As many of you know, Robin Williams committed suicide on August 11, 2014. It is well known that Mr Williams suffered greatly from depression throughout his life, and according to his wife, had just received an early Parkinson's Disease diagnosis. Unfortunately, I just received news today that a child I watched grow up, graduate from high school, and go to college, was found on his campus monday morning, dead from an apparent suicide. Is suicide on the rise in our country? If so, what do you think some of the causes for that rise might be?
I don't think suicide is on the rise. It has always been a problem. You are probably just more aware of it because a celebrity and someone you know both passed away in the same month. Not only do some people have clinical depression, but life itself is hard and people just get tired of the constant daily battles and try to escape.
Exactly Acsapa.. people have struggled since the beginning. It's even been romanticised until recently with the "it gets better" mantra circling the globe. There are more people now than ever and more pressures and more more more and it's overwhelming sometimes just to make it through one day. So no, it's not a growing trend.. as long as there is life, there will be those who don't want it anymore. It's human, not trendy.
I also agree with ACSAPA. Suicide has been a problem for a long time. It's just not discussed much. It has been in the spotlight recently because a couple of actors have committed suicide. An actor on one of my favorite shows committed suicide last year and he was in his 20's. When I lived in the SF Bay Area, suicide was on the local news a lot because people jump off the Golden Gate Bridge as a means of killing themselves. There was an article in the paper that the number of people who were killing themselves was reaching a milestone so they stopped reporting the suicides to try to prevent people from jumping. Hotline phones were installed on the bridges too for people who were thinking about jumping. Three people in my college dorm tried to kill themselves including a girl who lived in the room directly across from me. That freaked me out. I wouldn't be truthful if I said that I hadn't thought about it myself. I sought help and was given medication. This only masked the problem. Eventually I went to therapy and got better. Exploring my spirituality helped me tremendously too.
I would need to see the actual statistics to see if it is a growing trend. I do not think it is a growing trend however,high profile cases usually make us think a lot more about this kind of thing and takes it out of proportion.
I think it is not such a taboo subject anymore. People were afraid and ashamed I talk about suicide in the past. It had such a negative connotation to it. Now, people are more open to discuss it. I don't think the numbers have risen. I just think people are more willing to talk openly about it.
I just want to go out and say that I hate the title of this thread. It's like saying suicide is just the same as the ice bucket challenge, a trend and for God sake even that ice bucket challenge is just, I don't even want to mention it. First of all it's not a "trend" just because some famous actor killed himself it doesn't mean that it's just emerging, it's been out for ages. It's really not on the rise it's been going on a complete steady phase.
Suicide was never a trend, it's been popular for ages but not in a positive way. I think that you seem to think that it's suddenly getting popular because 2 people that you know have died. But it actually has become a chronic problem in our society. There will always be someone too depressed or high who will want to end it all.
Suicide rates are on the rise. I don't have the data handy or anything, but I have seen some stats in the past. Among young people in particular it is much higher than it has ever been in the US for sure. One thing I think is contributing to it is evolutionary teaching. Some of you are going to try to chew me to pieces for saying this, but please hear me out anyway. Evolution teaches that there is no creator, we just evolved, and there is no God, and no afterlife. Consequently, what is the point of life? Why does it matter? Why do you or I matter? This thought process is pretty depressing in and of itself. When someone doesn't feel there is a reason for their existence in the first place, they are just an accident of nature, and then on top of that thing are difficult in their home life, their social life, their studies, it leaves the door wide open to consider suicide a way out when nothing ultimately matters anyway. Without God there is no purpose in life, it's all meaningless in the end, and I think that is leading more and more people to give up on life and end it.
Um, what is on the rise is the ability to talk about suicide. In the past the doctor would put a false cause of death to spare the family shame and allow people to be buried on consecrated ground (because the church would not take anyone who committed a mortal sin like self-murder). Now we are slowly realizing that you help the mentally ill and their families by inviting them to come forward through compassionate understanding--not sanctimonious condemnation. Including attributing their problems to not following the "correct" religions when it has stuff all to do with that. Mother Teresa herself suffered profoundly from depression, will you suggest that was because she was not a "good enough" sot of Christian?
Yes, suicide has become somewhat popular. I remember when Kurt Cobain killed himself and a whole lot of his fans followed him. I can understand why one doesn't want to live in this world. I feel like that myself sometimes. Sadly, over the years I have lost two friends to suicide. Also, three people with whom I shared a classroom for 5 years killed themselves. To me, that is a lot.
This is a very relative and interesting topic, I personally think that there is no principal reason to commit suicide, it purely depends on the person, but depression is the most common reason... and it's really sad that those people didn't find the adequate help for their personal situation. But as I've said it depends on the person and their environment, I live in Mexico and there are a lot of people who commit suicide just because they can't pay their bills, and is not just in Mexico, this is happening in a lot of countries all over the world. I don't think that suicide is the best choice to make, but there are a lot of people that can't see another way out.
Is it? I don't think so... Suicide has always been present in the society and I think I hear about this being an issue even less than before. I think nowadays people have more instruction, more help available and more support than before in situations where they would think of suicide.
Unfortunately I think it has always been prevalent. I think what we're seeing now is more awareness and more efforts to prevent it.
I don't think it's a trend there are different circumstances always and if you are saying that the specific age factor is attempting suicide then I don't think this 100% right.
I don't think suicide and trend should be used together, it comes off as offensive. I don't think that suicide is on the rise, I think people are becoming more aware of it and instead of hiding it, they are showing the public how real and serious it is. You never know what a person is going through behind close doors, so I think that it is very important to be aware of how you treat someone.
