A Snapshot of Why People Commit Suicide
When we look for a common thread found in suicide acts, it's a senese of hopelessness. By "hopelessness," I mean something like this: "Living like this makes no sense. I might as well be dead." Hopelessness arrives as part of our emotional core from absurdities in life, in part. A word like "absurd" applies to an illogical situation encountered at some moments of our lives. A judgemental person seeks some sort of sense, a logical outcome, to an otherwise "stupid," "senseless," absurdity in their life. We will find police officer suicide may occur with a sense of absurity running through their daily life. I once listened to a celebrity police chief comment like this: "The absurity of the drug war wastes real police work." For him, daily life encurred a senseless policy his duties required fulfilling. Sometimes a judgemental person sees the world in black and white, rather than as a rainbow of complex shades. An inabililty to change an absurdity leads to hopelessness. On 11 September 2001, the dominant ideology in our United States underwent a major shift. Following a catisthrophic attack on the New York City Twin Towers, we were lead to believe new ideas. Bin Laden became a focal point of our new "war on terrorism." Our president told the world, "You're either with us or against us." Many citizens echoed support for this attitude. Now, nine years later, we have two wars underway, and we're looking at more war. Our dominant. Both wars become "absurd" for soldiers involved in these wars of choice. As a result, suicide in the United States Army grows with each passing month. We also find suicides occurring in our United States Marine Corps. But the ratio of Marine deaths compared to US Army deaths remain lower. From my perspective, Before succeeding at a suicidal act, many suicide victims seek help, but ineptly. They're embarrassed. Perhaps a sense of shame clouds their thinking. Their thoughts come out in obscure comments, not easily detected as a call for help. The fact remains, listening closely to others may reveal an unsuspected truth, they're trying to communicate suicidal intentions. So we listen rather than talk so much. When we do speak, we ask questions and we return their comments in our own terms. "I hear you. I will listen" means much more than, "Cheer up, you've got everything!." "You're free, white, and 22; what'a got to lose!". Which of these three comments would mean more to you at such a moment? "I must be someone you trust and feel comfortable with." "I'm really listening because I want to help you." Such comments may elicit more from your suicide actor as they search for a way out of their suicidal thoughts. They need help because their suicidal thoughts came to them without their permission. Now they're plagued by thoughts best left elsewhere. I first called this page, "Why we commit Suicide," but changed my mind. I changed my mind because suicide victims do represent a small minority among us. So the pronoun they comes between us, at first. Many of us share a great deal with suicide victims. Many of us will endure much more "psychache" throughout our lives then many suicide victims. So what happens to those of us failing to make it through life to our natural end? It's always easy to point to wayward genes. After all, "His father committed suicide," we hear. This explanation fails mightily once we look deeper. Our statistics tell us that white males commit suicide most often, percentage wise. But then, don't "statistics lie"? It depends on whose doing a statistical analysis of suicide. We can bet insurance companies have no reason to lie. They have a vested interest in knowing facts. We might not find sociologist lying either. Why would a scholar jeopardize a career to falsify data someone else will either duplicate or expose as not valid? Still, there's more to who commits suicide. In my readings, I find writers claiming that as many as twice as many suicides occur as get reported. There's reason to ignore suicide as a cause of death when it is the cause of death. Sometimes families ask doctors to find another cause of death for their suicide victim's death. Family honor wins out. Depression and anxiety often serve as terms describing emotional states leading to suicide. Fear plays a major role leading to suicidal acts, but not as we might first think. Some suicides occur within minutes of a suicide victim's first suicide thoughts. Other suicides occur years after a suicide victim's first suicide thoughts. Some have a loose plan of action. Others have a detailed plan of action. Some have random triggers setting off their suicidal act or acts. Others have rigid, well defined triggers leading to their suicidal act. Still, others practice their final suicide act for years. Others use little or no practice. We find youth suicides occur after a number of suicidal attempts, "practicing." We find elderly suicide acts as few as four times before success. I would look to suicide among white males somewhere in the depression area resulting from unemployment, divorce, loneliness. Alcoholism, drug abuse, failing health, and threat of homelessness will also play some role. Depression still plays some role to this point. We don't find happy, cherry white males committing suicide often, although it does happen. Politics and political ideology could easily find the same or similar categorization. Keeping ideas separate may help clarify and distinguish suicidal acts, though. Baby Boomers will remember the Newsweek front page picture of a Buddist Monk turned into a torch. This suicide in a worst of possible ways made a political statement. It also caught the eye of our world press. By any other measure, this monk did not qualify as suicidal, but he felt strongly enough in opposition to our puppet regeim in Saigon to burn himself to death. Others have done the same, but for different reasons. Ironically, sadly too, Islam's women terrorist bombers kill themselves as directed by their patriarchal, terrorist leaders. Hardly a "woman's rights issue," female bombers fall prey to political suicide because of their naive, politically infantile consciousness. Yes, this we see falls under ideology easily enough, but there's the religious tint to these suicides, too. We could combine all three categories, no four, as something like the following: Political-Ideological-religious-patriarchial suicide. This mouthful could be shortened to RIPP, for Religious-Ideological-Political-Patriarchy, but why bother. Political will do. Women committing suicide for men, rather than committing suicide because of men, does bring a rather new form of suicide into world history, it seems.
Eddie Evans, Crime Scene Cleanup |
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