
The Empty Promise of Suicide Prevention - yasp
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/26/opinion/sunday/suicide-prevention.html
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mindgam3
> We need to address the root causes of our nation’s suicide problem —
> poverty, homelessness and the accompanying exposure to trauma, crime and
> drugs. ...

It blows my mind that a licensed psychiatrist publishing in the NYT about the
root causes of suicide can fail to mention child abuse. Sure, she mentions
"trauma", but only as an accompaniment to poverty. It is well established that
developmental trauma (also known as "adverse childhood experiences", or ACE)
causes a significant increase in suicide attempts. [0]

> If we ignore all this, and keep telling the story that there is a simple
> solution at hand, the families of suicide victims will be left wondering
> what they did wrong.

I hate to break it to her, but when a victim of intrafamilial child abuse dies
by suicide, their families _should_ be left wondering what they did wrong.
Obviously this isn't happening in all cases of suicide attempts, but it's a
significant factor, and tends to be under-reported due to societal taboos
around speaking ill of one's family.

Misinformed articles like this one, however well-meaning, are harmful because
they perpetuate a culture of denial and continued stigma around child abuse.

[0] [https://www.sprc.org/news/adverse-childhood-experiences-
suic...](https://www.sprc.org/news/adverse-childhood-experiences-suicide-
attempts)

