Why do people commit suicide?

haha! Diane!

There's an article about suicide and the women of China at the BBC. The rate is way higher in the rural areas and way higher for women than for men. I can't believe it all adds up to chemical imbalance, though a case could be made that the depressed women wouldn't venture a risk and move to the city. These rural women live in a world of arranged marriages, hard work, no prospects, little money, and probably little oversight by protection agencies.

BBC

Hey mags, GA is in your town next week, I wish I could be there!

Back to the topic, I used to think that suicide was the ultimate act of selfishness, but I no longer hold that thinking. Like Diane, I think there are many cases (such as terminal illness or chronic vegetative state) where suicide - even assisted suicide - is a blessing. Who am I to judge what some other person is living with? Yes, I can sympathize with those left behind but, having never suffered from depression, I can't possibly know what it's like to wake up in the morning to face yet another day of wishing I was dead. I can't imagine.

Why do people commit suicide? Because sometimes they can't face today.

There have been (and are) a number of A2K members who suffer with major depression, at least one who took her own life. It still bothers me, even though I didn't know her well - even in an A2K 'know well' sense. I simply can't imagine, and as such, I simply can't judge.

Hey, Joe-- :wink:

Eva, your post shows the tragedy of suicide and is exactly why I didn't ever go through with my desire to end it all. I wonder if he had talked to all of you, what difference it might have made in the sad afteraffects of his suicide?

Littlek, have you read the book, Disposable People? It doesn't exactly conform to your post, but it does give voice to the awful lives of people in very poor countries. They are considered disposable. The young girls in Southeast Asia are given awy to prostitution with almost no compunction by their families because they are girls and of no value. It boggles the mind how one human being can treat another so badly and be able to live with him or herself.

Perhaps we need to make available a temporary suicide or "time-out" pill that puts you into a coma for a month. Actuall suicide really does limit your future options considerably.

I doubt very much people that commit suicide understand the temporary nature of all bad life experiences. It's a matter of being able to cope and understand that one bad event should not be the end all of life.

We all experience bad things in life; some are unable to live through them.

Yes, that is one reason for suicide, the quick fix for temporary troubles.

But what about the instances when one arrives at the conclusion that existence is pointless, and given this fact, it's just as valid for themselves to not exist, than to exist, and it would be easier, and perhaps better to not exist, than to exist?

I don't think I have read it, Diane.

Oh, I don't think anything we could have said would have stopped him...if that's what you mean. He was the strongest-willed person I've ever known, and once he made up his mind about something, there was no going back. In a way, I think that's why he was successful at it. Most of us wouldn't be strong enough to follow through.

The very toughest part of the suicide aftermath (and there are lots of tough parts) is the fact that it leaves so many things unresolved. What was going through his mind? Why did he keep it all to himself? How long did he plan it? What would have happened to him if he hadn't done it? We can guess some of it, but the truth is, we will never know. Even though it's been (counting fingers) 17 years now, these questions still haunt us. It will always be this way. The only person who could answer them is gone. We've had to learn to live with the unanswerable.

Infrared, I'm sure there are people out there that feels life is not worth living for whatever reason, and have ended their life. It's sad, because in many cases, drugs and therapy can help them if they seek help.

What would be the point, though?

Exactly, InfraBlue. I imagine this is how my father thought. His physical problems weren't temporary, and they were only going to get worse. He probably didn't see any point in continuing the suffering, making his wife and children watch him deteriorate, and using up their assets on his medical expenses. Knowing how dedicated he was to his family, he probably thought it would be easier on us all that way. Not that any of us would have agreed with that...then or now.

Until I joined a support group for family members of suicide victims, I never knew that suicide is so prevalent among the elderly. One of these days, I believe that assisted suicide for the terminally ill will become legal and accepted. At least, I hope so.

Eva, I was thinking about the terminally ill and assisted suicide as an ethical and right decision for many. My wife and I even talked about a situation in which my health failed, and I was no longer living any quality of life, I would prefer to go. We both have a living will, and don't want any life sustaining medical care when my quality of life is no longer viable.

I'll be 71 next month, and have thus far enjoyed a pretty healthy life. I try to prolong it by regular walking and working around the house and garden.

You are an inspiration, c.i., in more ways than one.

I imagine when it is your time to go, you will not even be at home. You'll probably die skiing off a cliff or something.

I'm back.

Thanks for the great posts guys. I'm surprised about how many people here have contemplated suicide or have known people who have commited suicide. Maybe it's just people who have are attracted to this thread.

Just because the cons overweigh the pros, why does that mean we should commit sucide? If our aim in life is to live and reproduce (I'm assuming this right, correct me if I'm wrong), doesn't this mean it overules all other aspects?

dyslexia,
I think old age is a different thing. If it is time for us to die (or close to it) and we've led a good life, I personally don't see anything wrong with "deciding" to die. Funny, though, how pure willpower (or lack of it) can make our bodies do things that we normally wouldn't have power over.

J_B,
Just as a matter of interest, who is the A2K member who commited sucide, and how did you come to know?

aperson,
A human being is more complex then his baser instincts. We have to live in a complex society, and have thusly needed to create more rules then just that one. I mean, you could apply the exact same reasoning to : "Why are people homosexual?", since this also means they will not reproduce (without outside help, that is)

I ask you this: "If you truly feel that this aspect[survive in order to reproduce] overrules all other aspects, then how do you explain art and science?"

I think everyone contemplates suicide at some point in thier life. I know I thought about it a couple couple different times when I was in high school. of course things like family and friends brought me out of it. It wasn't quite the same as really suicidal people.




When my grandfather was diagnosed with lung cancer and only had a few months to live he decided at one point that no matter what happened to him he did not want to be taken to the hospital. He knew he was going to die and he did not want to spend months fighting only to die on some operating table.

he happened to die at the end of a four day fall break which myself, siblings and cousins had spent there visiting my grandparents. He started to feel even more tired than normal and said he thought this might be the end. We then called all his children, grandchildren and many of his friends over. he spent his last four or five concious hours talking with all of us. eventually he went into his bedroom to lie die and we all surrounded him and watied till he died.

when I die some day this is how I would also like to go this way. In the comfortable surroundings of my own home surrounded by my friends and family.

I think suicide is a personal issue, and those who choose to end their lives should be as protected as the other minorities we support.

Many people don't know what it's like to prefer death to life. The average brand of depression isn't in the same universe as chronic, heavy depression.

aperson,

To compare suicidal depression to "the cons outweighing the pros" is to do a great disservice to people, who deserve much better. I'm pretty sure you didn't intend to, though. I would feel uncomfortable discussing our friends who made this choice in this vein on this thread. Maybe it would be appropriate at another time and place.

Lash, I think you are right, but nevertheless I stand by the fact many can be helped if we just allow more empathy in our busy schedules.
I'd strongly suggest not to protect their righys as a group per se. I can understand why many people are driven over the edge and commit suicide, but it remains a very poor solution, and one that should only be used if other alternatives are exhausted.

Naj.

A writer-friend in GA just sent this to me:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/21/us/21depress.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin
June 21, 2006
A Legacy of the Storm: Depression and Suicide
By SUSAN SAULNY

NEW ORLEANS, June 20 Sgt. Ben Glaudi, the commander of the Police Department's Mobile Crisis Unit here, spends much of each workday on this city's flood-ravaged streets trying to persuade people not to kill themselves.

Last Tuesday in the French Quarter, Sergeant Glaudi's small staff was challenged by a man who strode straight into the roaring currents of the Mississippi River, hoping to drown. As the water threatened to suck him under, the man used the last of his strength to fight the rescuers, refusing to be saved.

"He said he'd lost everything and didn't want to live anymore," Sergeant Glaudi said.

The man was counseled by the crisis unit after being pulled from the river against his will. Others have not been so lucky.

"These things come at me fast and furious," Sergeant Glaudi said. "People are just not able to handle the situation here."

New Orleans is experiencing what appears to be a near epidemic of depression and post-traumatic stress disorders, one that mental health experts say is of an intensity rarely seen in this country. It is contributing to a suicide rate that state and local officials describe as close to triple what it was before Hurricane Katrina struck and the levees broke 10 months ago.

Compounding the challenge, the local mental health system has suffered a near total collapse, heaping a great deal of the work to be done with emotionally disturbed residents onto the Police Department and people like Sergeant Glaudi, who has sharp crisis management skills but no medical background. He says his unit handles 150 to 180 such distress calls a month.

Dr. Jeffrey Rouse, the deputy New Orleans coroner dealing with psychiatric cases, said the suicide rate in the city was less than nine a year per 100,000 residents before the storm and increased to an annualized rate of more than 26 per 100,000 in the four months afterward, to the end of 2005.

While there have been 12 deaths officially classified as suicides so far this year, Dr. Rouse and Dr. Kathleen Crapanzano, director of the Louisiana Office of Mental Health, said the real number was almost certainly far higher, with many self-inflicted deaths remaining officially unclassified or wrongly described as accidents.

Charles G. Curie, the administrator of the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, said the scope of the disaster that the hurricane inflicted had been "unprecedented," and added, "We've had great concerns about the level of substance abuse and mental health needs being at levels we had not seen before."

This is a city where thousands of people are living amid ruins that stretch for miles on end, where the vibrancy of life can be found only along the slivers of land next to the Mississippi. Garbage is piled up, the crime rate has soared, and as of Tuesday the National Guard and the state police were back in the city, patrolling streets that the Police Department has admitted it cannot handle on its own. The reminders of death are everywhere, and the emotional toll is now becoming clear.

Gina Barbe rode out the storm at her mother's house near Lake Pontchartrain, and says she has been crying almost every day since.

"I thought I could weather the storm, and I did it's the aftermath that's killing me," said Ms. Barbe, who worked in tourism sales before the disaster. "When I'm driving through the city, I have to pull to the side of the street and sob. I can't drive around this city without crying."

Many people who are not at serious risk of suicide are nonetheless seeing their lives eroded by low-grade but persistent feelings of sadness, hopelessness and stress-related illnesses, doctors and researchers say. All this goes beyond the effects of 9/11 and the Oklahoma City bombing, Mr. Curie said. Beyond those of Hurricanes Andrew, Hugo and Ivan.

"We've been engaged much longer and with much more intensity in this disaster than in previous disasters," he said.

At the end of each day, Sergeant Glaudi returns to his own wrecked neighborhood and sleeps in a government-issued trailer outside what used to be home.

"You ride around and all you see is debris, debris, debris," he said.

And that is a major part of the problem, experts agree: the people of New Orleans are traumatized again every time they look around.

"This is a trauma that didn't last 24 hours, then go away," said Dr. Crapanzano, the Louisiana mental health official. "It goes on and on."

"If I could do anything," said Dr. Howard J. Osofsky, the chairman of the psychiatry department at Louisiana State University, "it would be to have a quicker pace of recovery for the community at large. The mental health needs are related to this."

The state estimates that the city has lost more than half its psychiatrists, social workers, psychologists and other mental health workers, many of whom relocated after the storm. And according to the Louisiana Hospital Association, there are little more than 60 hospital beds for psychiatric patients in the seven hospitals that remain open here.

Because of a lack of mental heath clinics and related services, severely disturbed patients end up in hospital emergency rooms, where they often languish. Many poorer patients were dependent on a large public institution, Charity Hospital, but it has been closed since the storm despite the protests of many medical professionals who say the building is in good condition. Big Charity, as the locals called it, had room for 100 psychiatric patients and could have used more capacity.

"When you don't have a place to send that wandering schizophrenic directing traffic, guess what? Law enforcement is going to wind up taking care of that," said Dr. Rouse, the deputy coroner. "When the Police Department is forced to do the job of the mental health system, it's a lose-lose situation for everyone."

"When the family comes to see me at the coroner's office," he added, "it's a defeat. The state has a moral obligation to reinstitute this care."

Sergeant Glaudi and others said some people struggling with emotional issues had no prior history of mental illness or depression.

The symptoms cut across economic and racial lines; life in New Orleans is difficult and inconvenient for everyone.

Susan Howell, a political scientist at the University of New Orleans, conducted a recent study with researchers from Louisiana State to see how people were coping with everyday life in the city and neighboring Jefferson Parish. Ms. Howell managed a similar survey in 2003.

"The symptoms of depression have, at minimum, doubled since Katrina," she said. "These are classic post-trauma symptoms. People can't sleep, they're irritable, feeling that everything's an effort and sad."

The new survey was conducted in March and April, and canvassed 470 respondents who were living in houses or apartments. Since they were not living in government-issued trailers, it is likely that they were among the more fortunate.

Jennifer Lindsley, a gallery owner, also feels the sting of missing her friends.

"When you can't get ahold of people you used to know, it leaves you feeling kind of empty," Ms. Lindsley said. "When you try to explain it to people in other cities, they say: 'The whole world is over it, so you've got to get over it. Sorry that happened, but too bad. Move on.' "

Some people have decided to leave solely because of the mood of the city.

"I'm really aware of the air of mild depression that pervades this entire area," said Gayle Falgoust, a retired teacher. "I'm leaving after this month. I worry about living with this level of depression all the time. I worry that it might affect my health. I know the move will improve my mood."

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company