
Suicide Prevention Sheds a Longstanding Taboo: Talking About Attempts - Xero
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/14/us/suicide-prevention-sheds-a-longstanding-taboo-talking-about-attempts.html
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graeme
Serious question: is someone who attempts suicide in the same group as someone
who successfully commits suicide?

For instance, far more men commit suicide. But far more women attempt suicide:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_suicide](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_suicide)

I'm sure there are other differences. To me, the questions are:

1\. Why do people fail at suicide attempts?

2\. Will information that dissuades a failed suicide attempt dissuade someone
from making a successful suicide attempt?

~~~
rhuppert
1\. Men are more "successful" because they tend to use more violent methods -
guns, jumping off high places, etc. Women are more likely to use pills.
Sometimes attempts are more of a call for help than ending one's life. 2\.
Your question is unclear to me, but most people who have attempted and failed
to commit suicide regret that decision.

~~~
pantalaimon
Apparently not so in China?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_suicide#C...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_suicide#China)

~~~
sirdogealot
Perhaps china is tougher on their Women than their men?

>It has been found that suicide makes up for about 30% of deaths of women
living in rural China.

Wow... that must be pretty bad for them living out there. Can you imagine
living in a place where there was a 1 in 3 chance you'd off yourself before
dying naturally? Wow... just wow.

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dclowd9901
"...in the past few years, scores of them have come together on social media
and in other forums to demand a bigger voice in prevention efforts."

Wha-?

I'm by no means a heartless person. However, I truly believe if you don't want
to live any more, that it's your right and your responsibility.

I'm not in your head. I don't know what you're thinking. Most of the time, I
won't even know that you're depressed. Many people mask it very well. Why is
it my fault that you decided to kill yourself?

~~~
Swizec
Here's the thing though, depression is a treatable-ish illness. Suicide is a
symptom.

Isn't the usual approach to at least treat symptoms, if you can't immediately
cure the underlying illness?

~~~
chaired
I'm sorry, but as a long-time sufferer, I feel compelled to disagree with this
viewpoint wherever I see it, to represent people like me. I've been suicidal
and depressed on and off for about 20 years. From in here, it doesn't seem
anything like an illness at all. The flu is an illness. This is having lived
through an absurd number of absurd events, emotionally draining and also
traumatic in the long-term. It's having been abused. It's having exhausted
yourself pouring all the energy you have into being your best, excelling,
achieving, pleasing everyone, but having one dream after another expectation
shattered, and having to learn a new framework for living with it. It's
cumulative rejection. It's guilt over things you can never undo. It's finding
no pleasure in life, only monotony, the grind, suffering, disappointment, and
loneliness. It's wondering what's wrong with you that everyone you know got
married, have kids, own homes, advance in their careers, buy nicer cars, but
your life is still just like a single college student's.

It's not quite my brain, and it's not quite my mind. It's my _life_ , which in
a sense _is_ my mind. Which may or may not be my brain. I think that current
psychiatry is confused about which level of abstraction is the one to target -
not too surprising, since it's circular, almost strange-loopy. Also, people,
even most professionals, don't really know what to do or say when the problem
really is your life.

~~~
Swizec
I know how you feel and I definitely would call myself only in remission from
depression. It never really goes away, but you learn to live with it. Or at
least I did.

If you need someone to talk to, contact info in my profile.

------
evanlivingston
The longstanding taboo I think is actually allowing people to commit suicide.
This question rarely enters the debate.

~~~
mbillie1
Can you elaborate on this? I think it would be virtually impossible to prevent
suicide, not to mention various things perhaps not treated as suicide but
which are self-caused deaths (repeatedly engaging in very-very-high-risk
activity, for example).

~~~
evanlivingston
I mean that suicide is perceived as something to prevent, but I don't often
see the conversation about _why_ we are preventing it. Clinical depression is
a beast, and many people who pursue treatment seriously continue to struggle
with it their whole lives. I think great minds like David Foster Wallace prove
how persistent depression is. Suicide is a real escape from the incredible
pain that depression can cause, yet we continue to culturally perpetuate the
taboo of suicide. The question is; Why is it not okay for people to kill
themselves?

~~~
dfc
Why did it take "a great mind like DFW" to accept how persistent depression
is? I doubt you meant it but I found the dfw bit to be offensive. You seem to
deny the serious pain and suffering my friend experienced simply because he
was not a celebrity and/or had an average IQ? The reason I say it is offensive
(and that you did not intend it to be) is that it seems as if pre-DFW you
assumed my friend was just not smart enough to out think depression, or that
given his mediocore mind/life, depression would not need to be that powerful
and persistent in order for him to realize the loss of his life was no big
deal.

In my opinion the better question to ask would be "Why is it not okay for
depressives to kill themselves?" The taboo is related to a very specific
suicide. When an individual has brain cancer it is euthanasia, when the
individual has depression it is suicide.

~~~
evanlivingston
Sorry to cause offense, I understand what you're saying. The news of DFW death
was popular here on HN, and I was using him as an appeal to authority.

I wanted to bring up the difference between suicide and euthanasia, I think
it's critical to understanding the issue culturally.

~~~
dfc
I should have said "it could be offensive if I thought you
recognized/intended." I have no reason to think you are a bad person, so no
harm no foul. The fact that you are thinking about this and asking questions
is evidence of a certain level of compassion and intelligence.

DFW wrote a lot of Infinite Jest three blocks south of me and across the
street from the coop where I buy groceries. It is still kind of eerie walking
by the house with a bag of groceries.

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slc
This is stupid. And I can't believe it doesn't sound stupid to those who are
the most likely to attempt suicide seriously.

Why doesn't anyone talk about "misery prevention" ?

~~~
jstevens85
There's a lot of academic literature that supports the claim that reports of
suicide in the media lead to an increase in the number of suicides. This is
often referred to as "copycat suicide" or "the Werther effect". As a result,
journalists and academics are often very careful about they way they publicly
discuss suicide attempts. More information can be found here:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copycat_suicide](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copycat_suicide)

[http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2094294?uid=3737536&ui...](http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2094294?uid=3737536&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21103662438391)

[http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/197/3/234.abstract](http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/197/3/234.abstract)

~~~
slc
The army officials who deny mental health care to soldiers who later
completely unpredictably off themselves at a rate higher than combat
casualties must have read some of the same literature.

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softatlas
I've contemplated suicide off-and-on since age 6. It's just a working part of
my language. No successful attempts, or failed attempts, or whatever grammar
is being built here.

It might partly be influenced by a Tourette's like underlying structure, which
would here make it more publicly, or in terms of a biological profile, a
symptom. Usually all we see are symptoms in the narration of science.

