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totally responsible for, (d) by helping people realize that good parents
and healthy families have suicides and mental illness; having
emotional problems doesn’t mean the family is sick (although it may
be), (e) by making it clear that suicidal feelings and urges, as well as
angry reactions, are usually caused by temporary conditions that will
eventually change, and (f) by funding the study and treatment of this
terrible condition that costs us so much in so many ways. Compare the
huge amount of research devoted to cancer and heart disease with the
limited funds for studying suicide prevention, especially in adults. We
just let depressed and suicidal patients go untreated. Would we just let
heart disease or cancer patients go untreated? Although I focus on
self-help, I urgently want to persuade a deeply sad person to take the
reasonable step of seeking help. You have to live before you can build
a better life through self-help.
Rate of suicide by special groups
between 15% and 20% of students reported seriously thinking about
attempting suicide in the year before they were interviewed. That is 1
out of every 5 or 6 students! When asked if they had made specific
plans, about 15% said yes. Surveys show that 8% to 10% of students
had actually attempted suicide sometime during the last year, with
over 2% of them needing medical care. A total of approximately
500,000 people in the US are taken every year to an ER following
suicide attempts. There are about 25 attempts for every death by
suicide.
One American kills him/herself every 18 minutes, totaling about
30,000 per year. The US death rate is 11.4 people per 100,000. That
figure has remained fairly stable year after year. In one year,
approximately 765,000 Americans will attempt to kill themselves (they
don’t all go to ER). That is a lot of misery. World-wide 815,000 people
chose suicide in 2000. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates
that every year one in every 60 people has a loved one or friend die
via suicide.
These huge numbers, however, are hard for most of us to mentally
grasp and to understand the scope of the problem. Another way to
think of it is to compare suicide with other forms of violent deaths.
According to the World Health Organization (Oct., 2002), as mentioned
in the discussion of stigma, there are as many or more suicides than
the total of all other “violent deaths” reported on the local news,
including homicides, lethal domestic and child abuse, and casualties of
war. Every day you can, in this way, estimate how many suicides
occurred that day but were not reported. Note: while the social stigma
keeps people from admitting their suicidal thoughts and getting
treatment, the fewer reports of suicide in the news has a helpful
aspect, since a higher rate of reporting suicides results in an estimated
10% increase in the local frequency of suicide. Also, when the news
stories are long or make a front page or lead story, and when the
