Posted on 02/02/2005 5:59:35 AM PST by Theodore R.
State tops suicide list
By Becky Orr rep6@wyomingnews.com Published in the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle
CHEYENNE - Wyoming's suicide rate now is the highest in the United States.
Statistics from the American Association of Suicidology show that in 2002, 105 people in Wyoming took their own lives. The state has a rate of 21 deaths by suicide per 100,000 people.
The 2002 data is the most recent available.
"We need to do something about that," Dave Smith of Laramie said. "We don't want to be Number 1."
Smith and about 150 others gathered in Cheyenne on Tuesday to help prevent suicide.
They attended a gatekeepers training conference. Gatekeepers are trained to recognize people at risk for suicide and intervene to get them professional help.
Those who become gatekeepers include mental health professionals and people from all walks of life.
The gatekeepers program is part of an effort by the Wyoming Suicide Prevention Coalition, and locally, the Laramie County Suicide Prevention Coalition is a part.
Carol Day, chairwoman of the state coalition, said Tuesday during an interview that she's not surprised by Wyoming's rate. She said she hopes the statistics will help people understand that Wyoming has a suicide problem.
In Laramie County, six people from the ages of 21 to 74 committed suicide in January, County Coroner Bill Ryan said. That's nearly half of the entire number from 2004, when 15 people from the county killed themselves.
Tuesday's training program divided suicide prevention efforts into different age groups: for teens, adults and senior citizens.
Smith, his daughter, Mandy Smith, and Janice Triplett, a psychologist at Peak Wellness Center in Cheyenne, led the gatekeeper training that focused on suicide prevention for adolescents. All training sessions must include a mental health professional.
Smith is a sergeant with the Laramie Police Department. He said suicide is the second-leading cause of death among people ages 15 to 24 in Wyoming.
About half of the young people who attempt suicide and survive will try it again.
"That is your biggest indicator of what everything is showing us now," Smith said.
People who commit suicide often give clues or warnings before they take action. But for some reason, anywhere from 5 to 50 percent of the school-aged youth who die by suicide do not give those warning signals, Smith said.
People don't like to talk about suicide, even though it causes more deaths in the United States than murders, Smith said.
Smith said suicide is preventable. "In my mind the stigma has to go away before we're going to be able to deal with it."
The three debunked some myths about suicide. One of those is that more people kill themselves around Christmas.
"They're going to try to make it through," Smith said, and see if things get better during the holidays.
Talking about suicide does not make people more apt to go out and do it, either, he said.
Alcohol abuse is a contributing cause of adolescent suicide, they said. Wyoming's first lady, Nancy Freudenthal, brought the message during her presentation about underage drinking given at the start of the conference.
She called alcohol abuse "suicide on the installment plan."
About 90 percent of people who kill themselves have a mental illness, Triplett said. Depression is one of the most common forms.
Signs of depression include withdrawal, a change in a young person's friends, lack of enthusiasm, loss of interest in their activities, and giving away their possessions.
People need to listen to those who mention ideas about suicide and take them seriously.
"Something as simple as being there to talk to the person will make an impact," Mandy Smith, a senior at Laramie High said.
Those who listen should not swear to keep secret if someone tells them they feel like killing themselves.
"That could be one of the worst things you could do," Mandy Smith said. "It's crucial they get help."
Gatekeepers can let a person who is at risk know they care and ask them directly if they've had thoughts of suicide.
A person who is trying to help can contact a family member or a close friend and make sure the person gets help, even it means taking them to the hospital or a counselor.
Tuesday's program also included a panel made up of a psychologist, counselor, Ryan, a minister and a mental health therapist.
When asked what people could do to help prevent suicides, Ryan said: "Exactly what we're doing today, learning what to do about it, and then getting our tails out and doing something about it."
John Sanford, a psychology instructor at Laramie County Community College, said every student 10 years old and older should have prevention education like the one provided at the conference. "We're not doing that yet," he said, referring to schools nationwide.
In America you get to live where you choose to live. Rural America isn't for everyone, neither is urban America -- though pretty much everyone likes Four Seasons Hotels.
Not on my property you don't!! LOL!
Small towns tend to be realllllllly homogeneous. Everyone hunts, fishes and goes to the high school football games for recreation. Finding someone with an interest beyond those things proved impossible to me. Nothing wrong with hunting, fishing, or football mind you, but my interests just aren't there.
Speaking as a New Yorker with some experience with small towns and small town people -- I'd say they remain part of our cultural heritage as well as American myth.
We ignore tham at our peril...
However, I need the diversity, the chinese food and the 24 hour bodegas/korean delis, but I understand the appeal of small towns.
There has got to be a reason why the solidly blue states are like this. I'll theorize that the liverals living in Red States are driven to suicide, while Conservatives cope relatively well anywhere. Democrats living in blue states are in their own little socialist paradices.
I am among those who despise life in densely populated areas.
But were I condemned to live the rest of my life in a landlocked state, I'd want to do myself in, too.
Some things don't translate into politics. Trying to find political meaning in the list probably isn't a good idea. There are factors, as pointed out, such as climate, landscape, population patterns, etc. etc. etc.
I don't know what you mean by "American myth" but it certainly has me intrigued. Please explain.
I grew up in Casper. I read SiFi, we had a "mad scientists club", built tesla coils, converted a TV to an o-scope, did ham radio, had star parties, etc. I never liked football, have never once been on a horse, don't like to fish, etc.
Even in rural Wyoming I fould folks with my interests. My three best friends from Casper ended up as a Professor in Ohio, a software engineer in SanFran, and a physicist at MIT.
See, the country needs both of us. I despise life in remote rural areas. I need the city.
Seacoast. Almsot all on the ocean.
BTW, I would never move back to Casper. LOL!
I too like the big city.
The most obvious American myth is that of the Western...people don't generally recognize it, but the American Western book/movie/music is an American art form as much as jazz, certain types of theater or the immigrant story.
Take the issues tackled in the typical paperback western novel -- good, evil, self-reliance (a favorite theme of Ralph Waldo Emerson)and opportunity -- those are distinctive American themes.
Things were a little better when I moved to the town of 7,000 but not much. If I'd lived in Lufkin, which is about the size of Casper, I'd probably have suffered a lot less from the experience.
I too despise life in remote rural areas, if those areas are not a combination of forest and ocean.
But I despise life in cities ocean or no ocean.
I am glad most people like to live in cities, as there is precious little rural seacoast left in America.
And by the time I have grown old and am gone, there will be none left (except maybe in Alaska, if they don't drill, that is).
Ha! When we lived in Newhall, California before here, we were geographically at the edge of a wind-funnel - a mountain pass that let the high pressure from inland squeeeeeze through into the San Fernando Valley.
It was horrible - the unofficial motto for the Newhall Pass was, "the wind doesn't blow in Newhall, it sucks".
Oh, I agree. I'll have to say I am suprised that list.
I spent a night in a motel in Laramie. I was one of the only guests as it was wintertime. The whole town was scary--no people to be seen. Nothing to see but snow, ice and the frigid wind blew at 50 MPH non-stop. I could hardly wait to get to Utah to see signs of humans and some mountain vistas. Little wonder they off themselves in Wyoming.
The list of art forms or suicides?
Thats an idea. Florida would be an anomoly. (perhaps depressed elderly people?)
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