Understanding Suicide: Causes, Signs, and Prevention Strategies

Suicide is a topic everyone knows about, but never wants to discuss it. This topic is an public issue all over the world. Suicide victims tend to see suicide as a way to escape their suffering or pain. Suicide tends to effect the close family and friends the most. It seems to be one of the most personal psychological conditions one can go through. The victim is batting so many inner thoughts and demons. Many people have contemplated suicide; It’s a phase of life almost everyone goes through. This essay about suicide examines the warning signs, prevention methods, celebrity suicides, youth suicides, elder suicides, and the most popular methods of suicide. What are the different warning signs of suicidal behavior? Are we as humans able to predict suicide? Why do people commit suicide? How do celebrity suicides effect the public? How does social media effect youth suicides? Why do elders commit suicide? What are the most popular methods of suicide?

To start off, recognizing the suicidal signs and different behaviors is an important role in preventing suicide. There is no list to go by for everyone who may seem suicidal. Every victim of suicidal thoughts has their own mindset on to why, when, or how they will or plan on killing themselves. People commit suicide for multiple different reasons. Warning signs are clinical behaviours, noticeable by others, such as sadness, irritability, social withdrawal, explicit statements of suicidal intent, or giving away possessions.

In addition to that, preventing Suicide is easier said than done. First you have to be able to recognize the warning signs of suicidal behavior. Managing suicidal behavior takes a specific type of person whom is able to do clinical evaluations. Although that being said, there is no single approach to preventing and predicting suicide. Naturally not all suicide can be prevented: some persons will have intractable illnesses resistant to all interventions, and others will avoid assessment and management.

On the other hand, celebrity suicides tend to have a large effect on the society. Celebrities tend to be role models or public figures, and when society sees that they have committed suicide their fans tend to seem lost, so then they feel the need to commit suicide too. Celebrity is a central structuring point in self and social identification, performing as it does an increasingly important role in self-framings, self-imaginings, self-revisions, and self-reflection. In hopes of minimizing suicides after a celebrity suicide, there are guidelines for how the media should write or talk about the death. People whom are in the general public that are already facing suicidal thoughts might be triggered by this and decide to take their life.

Equally important to celebrity suicides, youth suicides also effect the society just as much. Today, it can be very difficult being a youth in the world. It is especially hard for young black boys and girls due to a low life expectancy. In addition to that, as a LGBTQ+ youth, it is also extremely difficult to be themselves due to bullying in schools or at home. Bullying promotes suicide and is the main cause of suicide in youth these days. Cyberbullying also is another leading cause of youth suicides. The youth is exposed to explicit content and in some cases, the youth tend to compare themselves to the people on the internet and end up depressed. Numerous tragic and high-profile cases of suicide by children and youth have been linked with bullying and have led some members of the public to wrongly assume that bullying frequently leads directly to suicide.

Furthermore, suicide happens to people of all ages, including the elder. Nobody ever truly thinks about if elders can be suicidal. What is not widely recognized is that the highest risk for suicide occurs among the elders in our society (McIntosh, 1994, p. 1). Just until recently suicidologists have turned their attention to elder suicide rates. A semi-recent event has brought froth the issue of elder suicides. In 1990 an Alzheimer’s patient named Janet Adkins was assisted by a Michigan physician and his “suicide machine” ended up being her cause of death. Elders tend to take their own lives because they have of lost control of their own health and tend to feel a sense of helplessness. Currently in the United States, approximately 30,000 annual deaths are officially recorded as suicide. Among these, more than 6,000 are carried out by older adults. In other words, one of every five Americans who kill themselves is over the age of 65.

In addition to everything stated above in this essay, there are multiple methods to committing suicide. Some methods include using a firearm, jumping from a height, hanging, and self-poisoning. These methods vary in each country and is also influenced by availability. The most common methods of suicide in high‐income countries are hanging and firearms, accounting for 50% and 18% of all suicides, respectively. Methods of suicide also vary by gender. For example, women tend to hang themselves more then men. Basically, availability and lethality of methods vary for men and women around the world to commit suicide.

In conclusion, as seen from the essay, suicide is a common issue that everyone, everywhere, of every age faces. It’s an issue we do not bring enough light to because it is so difficult to talk about. Suicide victims see suicide as a way to escape a pain they feel as if they cannot battle themselves anymore. When a suicide victim commits, they effect so many people that they have surrounded themselves with. Research on suicide and the factors that influence it is important because we can work together to be able to understand why people think suicide is their only escape to pain and find ways to decrease the percentages all around. Research in the future should focus more on the brain and how these thoughts effect the brain and its functions.