really trying to help people.

This paints an entirely different picture, doesn't it?

In short confrontations with others, Trevor was irresistibly nice. In longer confrontations (willpower will falter occasionally), nobody likes him (because he is superior to the other children. Not even because he actually is, but because he is intense: he will put real effort into learning a lot of things, from English to skiing, dating to "politics").

And of course, the problem these parents and children have with the suicide ... is how it affects them. That, perhaps, they ... how to put it ... "weren't letting Trevor be Trevor", does not register to anyone at all. That they put him through hell, probably asking more and more of him, until he lost control, then punished him, and then dumped him ... not a second's thought is wasted on that. Everyone is just protecting themselves, and most are simply protecting themselves. He needed to be acknowledged and rewarded for the effort he put in. But these days (not that it was much better before, but it was better), we demand any such effort be hidden and buried deeply (a lot of schools don't even give grades, at all, anymore).

For reasons that I cannot fathom we seem to think this will make people "more equal", when in reality, of course, it rewards being born in a powerful position in society, and focusing on ability rewards putting in effort. Certainly with the current availability of learning materials.

Trevor wasn't depressed at all, I'd bet. I bet he was working on 5 side projects the week he killed himself.

What would have helped? NOT rejecting him. Certainly not throwing him out of school. Instead, provide him with a real challenge. But for the same reason these people can't see what happened (they're completely caught up in their own feelings), they couldn't allow Trevor to, for instance, move up a grade (or two). That, obviously, would have hurt many feelings.

Trevor killed himself because he was rejected by everyone around him because he performed better than them, and because probably his parents and everyone else kept repeating to him that this happened because he still wasn't good enough. Reality is that he cared deeply about people who couldn't give a rat's ass about him, thought his life worth less than satisfying their immediate feeling on the spot, and after the x-thousandth dumping he got blamed for for reasons he couldn't understand, he ended it. He died because he was not average, trying to be better, in a sea of people who cannot deal with even a fleeting moment of impression that someone might be better than them, or that they might need to put in some work to catch up to him.