More die from suicide than wars, murders

[varkam]

Reuters - UK
Matthew Verrinder
9/8/06
Link

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - More people kill themselves each year than die from wars and murders combined, but most suicides could be prevented, two international experts on suicide said on Friday.

Some 20 million to 60 million try to kill themselves each year, but only about a million of them succeed, said Dr. Jose Manoel Bertolote, a mental health official at the World Health Organization in Geneva.

The ones who do end their lives "are tragic situations where help could have been provided," said Brian Mishara, president of the International Association for Suicide Prevention in Gondrin, France.

The two men spoke to reporters on the sidelines of a U.N. seminar marking this Sunday's World Suicide Prevention Day.

snip...

[tomreedtoon]

1. Yeah, but they WANT to die. Our soldiers don't.

Not to disparage suicide prevention, but there is an implicit difference here. There is a difference between someone willingly jumping from a buliding to his death, and someone jumping because the building has just been hit by an airplane and is collapsing. And it's still different if the person has been pushed out the window.

[havocmom]

3. SOME, maybe. Many just can't see beyond the pain of now

If one has never been in that very dark place for an extended period, it is probably difficult to understand how overpowering hopelessness can be.

[Orrex]

4. I've never been that low, but

A few years ago, in what I would describe as an "extended funk" rather than a serious depression, I had a minor epiphany that really changed the way I thought about it.

I was rational enough to know that, in all likelihood, I would break out of my funk before too very long (mostly because it was brought on by known and non-permanent matters), and so I was able to say "even though this sucks and I'm feeling really down, I'm confident that it won't last forever, so I can tough it out."

But someone who, for whatever reason, is unable to achieve that breakthrough is faced with the prospect that a painful depression will never end. Even if they're told that it will pass, there's a big difference between hearing such a thing and actually realizing it.

So you're right, Havocmom--it's a mistake to think of suicide as a simple choice made by someone at full mental capacity and a full grasp of the facts. In many cases, some part of the chain of reason has been broken long before the final decision is made.

[varkam]

5. Free will

People who commit suicide, more often than not, suffer from some type of pathology whether it be medical or psychological. Pathology always, in one way or another, undercuts free will. Not that pathology eliminates free will, but it does compromise one's ability to freely choose one course of action over another. I don't mean to say that pathology is a necessary condition of all people who commit suicide - but it often is. So to say that everyone who commits suicide "wants" to die, while technically true, is also disingenuous. Such people have other forces acting on their judgment aside from a sober, rational examination of their state of affairs.

I don't mean to disparage the memory or the sacrifice of our soldiers by posting this. Their sacrifice is one of the few things that make me proud to be American. I do mean to point out that our priorities might be misplaced. We spend so much time worrying and, paradoxically enough, fascinated by homicide. We worry that someone might kidnap and murder our children. We wonder if the person walking behind us is carrying a knife. True enough, these things do happen and, when they do, are terrible things. The problem is that not enough attention is paid to the issue of suicide. It is a massive public health issue that we largely turn a blind eye towards. It's something that makes us uncomfortable to think about. I think that's largely because many of us have been affected by it in one way or another and we know the kinds of feelings that just the word 'suicide' evokes in us.

Again, I don't mean to say that we shouldn't care about our soldiers dying or people being murdered. I do mean to say that we should care more about this issue, as it is large and looming.

[skyblue]

6. Agreed. When more die from Suicide than from Murder and both are

caused by people who are mentally f'd up then this issue really really needs to be addressed. Suicides probably often commit murder, or even murder-suicide and then there's the ones who believe black holes are here due to the benign neglect of a diety that feels that there must be good and evil so that we can choose the good when the evil seems to know no bounds (ie black holes are extremely evil why should a benevolent gawd say that it's ok that they exist.)

Anyway you are entirely correct because certainly most crimes are committed by people who are mentally deranged, and suicide is in many instances a mentally deranged act (there's people who commit suicide when they are in irreversible physical pain, that is understandable in a mentally stable person) So there certainly needs to be more attention drawn to this issue in a big fat f'ing way.

And OMG kids in school these days doing massive damage. Tho' I'll bet if I were homeschooled I could not deal very well with the outside world. Homeschooled with religious roots. That scares the living s out of me.

Sorry for my wierd, wired rant, here.

[havocmom]

2. Not much money can be stolen in the world of mental health care

so it will never get much support.

And more of us pay for ignoring it. Very sad and foolish indeed.