Suicide in Canada is the leading cause of death for men aged 25 to 29 and 40 to 44, and for women aged 30 to 34. It is the second leading cause of death among youth aged 15 to 24. For each completed suicide there are 100 attempts, and over 23,000 Canadians are hospitalised each year for a suicide attempt.
The National Safety Council points out:
"Suicides are not sudden and unpredictable. They are rarely the result of a single painful experience or loss. About 80 per cent of victims give signals that they are suicidal before taking their own life, although few make a direct plea for help.
Mental health conditions, sometimes very well-hidden, are usually a factor. Over 90 per cent of suicide victims have a psychiatric illness, most often depression, at the time of their death, in many cases undiagnosed, untreated or both. One in 10 people living with schizophrenia dies by suicide."
Usually when a person who tries to kill themselves is prevented from doing so they do not try again. Suicide can be avoided and people with suicidal thoughts ought not to hide them out of fear of stigma -- they should not hide symptoms of illness (does it make sense to hide symptoms of, say, bone disease? No, so why should suicide be different?).
I have personally known a number of otherwise healthy young people who killed themselves. I have known others who tried to kill themselves. They were all productive competent people who, on the surface, had acceptable lives (creature comforts and health). They were ill -- and some of them died of their illness.
The story below shows how suicide impacts even high achievers. (I considered deleting the name of the deceased from the story but decided not to. When a high profile person dies of, say, a heart attack people look to preventing heart disease -- we have to look to suicide the same way).
From today's Globe:
Former Sask. MP Batters commits suicide
Bill Curry
The Globe and Mail
Former Conservative MP Dave Batters committed suicide on Monday following a personal struggle with anxiety, depression and an addiction to prescription drugs.
Mr. Batters, 39, was a well-liked MP on Parliament Hill who represented the Saskatchewan riding of Palliser from 2004 to 2008. He cited his mental-health and addiction issues as the reason for not running in the last election.
James Morton
1100-5255 Yonge Street
Toronto, Ontario
M2N 6P4
416 225 2777
4 comments:
Morton,
How can you repeat such bogus claim that "Over 90 per cent of suicide victims have a psychiatric illness, most often depression, at the time of their death, in many cases undiagnosed, untreated or both."?? Depression is not mental illness it is state of mind.
Dave Batters suffered from addiction to prescription drugs caused by doctors that introduced him to these drugs and his suicide was a direct result of psychiatric “intervention” and “treatment” that he received from psychiatric experts.
We are living in the era of psychotropic medications and widespread use of antidepressants and many suicides are results of using these drugs.
Let me try to explain: we all have painful memories and some people’s memories are more painful that others. These memories are formed at the times when painful events take place in our lives. Painful and scary events that affect us cause our brains to release fight of flight hormones into out bloodstream. Once released these hormones circulate in our bloodstream for a long time unless they get metabolised by physical activity like; fighting or running away.
Simply put; we get scared by an outside trigger and we deal with it by fighting or running away from the cause of our fears. In such case our brains return to normal state so when we fall asleep memories of events of the day that are stored in short term memory are transferred and stored in part of the brain that are accessible to easy retrieval. (We have a total memory recall of the event).
If for whatever reason we are unable to fight or run away from the cause of our fears and fall asleep at the end of the day with high level of fight or flight hormones still circulating in our blood and in our brains the memory of painful event gets transferred from short term
memory to inaccessible part of long term memory (we have no instant recall of what scared us) because we failed to cope with the threat when memory got transferred for long term storage. High level of fight/flight hormones causes massive release of various neurotransmitters in our brains to better cope with the threat that we are facing, so when we fall asleep with high level of fight/flight hormones in our blood our long term memory storage is set to high numbers on every (neurotransmitter) dial (proverbial #999 distress call on an old telephone exchange). Normally we should get recall of these emotionally charged (emotionally unprocessed) memories only if and when we encounter similar scary situations when such recall is useful to our survival.
Continuation from previous post:
Among many other factors; illness, physical injuries, disability, lack of daylight, emotional stress caused by other people’s aggression and hostility, aging, poor nutrition, are natural causes of depression and depressive reaction to such causes serves useful function as depression causes reduction in level of physical activities allowing for recovery from illness or physical injuries and survival in hostile or harsh (seasonal depression) environment. Depression by itself as discomforting as it is rarely leads someone to commit suicide.
Now, we enter into this mix modern psychiatry and their reckless use of psychotropic substances and antidepressants.
What antidepressants of SSRI type do is bock re-uptake of neurotransmitter serotonin and allow for a build-up of the level of serotonin in the brain. Other antidepressants give a big bust to a level neurotransmitter called norepinephrine. By boosting level of neurotransmiters antidepressants crank up numbers that can be dialled on a proverbial old telephone exchange and cause that #999 distress calls from these emotionally charged (emotionally unprocessed) memories start to flood our consciousness and cause our brain do suffer more emotional stress that is caused this time not so much by other people’s aggression and hostility (useful depression) but by memories past painful events – reactive depression.
This starts a vicious circle – more antidepressants to combat depression and as a result of boost in level of neurotransmitters more painful memories flooding conscious part of the brain causing more emotional distress and more depression until victim of such psychiatric treatment hunted by the demons of his or her painful childhood calls it quit and commits suicide.
Re High Achievers that you mentioned; even without use of antidepressants sudden success in life or exposure to constant daylight can cause such a boost in levels of neurotransmitters circulating in the brain that they can trigger flood of painful and emotionally unprocessed memories and start a vicious cycle leading to a suicide.
No psychiatrist in Canada or US is willing to go on the record with such information because if any of them did Big Pharma would make sure that his or her psychiatric career is over.
Wow! A pretty manic response.
Hello. And Bye.
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