RE: "The Teen Suicide Epidemic"
July 27, 2011 at 12:47 am
(This post was last modified: July 27, 2011 at 1:19 am by BethK.)
(July 26, 2011 at 4:56 pm)DeistPaladin Wrote: Here's a part of the article that confused me:
Quote:In November, Samantha started to cheer up, and Michele started to think she had turned a corner. Over Veterans Day weekend, she bought Samantha some new clothes, which, to her surprise, were a hit. On Veterans Day, they made plans to play football in the backyard and to grill outside. Michele and her boyfriend, John, went to the store to rent a movie and pick up some food. When they pulled into the driveway a half-hour later, John heard the gun shot.
Does anyone on this board know anything about the psychology of suicide? Is it common for a suicidal person to have a bounce back in his or her mood (or an apparent one)?
Yes, indeed. The suicidal person appears to "cheer up" as they've gone from considering suicide to having a definite plan (including time, place, circumstances, method, obtained needed "supplies" or "equipment" for chosen method). It's like they're no longer considering ending it for themselves. It's no longer perceived that the intolerable situation will go on "forever". They now have a goal and a purpose - to ensure they can follow through with their plan, and prepare for it.
Beth - survivor of my own suicide attempts, had several friends (teen and since) commit suicide or attempt suicide, plus psychology classes
(July 26, 2011 at 10:35 pm)Aerzia Saerules Arktuos Wrote: People are concerned about this when the rate of occurrence is usually less than 13/100,000?!
Mother of my left ankle... as if we didn't have more to be concerned about.
Suicide is grossly underreported. Coroners and police are very reluctant to call a death a suicide unless there really is no other explanation. Many so-called accidents are actually suicides, including auto accidents, swimming accidents, falling accidents, and other such things. Many "accidental drug overdoses" are actually suicides. Some fatal shootings by police officers of suspects are actually "suicide by police".
The reasons are such things as stigma. There's a great deal of stigma on all of your relatives if "someone in their family" died of suicide. Undertreating for depression has its problems, but so does having to convince the doctor that "no, I'm NOT depressed", wasting your precious minutes seeing the doctor trying to convince him that you are not depressed with him trying to diagnose your depression and have the real problems you came in to see the doctor for be brushed off, ignored, or even not get mentioned because he just writes a prescription for Prozac and walks out onto the next patient. This is a bad use of healthcare dollars, time, resources, and personnel...
It effects social life. It effects perception of you if you're close family member "was a suicide". (HOW I hate suicide being used as a pronoun!) It effects people's life insurance paying if their death is deemed a suicide. It effects new laws being proposed to keep the method out of future people's hands. It effects lots of things.
Thanantology (Philosophy of Death and Dying) classes.
Beth