
40,000 suicides annually, yet America simply shrugs - robg
http://www.usatoday.com/longform/news/nation/2014/10/09/suicide-mental-health-prevention-research/15276353/
======
tokenadult
This is a very thoughtful article, which I see is part of a series from the
same publication about suicide. There is good information here.

One paragraph jumped out at me: "Some states allow for court-ordered treatment
plans. No studies have been done on whether this could prevent suicides,
another example of gaps in knowledge, Caine says. Such ideas, he says, lie 'at
the edge of what we know and what we don't know.'" Ugh, so even rather basic
research on what might help hasn't been tried yet. We need to know more to do
more.

The article also included some inspiring examples, including an Army officer
who had come close to suicide himself about seven years ago during a combat
deployment. "Today, he cannot recover from colon cancer diagnosed in 2012 that
doctors declared terminal last year. In June, they said he had only months
left. Faced with his own mortality, Fitch consulted his wife, Samantha Wolk,
and reflected on the 22 veteran suicides occurring each day. He chose to
devote his remaining time to prevent others from committing suicide.

"'I've always wanted to focus on trying to leave the world a better place,' he
says."

Martin E. P. Seligman, in his book _The Optimistic Child_ ,[1] reviews some of
the research current to about a decade ago about "self-esteem" programs in
schools. They have long been known to be dangerous. The rising suicide rate
compared to earlier birth cohorts in the United States suggests that young
people in my generation and younger were not exposed in childhood to
"optimism" as Seligman defines it but rather to "self-esteem" thinking, which
doesn't leave people with enough inner strength to face a lot of challenges in
life. Changing our thinking about what kind of thinking builds resilience in
young people would help prevent suicide (and help everyone enjoy life better).
There is already research on this, and we should apply it more.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/The-Optimistic-Child-Depression-
Resili...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Optimistic-Child-Depression-
Resilience/dp/0618918094)

------
bproctor
I probably have an unpopular opinion on this, but I feel that people who wish
to commit suicide should not be prevented from doing so. By all means, if
someone wants to get help or needs counseling they should be able to get it.
But if in the end their choice is suicide, we should be making it easier for
them, not harder. I think that if I ever wanted to commit suicide I would be
less likely to seek counseling out of fear I would be "prevented" from making
my own choices. Similarly, when an animal is critically injured we "put them
out of their misery" because that's the "humane" thing to do. But us humans,
we have to suffer to the very end. Why?

~~~
31reasons
You need to educate yourself with the science of choice and what happens
during depression that changes your ability to make right decisions. Assuming
that a depressed person is able to make the right decision is just wrong. How
many times did you decide on something and than changed your mind? only this
one is irreversible. Depression is curable with right support and medication.
There may be few who are hopeless cases but 40000 is a big number and I
believe its preventable for good.

~~~
lhnz
Were you previously depressed yourself or are you just trotting out the party
line?

I have been depressed before.

While it's true that some people can take medication and receive platitudes
and coping methods on how to deal with the facts of a sad and sorry life, this
won't "cure" everybody.

What about those people that suffer for 10+ years?

\---

In regards to the typical statements that depressed people have to hear day-
upon-day:

When I was depressed (and I was very depressed for around 5 years) I knew that
based on what I saw around me, I could probably expect to stop becoming
depressed at some point of my life. However, it greatly annoyed me when people
said "suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem" because when
you've felt particularly bad for years and years, you're not dealing with
something which is so easy to change, and it's in fact far more permanent than
many things in your life. Time stretches without pleasure. Days are long but
years are unimaginably scary.

Another statement which I would hear a lot was the idea that you shouldn't
kill yourself because your family, friends and community need you. It doesn't
necessarily sounds nice to a depressed person. Here's how I used to
rationalise it: I was committing a selfless act of martyrdom by continuing to
exist without pleasure - every day I would be nailed to a cross and for their
pleasure would hang there on a side of a hill they didn't care to visit. "What
did they get out of my suffering?!"

~~~
chriscool
I have been depressed too for years. What I can tell you is that one day,
something wonderful and completely unexpected can happen and change everything
:-) But you should not count too much on it though. In fact, I would say you
should do the best you can to stop worrying about yourself and care about
things that could help others. It's after you have done that for some years
that the wonderful things are most likely to happen!

~~~
lhnz
That is actually more or less what happened to me, too. :)

Certain bad things which had been hanging around lifted, certain good things
came into play. At that point I still had quite a depressed mindset but I had
wanted to improve my life for so long and I had a lot of inner strength so I
was able to grow a very positive, healthy mindset.

I really agree about trying to point yourself outwards and to help others
around you. That's so important to me. In fact I have taken some off work
recently just to create something which I believe might help people.

------
bruceb
"...the second-leading killer for those ages 15-34." I would have never
guessed that.

Now I can understand why some are trying to use social media to detect who
might be expressing feeling that are common with depression and suicidal
thoughts.

~~~
imaginenore
And these are mostly males.

Life for males really improves after 30. Girls starting to hit on you a lot
more, better jobs, more money, less stress.

~~~
mqsiuser
You are right, BUT sorry, this is unpopular on hacker news

Try to show that there is no difference between woman and men and you may get
upvotes.

Edit: And hey: Life for femals is much better between 16 and 35 (and
deteriorates quickly after that).

Man,... I know a lot of grumpy old woman.

------
zimpenfish
How much does the US spend on anti-terrorism activities[1] (which is, finger
in the air, maybe 5000 people killed in 15 years?) compared to their mental
health system (6500 people dead every -two months-)?

[1] It's about $40bn.
[http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/factsheet_department_homeland/](http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/factsheet_department_homeland/)

~~~
pjc50
The US spends a considerable number of _lives_ on "anti-terrorism" combat, as
well.

~~~
zimpenfish
An excellent adjunct-point.

------
CapitalistCartr
America is NOT doing nothing. America is not synonymous with the Federal
gov't. We as a people do a lot outside of Federal gov't spending.

------
ssprang
_Briggs saw the worst of this during suicide crises on the bridge when drivers
passing by would yell out, "Go ahead and jump."_

Despicable.

~~~
anigbrowl
Regrettably this behavior appears to be protected by the first amendment,
unless suicide itself is made illegal (as it used to be in many
jurisdictions). A law criminalizing such behavior in Minnesota was reversed at
appeal: [http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2014/03/19/encouraging-suicide-
isnt...](http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2014/03/19/encouraging-suicide-isnt-a-crime-
minnesota-court-says/) and
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Francis_Melchert-
Dinkel](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Francis_Melchert-Dinkel)

I can't politely express my opinion about people like this.

~~~
shasta
Should they go kill themselves? Funny that the mental failings of the jumper
evoke such sympathy and the mental failings of the "asshole" evoke such
hatred.

~~~
anigbrowl
There's a significant qualitative difference between someone being self-
destructive (albeit with traumatic consequences for those who are connected to
them) and engineering the destruction of someone else.

There may be mental failings involved which are outside the control of the
individual, but I don't think that's the whole story or we'd have to throw the
idea of moral agency out the window (I picked the example I did because the
person neither appeared nor claimed to suffer cognitive impairment AFAIK). We
are actors as well as being acted upon by our environment and biology; insofar
as our activities impact others, we have some responsibility to regulate them.

------
s_baby
America shrugs because suicide is a problem effecting men. Men outnumber women
in suicide between 3:1 and 10:1[1]. If the tables were turned you better
believe you would hear about it. The NFL would wear pink ribbons to raise
awareness. You would constantly see articles relating patriarchy and female
suicide. But these people killing themselves are men. These people are
privileged and therefore are not being driven by controllable outside factors
into suicide like some marginalized group. This is why I find the term
privilege getting thrown around so offensive. The problem isn't that it lacks
validity(it has some). The problem is we're trying to build an inclusive
society and calling someone privileged is now a way to marginalize the needs
and perspectives of others.

1\.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_suicide](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_suicide)

------
headShrinker
Frankly, I'm surprized that this is seemingly the first mention of this...

"The Suicide Prevention Resource Center synthesized these studies and
estimated that between 30 and 40% of LGBT youth, depending on age and sex
groups, have attempted suicide."

Source:
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_among_LGBT_youth](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_among_LGBT_youth)

I hope I just missed the reference somewhere in the piece or these comments.

~~~
tokenadult
I went to the website of the organization you mentioned. I browsed and then
searched that website. A link there took me to another organization, the
American Association of Suicidology, at first to a dead link, then I browsed
and searched that organization's website, and found a fact sheet on the issue
you bring up.[1] The fact sheet mentions some studies and their conclusions,
without detailed citations or descriptions of methodology, and points out
"Because no reliable data exists, we do not know whether LGBT youth die by
suicide more frequently than their straight peers. Sexual orientation and
gender identity data are not included on death certificates so aggregated
national death data do not include this information. In addition, many LGBT
youth do not disclose this information to family members and friends; as a
result, sexual orientation and gender identity often do not show up in
psychological autopsy interviews." In other words, we are not completely sure
that LGBT status is a risk factor for completed suicide in the United States,
although that is the current working hypothesis among many suicide
researchers. As the article submitted to open the thread here today makes
clear, there is a lot of basis research on suicide that still needs to be
done.

[1]
[http://www.suicidology.org/Portals/14/docs/Resources/LGBT%20...](http://www.suicidology.org/Portals/14/docs/Resources/LGBT%20Resources/SuicidalBehaviorAmongLGBTYouthFacts.pdf)

------
feld

      Razors pain you;
      Rivers are damp;
      Acids stain you;
      And drugs cause cramp.
      Guns aren't lawful;
      Nooses give;
      Gas smells awful;
      You might as well live.
                      -- Dorothy Parker, "Resume", 1926

------
tim333
I think there should be a move towards targeting government policies that
improve the numbers on measures like suicide and reported happiness. There are
quite a lot of stats out there and they vary a lot from country to country -
Wikipedia has Lithuania at 31 suicides per 100k per year, Greece at 3.5 and
the UK and US in the middle somewhere around 12. You could try figuring what
make the difference (perhaps with regression analysis?) and implementing
policies to make it more like Greece and less like Lithuania perhaps.

~~~
tokenadult
One of the differences that jumps out at me about Lithuania and Greece is
climate. I first learned about the importance of daylight for preventing
depression (and thus suicide) from an Internet comment about twenty years ago
when I wondered why Canada's rate of completed suicide is as high as it is,
even though I would have guessed that its access to guns for young people
might be a little less than in the United States. The answer, given to me by a
Canadian scientist, is that Canada is nearer to the North Pole and farther
from the Equator, and so it has a long winter season with little daylight.

In the old days, before United Nations statistics were on the World Wide Web,
I actually went to a university library and looked up thick physical volumes
of World Health Organisation statistics. The general relationship between
polar latitude and high suicide rate, and equatorial latitude and lower
suicide rate, holds up worldwide, with some exceptional-looking cases mostly
explained by cloudiness. Low exposure to outdoor light is a suicide risk, and
high exposure to cheery sunshine is a protective factor against suicide (but
can lead to mania, known as "running amok" in some equatorial places). The
author of the poem "Home on the Range" knew this: a place "Where seldom is
heard a discouraging word / And the sky is not cloudy all day" like the Great
Plains is protective against depression and suicide.

------
kirsebaer
One in a 100 people in the US will die by suicide. It's a common cause of
death.

Could suicide and depression be a response to civilization and modernity? This
article cites some evidence that the suicide rate was much lower among various
groups of hunter-gatherers:

[http://www.academia.edu/4777783/Suicide_Among_the_Mla_Bri_Hu...](http://www.academia.edu/4777783/Suicide_Among_the_Mla_Bri_Hunter-
Gatherers_of_Northern_Thailand_by_Mary_Long_Eugene_Long_and_Tony_Waters)

------
jczhang
A month ago I was in San Diego and a homeless guy walking past me told me he
was trying he kill himself and was looking for the path to the bridge. He kept
walking, passing by a police officer. I told the police officer he might want
to keep an eye on the guy and told him that he was trying to kill himself. The
officer just said, "He should try harder." I was shocked.

------
gadders
I read an article once that said that when suicide was illegal in the UK, the
rate was a lot lower.

I'm not sure if that was true or not, but as a thought experiment: if making
suicide illegal lowered it's occurrance, would you support that?

~~~
alex_hitchins
I believe when it was illegal here in the UK, coroners would look for ways to
record the death in more favourable ways (mostly for the family). So an
overdose would be recorded as death by misadventure and not suicide.

~~~
raverbashing
Exactly this

This type of law is only good to make people misreport things.

Accidents/Misadventures/Suspected murder etc

------
robbiep
40,000 is an awfully large number but it is less than the number of gun deaths
in the US (put at around 50-60,000 depending on the sources), which would be
much easier to prevent

~~~
lmz
Most gun deaths in the US are suicides. [1]

[1]: [http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/05/24/suicides-
acc...](http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/05/24/suicides-account-for-
most-gun-deaths/)

------
3fuff
Even Atlas shrugged

------
thaumasiotes
> Each suicide costs society about $1 million in medical and lost-work
> expenses and emotionally victimizes an average of 10 other people.

So... the 10 other people emotionally victimized is an average figure, but the
$1 million in medical costs isn't? How does finding a dead body rack up _any_
medical expenses?

~~~
jimcsharp
Medical _and_ lost work. 10 people who may take days of leave, 10+ person days
lost for funeral, 1 person a company needs to replace.

~~~
thaumasiotes
Taking a day of leave doesn't cause any lost-work expenses, under the standard
system of "you get this much leave, and it doesn't roll over". If I take 15
days off in a year, the number of days I work is totally unaffected by whether
one of the days off was spent at a funeral, or in some other way.

Say an unemployed 17-year-old kills himself and his funeral is held on a
Sunday. I don't think that's a huge stretch, but it results in no days of
leave, no work days lost to a funeral, and no sudden job opening needing to be
filled.

And clean-up, like Cthulhu_ mentions, isn't a lost-work expense, it's an
additional-work expense.

~~~
MacsHeadroom
No, it's standard for Bereavement leave to come separably from normal paid
time off, similar to maternity leave. It almost never comes from the same
"days off" bucket.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=bereavement+leave+law](https://www.google.com/search?q=bereavement+leave+law)

