Posted on 07/04/2008 12:24:29 AM PDT by B-Chan
Suicides kill more people than homicide and war, namely 1.8% of worldwide deaths! Global suicide rates have increased 60% over the past 45 years and suicide is the second leading cause of death for youth and young adults, aged 10-24. It's also is one of the leading causes of death for adults between the ages of 25-44, with men ranking 75 to 80 %. Socio-psychological studies rate single men as the least emotionally stable, followed by married men, and single women; married women are the most emotionally stable.
The current world suicide rate is approximately 1 million per year, or 16 per 100,000 population with one person dying by suicide every 40 seconds. The former Soviet Union appears to have the highest overall worldwide suicide rate, with Lithuania ranking the highest with 40.2 per 100,000 population/per year. The lowest rates are for Haiti, Honduras, Jordan and St. Kitts and Nevis, registering no suicide whatsoever. Thailand ranked 57th out of the total 100 countries represented in 2002, with 7.8 per 100,000 population.
Japan has the highest suicide rates in Asia, in the 2006 official data, the total reached 32,155 annually, putting Japan as the second-highest suicide rate among G8 nations after Russia. Over the past nine years, more than 30,000 Japanese have killed themselves annually - approximately one person every 15 minutes. Recently, a number of suicide websites began to present information on how to make a home-made hydrogen sulphide gas from a deadly concoction of normal household chemical detergent with a liquid cleanser. A single breath of this high-density, colourless gas, which smells like rotten eggs, can apparently cause dizziness, headaches, and in the worst cases, brain damage and suffocation.
Authorities had expressed particular concern because of the gas' danger to neighbours. Recently, at least four people who died from inhaling the gas were not actual suicide victims, and dozens of others have been treated for nausea and headaches. A 14-year-old girl's suicide last week forced more than 100 people out of their homes as toxic fumes diffused through her neighbourhood. This has prompted authorities to crackdown on websites providing DIY suicide information and to introduce of more workplace counselling services, with the intent of reducing suicides by 20% over the next ten years, spending 22.5bn yen on the campaign.
Apparently, most people contemplate suicide at some point in their lives, but euthanasia is generally the only acceptable reason to kill oneself. A website by an American composer, Jerry Hunt, details how to commit suicide safely using carbon monoxide. He committed suicide in response to terminal cancer. Indeed, when one considers that only an estimated 8 to 10% of individuals kill themselves effectively, and for every suicide, 8 to 10 persons are unsuccessful one can see the benefit in making sure that the method used is successful. Failed suicide attempts often result in permanent physical injury and/or brain damage through overdose of prescription or other drugs.
It is a sobering thought that for every suicide or attempted suicide, up to 10 to 20 or even over 100 persons are affected each time. Those left behind: loved ones, relatives, friends, and co-workers suffer forever. And the financial and time burdens placed on those remaining are horrendous.
Consequently PDN advises that if you know anyone contemplating suicide that they should log into www.suicide.org - suicide prevention, awareness and support - to click on the help line and take note of their warning:
- NEVER ACT ON YOUR THOUGHTS OF SUICIDE. - SUICIDE IS NEVER THE ANSWER. - GETTING HELP IS THE ANSWER.
Read all the literature and advice surrounding this subject on suicide. org and remember World Suicide Prevention Day Is Sept 10.
Without hope, life is impossible.
Tell that to Christie Brinkley!
Thailand?
If a Russian drinks himself to death is that considered suicide?
Are suicide bombers counted as victims of war, or of suicide?
Unbelievable comment.
Natural causes.
I agree.
Seems Japan is going to have huge demographic problems in the very near future. Between their high rate of suicide, abysmal birth rates and total lack of immigration, who is going to be living there in 50 years?
My guess: the Chinese.
look at the bright side, that much more water and air for the rest of us.
We're way down the list, even with all those extremely dangerous guns that Sarah Brady keeps telling us increase the odds of a suicide in the home.
It means all the other ways to die have become less likely.
Good points. I see an overall change in our culture that demoralized the individual and reduces them to nothing more than a consumer.
Kids are essentially state controlled; no need to go into the joys of public education. The media and other useful idiots abuse us with hate- "hate America, hate progress, hate family, religion, core beliefs our culture.
Murder of the unborn is a business - advertised, subsidized and protected.
Modern concepts of what it means to be a woman cause young, married women with families to be looked down upon. Women are encouraged to reach for the "glamorous life", a life of movement and promiscuity.
I know a lot people that have turned against all things that many (including myself) hold sacred. They have nothing but disdain for traditional beliefs and have no (true) hope for the future. As these so affected see it, if they live or die it makes no difference on the future.
Sadly, I at times agree for what have they done besides gratifying their base pleasures?
Incidentally, the colors on the map in the linked article are often incorrect. For example, Australia is shown in red, denoted high suicide rate, whereas the table shows its rate to be similar to that of the U.S. and Canada, which are shown in
It should be noted that there seems to be a biological reason for a lot of suicides. Though it is hard to fathom why, there seems to be many people who have a “hard wired” self-destruct switch.
This is important, as it means that suicide is not necessarily entirely based in psychology. Instead, it seems to have both a physical and psychological element, and they are mutually reinforcing.
What this means is, for example, say five people in a hundred are wired to self-destruct. To either commit suicide directly, *or* to place themselves in high-risk situations with a strong likelihood of death.
However, this hard wiring is only deterministic in one of the five. That is, by hook or by crook, only that one person will figure out some way of destroying themselves, *no matter where they are*.
But the other four are *also* situational. For example, if they live in happy circumstances in a temperate climate, for example, they may never have their suicidal compulsion activated.
However, if they live in a northern latitude with long winters, and they are poor and unhappy, they have any number of rationalizations for killing themselves.
The psychological element is obviously the stronger of the two. For example, in Japan, there are often “theme” suicides, that suddenly end when some method is discovered to counteract the psychology.
For example, some years ago, jumping in front of trains at train stations became popular. Suddenly there was a rash of “copycat” suicides this way. The solution was an odd one: to put mirrors on the wall adjacent train station platforms, so suicides would see themselves before they jumped. It stopped this trendy means of suicide overnight. Clearly a strong psychological motivation.
But this is not limited to Japan. It is common in Asiatic-Polynesian peoples, with very different cultures. So it may have a genetic character as well.
To identify someone who is “hard wired” for suicidal behavior takes some observational skills, and to not just assume that they are “unlucky”.
I knew a girl who fit this profile. She had no overt depression, anxiety, or other behavior that is commonly associated with suicide. In fact she had a very healthy psychology known to both her friends and her husband.
However, in the course of just a few years, she had an alcohol overdose, suffered brain damage from a blunt object in a fight she was not a participant in, fell into a hot springs severely burning her legs while trying to rescue a raccoon, was almost high voltage electrocuted, was in three serious car accidents none of which was her fault, was shot in a gun accident, and was carried unconscious from a burning house.
This goes way beyond “bad luck”. Certainly there was a chance for some real accidents in this case, but the consensus was that she was a person “trying to die”, even though she was not consciously aware of it.
In both Haiti and Honduras you are not buried in holy ground if you are a suicide. So, nobody commits suicide.
They do, however, die while examining the interior of the oven, checking the strength of rope and coming up with new ways of cooking with arsenic.
Tragic accidents all.
This article cannot be correct!
We have always been told that America’s military veterans are the most likely suicide victims!
From the clerk who served at a post not too far from home to the Grunts of Vietnam they are at such risk as to be off the chart!
In America on this 4th and forever “Hope springs eternal in the human breast”
I'm old enough to poo-poo all this garbage but it must be frustrating for younger people to think they have to keep up with all of this.
I also believe the prevalence of pornography - both the soft stuff on channels like MTV and the hard stuff - doesn't help in the least.
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