Suicide - Causes
- Nov 1, 2006 - 1
“Suicide doesn’t happen suddenly, although it may appear to. The suicidal mind-set builds over a period of time as a progression of negative thoughts take place. Hopelessness and helplessness are the hallmarks of suicidal thought. Other common emotions in people who attempt suicide are pain and loneliness.”
David Cox and Candy Arrington, Aftershock: Help, Hope, and Healing in the Wake of Suicide (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2003), 18-19.
“When I analyze the question, Why suicide? Two words sum up the attitude of the suicidal person: hopelessness and helplessness. The suicidal person feels locked in a situation that is without hope and beyond help. Looking at the problem, the individual is convinced there is no way out.
No hope.
No possible solution.
No way that anything can be really ‘normal’ again.
No way to ever really love again.
No way to succeed in life.
No way.”
Jerry Johnston, Why Suicide? (Nashville: Oliver Nelson, 1987), 121.
“Reality-based hopelessness is indeed often found. Many clients have real problems that must not be minimized by the therapist. On the other hand, some people appear able to cope with apparently unbearable problems without becoming suicidal. Why? Possibly because depressive hopelessness is not the same as normal sadness. Financial hardship and interpersonal chaos may reasonably cause a great deal of anger, frustration and sadness. However, a person becomes depressed and suicidal when their sadness changes to a situation in which the person tells themselves, ‘I’m to blame,’ ‘I’ve never succeeded at anything in my life,’ ‘If my love leaves, I am nothing.’ People under great stress—stress which has understandable consequences on mood—need all the coping resources they can muster. What they do not need is a constant stream of negative thoughts and images to convince them they are a bad or worthless person who could never be forgiven. Therapy may be conceived as enabling the person to discriminate between realistic and depressive hopelessness so that the real problems can be faced realistically.”
Mark Williams, Cry of Pain: Understanding Suicide and Self-Harm (New York: Penguin Books, 1997), 200-201.
“One thing I want you to know about hopelessness is that you do not have to be depressed to feel hopeless. Many, if not most, depressed people experience some degree of hopelessness. But hopelessness can overtake any of us. And hopelessness, research has shown, is the one common thread among the majority of those who elect the suicide option. Despairing of any future or solution to their problems, the utterly hopeless frequently find themselves thinking, ‘What’s the use? I might as well be dead.’
“To help you understand hopelessness, I will rely on the work of several psychologists whose ideas and research have done much to shed light on this most vexing state of mind. Martin Seligman, Aaron Beck, and many others have been working to understand a concept they call ‘learned helplessness.’ Learned helplessness means just what it says; that people, by experiencing repeated failures when they try to change their world, eventually learn that no matter what they try to do, they are helpless to control events in their lives. And, once they feel they are helpless to control their own futures, they fall quickly into a state of depression and the associated frame of mind called hopelessness.
“Here, in a nutshell, is how learned helplessness occurs. Excluding those people whose depressions may be biological in nature, the great majority of those of us who become depressed or dispirited become so in response to the loss of a loved one, or because of our failure to succeed in work or school, or through financial setbacks or because, for whatever reason, we come to believe that no matter how hard we try, our trying doesn’t matter. Even successful people can come to believe that it isn’t how hard you try, but the lucky breaks you get that make the difference in the happiness equation.
“This feeling that whatever you do doesn’t matter is at the heart of learned helplessness. It is as if, after you have been clobbered again and again by life, you come to believe that bad things just happen to you and there is nothing you can do to prevent them from happening. And, once you have arrived in this strange world where your efforts to change or control it don’t matter, it is a short step to a sense of hopelessness.”
Paul G. Quinnett, Suicide: The Forever Decision (New York: Continuum Publishing Company, 1987), 75-76.
Factors in suicide:
- “Previous suicide attempt(s)
- History of mental disorders, particularly depression
- History of alcohol and substance abuse
- Family history of suicide
- Family history of child maltreatment
- Feelings of hopelessness
- Impulsive or aggressive tendencies
- Barriers to accessing mental health treatment
- Loss (relational, social, work, or financial)
- Physical illness
- Easy access to lethal methods
- Unwillingness to seek help because of the stigma attached to mental health and substance abuse disorders or suicidal thoughts
- Cultural and religious beliefs—for instance, the belief that suicide is a noble resolution of a personal dilemma
- Local epidemics of suicide
- Isolation, a feeling of being cut off from other people”
Suicide: Fact Sheet, (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) [Accessed April 18, 2006]
“Most people who seriously consider suicide do not want to die. Rather, they see suicide as a solution to a problem and a way to end their pain. People who seriously consider suicide feel hopeless, helpless, and worthless. A person who feels hopeless believes that no one can help with a particular event or problem. A person who feels helpless is immobilized and unable to take steps to solve problems. A person who feels worthless is overwhelmed with a sense of personal failure.
“Most people who seriously consider or attempt suicide have one or more of the following risks:
- A personal or family history of suicide attempts
- A family history of suicide attempts or completed suicide
- A personal or family history of depression or other mental health illness, such as bipolar disorder (manic-depressive illness) or schizophrenia
- An alcohol or drug problem (substance abuse problem), such as alcoholism”
Excerpted from Suicidal Thoughts and Threats, (WebMD) [Accessed April 18, 2006]
The Internet can be wonderful tool if used rightly. But it can also be a tool used for evil. Such is the case with sites that advocate suicide. These sites, called “cybersuicide” sites, have been used by people to make suicide pacts and to give information on how to take one’s own life. On these sites, suicide is referred to as “catching the bus.” This is mostly a foreign phenomenon. But there are reasons to believe that people in America may one day begin using these sites, especially young people who are often more adept at using the Internet.
Daniel DeNoon, Medical Journal Warns of ‘Cybersuicide’ Trend, (WebMD), December 2, 2004
“Many children who attempt suicide have been sexually abused. This is true for boys as well as girls. Most have been abused by an adult in the family or a trusted family friend in a position of power over the child. When you are wondering why your child wants to die, one of the first questions to ask yourself is if your child has been sexually assaulted by someone you know. Why is this one of the first questions? Sexual abuse is devastating. There is a straight line from it to self-destructive behaviors. If it’s hidden and secret, its power may block any work on other issues until it’s out in the open.”
Kate Williams, A Parent’s Guide for Suicidal and Depressed Teens (Center City, MN: Hazelden Information & Educational Services, 1995), 84.
“Several authors have suggested that a high proportion of suicide attempters have an even more acute disruption in early social relationships: they suffer sexual abuse. Only recently has this been studied systematically. A 1993 study by Marjan Van Egmond and colleagues from the Department of Clinical and Health Psychology, University of Leiden, Netherlands, examined the extent of sexual abuse in a sample of 158 female suicide attempters aged 20 or older. The degree of sexual abuse was established by asking two questions: ‘Have you ever in your life been forced by anyone to have sexual intercourse?’ and, ‘Has any anyone ever forced you to perform or allow sexual contacts other than sexual intercourse?’ Around 50 per cent of subjects (79) reported having been sexually abused at some time in the past. The sexually abused women made their first suicide attempt earlier than the non-abused women: when they were 27 years old, on average, compared to an average age of 36. The abused women also had almost double the number of previous suicide attempts.”
Mark Williams, Cry of Pain: Understanding Suicide and Self-Harm (New York: Penguin Books, 1997), 86-87.
“Children who are hit and children who witness other people getting hit develop many symptoms. They are at risk for chemical abuse, school problems, and stress-related ailments. Experts say these ‘negative relationships’ in the home lead to suicide. What is the history of physical abuse in your immediate family and in your family of origin? What is the connection between physical abuse and rage? Is there an adult in your family whose anger is unpredictable? Are your children getting hit or living in a home where they witness other people being physically abused? Your child will probably not get better while living in a violent situation.”
Kate Williams, A Parent’s Guide for Suicidal and Depressed Teens (Center City, MN: Hazelden Information & Educational Services, 1995), 88.
“Alcohol can be involved with suicidal behavior in a number of ways. Used prior to suicide, alcohol can ease a person’s fear of death and give him the courage to kill himself. It can be taken together with medications to increase the lethality of the drugs. Alternatively, people who have been drinking without serious suicidal intent might impulsively kill themselves while intoxicated.
“It has been found that a significant proportion of completed and attempted suicides drink alcohol prior to their suicidal actions. Welte’s group (1988) found that 33 percent of a sample of completed suicides from Erie County, New York, had alcohol in their bloodstream. In a British study, Varadaraj and Mendonca (1987) found that 41 percent of a sample of attempted suicides were intoxicated.
“Alcohol intoxication at the time of the suicidal act is more common in those who leave no suicide note, have made no prior attempts, use a firearm and kill themselves in the evening or at night, and in males 20 to 60 years of age (Welte et al., 1988). Among suicide attempters, those who are intoxicated make more lethal attempts. It is conceivable that those engaging in suicidal behavior when intoxicated are more reckless and impulsive and therefore more likely to die.”
David Lester, Making Sense of Suicide (Philadelphia: The Charles Press, Publishers, 1997), 139.
Why People Commit Suicide
“Ten percent of the people who commit suicide do so for no apparent reason.
“Twenty-five percent are classified as mentally unstable. They have a variety of motivations, justifications, and rationalizations for their action. If a person states that he has been under psychiatric care or confined in a hospital, it is helpful to ask if the doctor prescribed medication for him. It is not uncommon for a person under the care of a physician to forget to take his medication, and this can contribute to his state of confusion.
“Forty percent commit suicide on an impulse, during a period of emotional upset. They are experiencing some kind of stress, pain, emotion, or defeat. It is when the stress is momentarily overwhelming that they decide to commit suicide. These individuals are most likely to call for help and are easiest to help. They will need to be supported, understood, and helped through the stress or crisis situation they are experiencing. They also will need some assistance in handling their problems so they will not again turn to suicide as an option.
“There is a pattern we call Depressive Suicide. The person is sitting on a high level of unacceptable rage that has developed because of a series of events in life over which he has no control. Eventually this repressed rage is turned against himself in suicide. Within our churches, we have depressed people who are ‘suicides waiting to happen.’ You don’t recognize them because they repress their depressive symptoms as well as their rage, and when they die, everyone is taken by surprise and shocked.
“There are many who commit suicide for relief of pain. People who have a low threshold for pain and experience chronic pain are candidates for suicide. Those with high levels of pain usually have three choices: a psychotic distortion that reduces the pain, drugs or alcohol, or finally ‘suicide.’ They often say, ‘I don’t want to die, but I don’t know any other way out—I just can’t stand it.’
“Others commit suicide for revenge. Some teenagers feel overwhelmed by a hurt or rejection from another person. Their desire to hurt back is stronger than the desire to live. For others, the death of a loved one, family member, or friend is too much to handle. Many of the sick and elderly indicate in suicide notes that they couldn’t handle being a burden upon others.
“Twenty-five percent commit suicide after giving it quiet consideration and weighing the pros and cons of living and dying. They decide that death is the best option. It may seem strange to us that there are people who feel this way. Perhaps this factor can motivate us who know the good news of life to share it with those who have no hope.”
H. Norman Wright, Crisis Counseling (San Bernardino: Here’s Life Publishers, Inc., 1985), 98-99.
1 comments (post your own) feed
1 On May 25th, 2007, at 8:04am, Sean Kelly wrote:
I think that people who commit suicide should seek attention from friends, family, teachers or someone really close to them. I think that the people who attempt suicide do it because they think its the easy way out, but what they don’t realize is that everyone’s life can be changed, and only you can change it.