Posted on 05/06/2013 4:03:45 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Suicide.
It remains a topic few health professionals want to discuss openly with their patients. It remains a topic avoided even by many mental health professionals. Policy makers see it as a black hole without an obvious solution.
And now grim new statistics confirm a disturbing trend — more people are taking their own lives than ever before in the U.S.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released statistics yesterday showing that 33,687 people died in motor vehicle accidents, while nearly 5,000 more — 38,364 — died by suicide. Middle-aged Americans are making up the biggest leap in the suicide rate.
It’s data that should make us sit up and think.
The New York Times has the story:
From 1999 to 2010, the suicide rate among Americans ages 35 to 64 rose by nearly 30 percent, to 17.6 deaths per 100,000 people, up from 13.7. Although suicide rates are growing among both middle-aged men and women, far more men take their own lives. The suicide rate for middle-aged men was 27.3 deaths per 100,000, while for women it was 8.1 deaths per 100,000.
The most pronounced increases were seen among men in their 50s, a group in which suicide rates jumped by nearly 50 percent, to about 30 per 100,000. For women, the largest increase was seen in those ages 60 to 64, among whom rates increased by nearly 60 percent, to 7.0 per 100,000.
What’s the cause of the rise in suicides in this country? Nobody can say for sure, but the CDC officials have some ideas
(Excerpt) Read more at psychcentral.com ...
Bush’s fault.
On the one hand, liberals love and push the idea of assisted-suicide. On the other hand, they blame guns for suicides. When a suicidal person doesn’t have a gun available, they frequently drive the wrong way on a freeway to take someone with them to the grave.
He didn't say it would be pleasant "fundamental transformation."
It’s a choice. Sad but, if someone is going to off themselves they will find a way to do it.
probably a connection to their love of death/estate taxes.
Notice that the data presented do not take into account the economic problems initiated by Obama and the Democrats around 2009 forward.
If we required permits for those wishing to commit suicide we could solve this problem.
Universal background checks, high capacity magazine bans, assault weapons bans........... /s
I don’t get it. Weren’t we promised if we got rid of religion and traditional values in this country, we’d all be happy?
/s
I see this as a complete social problem. People are not happy or content.
I surround myself with the most negative whiners, honestly. I cant get that low.
I don’t have much money, 9 kids, and a small house. I am much happier than people in a better financial situation and higher social standing.
I love my life, family, and friends. I have learned to embrace a little adversity. People are really miserable because they like to be miserable. They talk themselves right into it.
Noticed the sarc tag but here is my response.
God never promised a trouble free life, but the socialist will if you will vote for him.
I cant believe what people believe they are entitled to or what they expect for their efforts. Cars break down, kids get into trouble, the furnace goes out, you lose your job.
I often think about what I might do if I were to lose my job, I also tell people that it might give me the opportunity to do something with my life. It’s too easy to stay in a job that is comfortable and relatively low stress. I tell people to be careful cause one day you get a job and next thing you know you wake up 20 years later at the same place.
The markets haven’t really crashed, yet, and there’s been no repudiation of debt, yet.
I think there are several things contributing to many suicides.
The first of these is the lack of “a productive use of spirit”, which is an intentionally nebulous statement. To start with, children are raised with both unrealistic and unsatisfying expectations. That is, for example, most children will never be millionaires, but even if they do become millionaires, so what? Money is like alcohol, “the neutral spirit”.
People inherently know that each of us have “design specifications”, and we can be organized into groups based on what these are. And we have a choice to either embrace our programming, or resist it. Yet we cannot be trained to be something we are not, no matter how much someone thinks we can be. We might be able to do it somewhat, but never as well as someone born that way.
Likewise, people are trained about their role in society, whether or not they want they role or are equipped for it.
“You will grow up, get a job, get married, mortgage a house, have 2.3 children, then some time after they move out you will retire, then die.” This is pretty much the standard American model.
For many people some or all of this is a horrifying prospect that they don’t want. For others it is obvious that no matter how hard they try, they cannot get this, so will “fail at life”.
Society can be unforgiving, so if someone fouls up once, or is unlucky, they may be tarred for life and forbidden from doing and being who they want to be.
And many, of course, have physical and mental problems that make life a burden and a misery.
Only when you punch through all of this does existential angst really come into play, such as losing one’s faith, or feeling neglected or hated by “heaven” or the equivalent.
Not to downplay the trend in suicides but I saw these stats cited in another article and someone pointed out that fatalities from car crashes have been declining at a pretty good clip for some time now thanks to things like airbags and improvements in emergency medical care. So there’s another angle in play here.
outlaw suicide......ohhh wait.....
The suicide rate for middle-aged men was 27.3 deaths per 100,000,
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No wonder I can’t find a date.
Amd surviving an accident just means you are not dead, not that you have any reasonable life.
Also we have not taken into account all the mentally ill out on the streets who pack it in because they cannot manage themselves.
Amd surviving an accident just means you are not dead, not that you have any reasonable life.
Also we have not taken into account all the mentally ill out on the streets who pack it in because they cannot manage themselves.
As a matter of fact many of the mentally ill are people who have survived traumatic brain injury and are marginal at best. These souls have a very difficult life. Nothing like a walk through brain injury units to make one swear off ever wearing any sort of helmet.
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