Suicide - 3

Legislative Action As Suicide Problem Grows in Oregon, Legislators Debate Solutions - Apr 28 2017 The Senate passed a bill giving law enforcement more tools when encountering suicidal people, while the House closed gaps for mental health patients discharged from emergency rooms. But a bill to assist gun shop owners was spiked. The Oregon House and Senate passed complementary bills addressing suicide prevention on Wednesday, but a separate bill to provide gun shop owners with materials and training to prevent firearm deaths was spiked without a vote. House Bill 2526, which will not advance, directed the Department of Justice to assist gun shop owners with identifying potential suicide victims and to provide them with literature to hand to customers about the risk. The original bill required gun shop owners to disseminate the materials to gun purchasers, while an amendment from Rep. Knute Buehler, R-Bend, would have made the program optional. The gun shop bill was introduced by Buehler and represented a rare bipartisan opportunity to deal with the public health problem presented by firearms in Oregon and the United States. Just under half of the 43,000 suicides in the country in 2014 were committed with the aide of a gun. “If someone buys a handgun, they’re over 50 times more likely to kill themselves in the next week,” Buehler told The Lund Report. He said his legislation was modeled on laws that had passed in about half the states; it had the support of some gun rights groups while still being opposed by others. He said gun-control advocates had been supportive, but HB 2526 did not make it out of the House Judiciary Committee by the deadline this month, nor was it passed on to the House Rules Committee to keep it alive. The office of House Speaker Tina Kotek, D-Portland, did not respond to questions about why the bill was spiked, but Buehler said partisan politics may have gotten in the way. Buehler is seen as a potential challenger to Gov. Kate Brown next year and some Democrats are not enthusiastic to support his initiatives. However, he said that Sen. Elizabeth Steiner Hayward, D-Beaverton, a co-sponsor of HB 2526, planned to reintroduce it this session as one of her priority bills. The House did pass House Bill 3090, a bill from Rep. Alissa Keny-Guyer, D-Portland, which requires hospital emergency departments to adopt discharge procedures for patients in a mental health crisis, helping to coordinate care from acute care to outpatient treatment. “Suicide is the second-leading cause of death for youth 10 to 24,” said Keny-Guyer, who added that suicide rates have been on the rise in the state since 2000, even as they have dropped elsewhere. HB 3090 is an extension of the 2015 Susanna Gabay Law, which required hospitals to develop such plans for psychiatric patients, something that failed to happen for Gabay, who committed suicide. But the 2015 law only applies to admitted patients, not people who come to the ER but are never formally admitted to the hospital. HB 3090 closes that gap, which Keny-Guyer said was especially crucial in rural hospitals without psychiatric wards. The House also passed a separate Keny-Guyer bill, House Bill 3091, which requires health insurers and Medicaid plans to cover a behavioral health assessment and any recommendations. The Senate passed Senate Bill 833, which directs law enforcement agencies to encourage officers responding to behavioral health incidents to offer to telephone the suicide hotline for the person in distress. “Our mental health system is in a crisis,” said Sen. Sara Gelser, D-Corvallis, the chief sponsor of SB 833, which was also sponsored by Buehler and Keny-Guyer. “There’s a reason why Oregon’s suicide is growing while other states are declining.” SB 833 sparked a volley of comments from senators concerned about the issue. “This is a clarion call for qualified suicide prevention specialists,” said Sen. Betsy Johnson, D-Scappoose. “We need to keep our commitment to Lines for Life.” Sen. Brian Boquist, R-McMinnville, whose son took his own life, complained that the Oregon Health Authority had done a poor job of enacting previous suicide prevention laws, singling out one that was intended to provide law enforcement officers with hands-on training to prevent suicides but instead was turned into a PowerPoint slide presentation. Oregon had the 14th-highest youth suicide rate in 2012 and 2013, according the Centers for Disease Control -- 166 deaths, or about 11 deaths for every 100,000 people. It’s a problem that’s especially high in the American West -- all but two states in the top 15 are west of the Mississippi River, while only two western states -- Texas and California -- are in the bottom 15. Alaska leads the nation with 25 suicide deaths per 100,000 people while Rhode Island had 3 youth suicide deaths per 100,000 people in 2012 and 2013. The reasons for the higher suicide rate in the West are unclear, but two factors appear to be a greater proliferation of firearms and an isolating, individualistic culture, according the state Youth Suicide Intervention and Prevention Plan. Native Americans, who have larger populations in the West, are also at a much higher risk than other races. Male youth are four times as likely to kill themselves as female youth, and male returning military veterans are four times as likely to commit suicide than other men. The recently released plan calls for integration of existing suicide prevention programs, supporting school intervention and providing additional training to community first-responders and clinical service providers. Reach Chris Gray at chris@thelundreport.org. Source: www.thelundreport.org/content/suicide-problem-grows-oregon-legislators-debate-solutions   People are afraid to talk about mental health at work, but here's how to do it. It’s “best to focus on the impact it’s having on your work,” Dr. David Ballard tells Moneyish Sometimes it’s way more than a case of the Mondays. A new survey on mental health suggests that people don’t think their colleagues would be receptive to any mention of mental health issues at work. Researchers found that 85% of workers thought there was still a stigma attached to stress and mental health issues in the workplace, according to a study of UK workers by the London-based Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development course providers. The survey polled 1,000 working adults, 26% of whom had taken a day off work because of a mental health problem but had lied about why they were out of the office. More than half (58%) revealed they weren’t comfortable telling their boss if they were diagnosed with a mental health issue, and just 20% believed their manager would be supportive of workers battling mental disorders, as they feared their employers wouldn’t take them seriously. Americans’ mental health struggles on the job are well documented, too: 18% percent of workers in a 2017 American Psychological Association survey said mental health issues had made work challenges harder to handle in the past month, 15% said those issues had kept them from achieving work goals, and more than a third suffered from chronic job stress. The APA’s 2015 survey also found 4% of American workers were experiencing severe elevations in depression and anxiety-related symptoms, while another 24% reported mild to moderate elevations. Despite those numbers, only 48% in 2017 said their employer provided the necessary resources for workers’ mental health needs. But how are you supposed to talk to a boss about mental health? We asked experts to weigh in. First, decide if you need to tell him or her, said David Ballard, assistant executive director of the APA’s Center for Organizational Excellence. “As much as it shouldn’t matter and people should be able to go and talk about these things openly, that’s not the case in every workplace,” he told Moneyish. Your dynamic with the boss and company culture will factor into the decision, Ballard said — not to mention a good portion of stress-related issues likely won’t warrant a talk with your supervisor, added Christine Moutier, chief medical officer of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. You may go straight to tapping into your mental health benefits, asking about your employee assistance program and seeing if HR can connect you with more resources, Ballard said. Practice self-care like sleep, exercise, diet and spending time with family and friends. If you feel totally unable to talk to a supervisor, visit the Job Accommodation Network (JAN), a site run by the Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy, for a free, confidential consultation on workplace accommodations. “Arm yourself with your rights … if you think it’s going to come to that,” Theresa Nguyen, vice president of policy and programs at Mental Health America, told Moneyish. But if the talk seems like a good idea, or you feel your mental health condition is affecting your productivity or professionalism, it’s “best to focus on the impact it’s having on your work,” Ballard said. “Your boss is not your therapist, but they can be someone who can provide support so that you can continue to do your job well,” he added. Think of the issue in terms of physical health. “And how would you approach it in that case?” Moutier told Moneyish. “You’re going to treat it as, ‘I’d like to speak with you about this health issue going on in my life, because I’ve wondered if it could be impacting my work.’” But not all bosses are “progressive and educated” on mental health issues, she acknowledged. “So by no means would we advocate for people to jeopardize their reputation or their supervisor’s view of them,” she said. Decide how much you want to disclose. “It would be reasonable to just leave it in the category of ‘a health issue I’m dealing with and addressing … that applies to whether it’s hypertension, diabetes or depression. You’re not obliged to name your condition to your supervisor,” Moutier said. “(Employees) can be guided by their instincts in terms of whether or not it feels safe or comfortable to disclose whatever level of detail that they’re thinking of sharing.” Know what to expect. Discuss the timeframe of your issue — chronic or temporary? A week, a month or six months? — and whether any specific informal accommodations might be helpful. “The person could just be given some more flexibility with the deadlines on their projects,” Moutier said. “They may be, of course, allowed to take certain days off to attend to their health needs for medical appointments or other ways that the person is going to address their health.” If you’re too anxious to have the talk in the first place, review your main talking points when you’re feeling less overwhelmed and try doing it before things reach a “crisis point,” Ballard said. You could also draft an email or letter to your boss during a lower-anxiety time, suggested Nguyen — taking your time “in a place where you feel like you have more clarity of mind and more control.” Realize your boss might be more receptive than you think. About 43.4 million people 18 and up — or 17.9% of U.S. adults — were struggling with mental illness within the past year, per the 2015 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. And 89% of U.S. adults view mental and physical health as equally important for overall health, according to a Harris Poll co-sponsored by AFSP. “It’s very possible that your supervisor has faced their own challenges … and will be quite knowledgeable and supportive,” Moutier said. Employers need to play their part, too, said Nguyen. “If everybody from upper management to bottom management engages in a practice where they’re openly talking about their mental health problems, then it sends a message to the entire community (that) it’s OK to talk about these issues,” she told Moneyish. “The goal is to allow people to feel like they can talk about this earlier instead of waiting ’til it’s a problem.” “An important point to hammer home is that treatment works,” Ballard added. “And not to let fear about stigma, or being viewed negatively in the workplace, get in the way of getting the help you need.” Source: moneyish.com/ish/heres-how-to-talk-to-your-boss-about-mental-health/ How to create a more supportive workplace On mental health issues, anxiety and stress: how to create a more supportive workplace This year’s World Mental Health Day theme is mental health in the workplace. In light of this, we wanted to conduct some research of our own into workplace attitudes towards these issues. Our main aim was to gauge how workers feel about their working environment, and whether they are confident about receiving the support they need if they experience an issue. Our findings were a little disappointing, and certainly highlight a need for changes in the way our nation’s workplaces deal with issues such as stress, anxiety and mental illness. Our findings also highlight an issue with perception – something this article will try to tackle. Identifying a problem One of the most shocking findings was that 85% of UK workers thought there was a stigma attached to mental health issues in the workplace. This illustrates how hard it is for workers to open up about potential mental health issues. Those suffering are likely to feel isolated and dejected, so to feel as if seeking help may only marginalise them further is a truly desperate situation. This stigma may explain our finding that 58% of workers wouldn’t be comfortable telling their manager if they were suffering from a mental health issue. This means that over half of the country would suffer in silence should they face one of the toughest challenges. Another reason that managers may be being kept at arm’s length with these issues is that just 20% of workers thought their manager was fully equipped to support mental health issues in the workplace. When we asked Tom Oxley – lead consultant and relationship director at Bamboo Mental Health – about the problem facing some workplaces today, he said: “Despite wonderful awareness campaigns, stigma is alive and well when it comes to mental health at work. Stigma comes from within individuals, or it can be nurtured by some organisations. Make no mistake; subject knowledge has improved but there’s a chasm between awareness and action for many employers. “Six out of ten [of those currently suffering] aren’t saying anything to their manager. That means they’re working unwell and not getting support. That means the team performance may be impaired. Identifying a solution So, what can managers and workplaces do to mitigate this issue and create a more open and supportive atmosphere? And how can they make seeking support seem like an attractive, positive move instead of a potentially destructive action? With the help of some of our tutors and Tom Oxley from Bamboo Mental Health, we’ve assembled a few tips to help move towards a more openly supportive workplace culture. 1. “Managers need to build the trust and rapport between themselves and their team.” Without trust, and without the social bond that makes trust possible, it can be hard to share weekend plans with managers, let alone serious health issues. Whilst a manager’s role is to ensure the delivery of a process, service or similar, it is also their responsibility to motivate and inspire staff. Getting the most from staff members isn’t simply about working them hard. 2. “Managers need training to rehearse what to say, when to step in, and how to support individuals.” Appropriate training and feeling equipped to deal with serious health issues can be a daunting prospect even for seasoned managers. Specialised training is available and is a valuable tool in the manager’s repertoire, not only for helping to mitigate issues but also for noticing them, and approaching them with tact. 3. “Managers need to be trained and supported by HR and leadership teams.” As above, training needs to be made available for managers. HR and leadership teams need to take the initiative and responsibility to implement this, however. 4. “Managers need to be human in their response to the subject.” This ensures that the worker is allowed to feel human despite their issue. Many sufferers of stress, anxiety or mental health issues feel that they are in some way flawed or different to the rest of society, so it’s imperative they are helped to feel normal, and that it is ‘okay to not be okay’. Expanding the point, Tom Oxley said “managers with personal or lived experience of mental ill health tend to be better equipped with the language around mental health”. 5. “Managers need to be empowered to make adjustments.” Helping the employee deal with their workload and focus on getting better can have a great effect on making them feel supported and relieving pressure. Setting more appropriate working hours and targets is a great place to start. However, genuinely being able to make these adjustments is crucial – particularly without drawing too much attention or encountering red tape. Looking forward This year’s World Mental Health Day is set to cast mental health in the workplace into sharp focus. Hopefully, with this comes serious change. We believe that the majority of workplaces across the nation are becoming more accepting, supportive places to work but that, whilst they have come a long way, there’s still work to be done. Not only do our courses provide an incredible toolset for HR and leadership teams to be able to deal with such sensitive issues, they also make it easy to pass these skills down the line in an organisation, so that all levels can feed into a more supportive working culture. Helpful links: UK charity Mind: https://www.mind.org.uk/ World Health Organisation: http://www.who.int/mental_health/world-mental-health-day/2017/en/ Mental Health Foundation: https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/campaigns/world-mental-health-day Source: www.dpgplc.co.uk/2017/10/mental-health-issues-anxiety-stress-create-supportive-workplace/ Suicide can be prevented It's World Suicide Prevention Day and that should be of particular interest in the United States, where suicide rates are up across demographic groups — even, tragically, among children. But you could save a life, experts say, by following five steps , starting with reaching out someone who's struggling. If you're having suicidal thoughts (or want advice on how to help someone who is) here's what you can expect when you call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. USA TODAY's new Facebook group I Survived It is open to suicide survivors, suicide loss survivors (friends and family affected), as well as survivors of other issues. Suicide Lifeline: If you or someone you know may be struggling with suicidal thoughts you can call the U.S. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255) or text "SOS" to the Crisis Text Line 741741 any time of day or night. For people who identify as LGBTQ, if you or someone you know is feeling hopeless or suicidal, you can also contact The Trevor Project's TrevorLifeline 24/7/365 at 1-866-488-7386. The Military Crisis Line, online chat, and text-messaging service are free to all service members, including members of the National Guard and Reserve, and veterans, even if you are not registered with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) or enrolled in VA health care. Call 1-800-273-8255 and press 1. Check these out: To connect with suicide survivors and others, join USA TODAY's Facebook group I Survived It What actually happens when you call the suicide hotline If you're thinking about suicide, I was there The teen suicide rate has more than doubled: What you can do for your child Calls to suicide crisis centers doubled since 2014 Does asking about suicide and related behaviours induce suicidal ideation? What is the evidence? Abstract There is a commonly held perception in psychology that enquiring about suicidality, either in research or clinical settings, can increase suicidal tendencies. While the potential vulnerability of participants involved in psychological research must be addressed, apprehensions about conducting studies of suicidality create a Catch-22 situation for researchers. Ethics committees require evidence that proposed studies will not cause distress or suicidal ideation, yet a lack of published research can mean allaying these fears is difficult. Concerns also exist in psychiatric settings where risk assessments are important for ensuring patient safety. But are these concerns based on evidence? We conducted a review of the published literature examining whether enquiring about suicide induces suicidal ideation in adults and adolescents, and general and at-risk populations. None found a statistically significant increase in suicidal ideation among participants asked about suicidal thoughts. Our findings suggest acknowledging and talking about suicide may in fact reduce, rather than increase suicidal ideation, and may lead to improvements in mental health in treatment-seeking populations. Recurring ethical concerns about asking about suicidality could be relaxed to encourage and improve research into suicidal ideation and related behaviours without negatively affecting the well-being of participants. Comment in Letter to the editor: Suicidal ideation and research ethics committees. [Psychol Med. 2015] Letter to the editor: Suicidal ideation and research ethics committees: a reply. [Psychol Med. 2015] Comment on The ethics of doing nothing. Suicide-bereavement and research: ethical and methodological considerations. [Psychol Med. 2014] PMID: 24998511 DOI: 10.1017/S0033291714001299 Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24998511 A Historical Perspective on Suicide When I first read this quote, my initial impression was that it came from Freud. If pressed, I would have guessed from his late-life despairing opus, Civilization and Its Discontents.2 But I was wrong. These were among the last words written by Walter Benjamin, months before his suicide in 1940. In fact, these words are engraved on his tombstone. Even more oddly, and perhaps profoundly befitting his somewhat scattered career, this German-Jewish atheist who died by suicide was allowed burial in consecrated Catholic soil in Spain. Walter Benjamin was one of the founding fathers of the so-called Frankfurt School of Philosophy in the 1920s and 1930s, which included Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Erich Fromm, Hannah Arendt, and Herbert Marcuse. The members were German neo-Marxists and psychoanalytically influenced scholars who were openly critical of the German people who allowed the National Socialists to come into power. The group introduced the concept of applying multidisciplinary study and dialectical methods to the bigger questions of history, psychology, economics, philosophy, and art—even to medicine, long before there was any discussion of a “bio-psycho-social” approach. For better or for worse, they developed the increasingly ill-defined “critical theory” that has so pervasively, even fetishistically, enthralled the academic towers in America since the 1960s. Of all the group, Benjamin, primarily an historian and art critic, struggled most with mood lability. He wrote several suicide notes throughout the course of his brief lifetime, typically addressed to his current female partner, before finally composing his last one—addressed to no one in particular, on the night of September 26th, 1940. He gave the note to one of his fellow German-Jewish refugees, Henny Garland, who took it and did nothing to stop him from overdosing on morphine. She destroyed the note and convinced the authorities that Benjamin’s death was the result of heart failure, concerned that if the authorities discovered Benjamin’s death was a suicide it would weaken the entire group’s chances of obtaining exit visas. The standard historical interpretation of Benjamin’s death is one of tragic pseudo-irony. Benjamin, with the help of his expatriated colleagues, Adorno and Horkheimer, had undertaken a desperate flight from Marseilles to Port Bou in Spain with several other refugees. Benjamin carried a single attaché case reportedly containing an unknown manuscript, and “enough morphine to kill a horse.” He had already abandoned his brother and sister to their own devices (as German-Jewish exiles with no citizenship; as did Gurland, who abandoned her prisoner-of-war second husband, only to marry Fromm 4 years later, and to commit suicide herself in 1952). Once in Port Bou, the group was told that Spain was no longer issuing exit visas to undocumented French refugees, and this was the pretext for Benjamin’s suicide. The next day, this decision was reversed, and the group was allowed to leave for neutral Portugal, and eventually for New York. Walter Benjamin’s suicide is especially interesting as a bridge from the Freudian psychosocial era of hysteria-neuroses to the current era of the borderline-narcissist. Psychoanalysis was foundational to the Frankfurt School, and philosophically they were really a marriage of Marx and Freud. All the founding members were sons of wealthy Jewish businessmen who turned their backs on the capitalism of their fathers (often able to do so, ironically, with the financial support of their fathers), but who frequently, especially Benjamin, wrote nostalgically, almost longingly, of their childhoods. Benjamin especially refused to grow up. His entire historical worldview in fact was that we all march through history backward, that we all greet the imminent future with our backs turned. In other words, the future is a constant reappraisal of the past, a constant atonement, a series of ruminations and regrets, a wistful clinging to prior accomplishments. The biggest target of Benjamin and his colleagues, and the root of their almost paradoxical nostalgia, was the so-called “culture industry,” the manufacture less of products than of wants and desires by, as they saw it, vast capitalistic machines. They frequently compared Hollywood to the Nazi propaganda machine, and they harbored little doubt that Hitler and his lieutenants’ primary motivation was less ideological than financial. (America was under the sway of “monopoly capitalism”; Germany and the Soviet Union under “totalitarian capitalism.”) They feared less that the Nazis would militarily conquer the world than that the rest of the world would link arms in capitalistic solidarity with the Nazis. In this context Walter Benjamin became the 20th-century iteration of the “wandering Jew.” While his colleagues settled in Frankfurt, at least until it became too dangerous, he remained restless, taking up residence variously along the Mediterranean and in Germany and Paris, intermittently moving back home with his parents. He was married, but he had frequent affairs, often quite intense relationships that left him temporarily suicidal. He seemed to care little for his only son. What is especially significant here is Benjamin’s comparison of the what he calls “destructive character,” what we might more euphemistically call the “cluster B personality,” with the “consciousness of historical man.” In his 1931 essay, The Destructive Character, he sums it up in this way: “The destructive character lives from the feeling not that life is worth living, but that suicide is not worth the trouble.”3 This reads like a blithe shrugging off of the slightly later Algerian-French existentialist philosopher Albert Camus’ famous admonition that whether to commit or not commit suicide is the only legitimate philosophical question remaining. So why go on? This is where the German critical theorists and French existentialists agreed. Because there is always work to be done. Arthur Schopenhauer, perhaps the most miserable 19th-century philosopher who ever lived, in his cheerily titled On the Suffering of the World,4 ironically provided what may be the best admonition against suicide, and the one repeatedly resorted to by the critical theorists and existentialists: “The only cogent argument against suicide is that it is opposed to the achievement of the highest moral goal, inasmuch as it substitutes for a true redemption of this world of misery a merely apparent one.” In other words, suicide is inauthentic. The redemption sought through suicide is illusory. As Benjamin himself put it, “The destructive character sees nothing permanent. But for this very reason he sees ways everywhere. Where others encounter walls or mountains, there, too, he sees a way. . . . Because he sees ways everywhere, he always stands at a crossroads. . . . What exists he reduces to rubble—not for the sake of rubble, but for that of the way leading through it.”3 Jean-Paul Sartre qualified this years later by specifying that suicide is essentially “out of bounds.” It is the one “way” out that, by its very inauthenticity, remains inaccessible.5 Benjamin’s essay was 10 to 11 years before Camus’ seminal work, The Myth of Sisyphus,6 in which he elaborates upon the “absurdity” of existence, the inescapable contradiction between the human faculty of reason and an unreasonable world. He bemoans the inevitable “philosophical suicide” that results from any attempt to provide an overarching metaphysical structure to existence: all conclusions invariably contradict their (absurd) premises. His conclusion? We must continue on. We must find our path. Sisyphus was damned to a hell on a treadmill. But even he eventually acknowledges the truth of his absurd situation, of his own personal tragedy, and there is meaning in that. That is, even in the midst of hell, there is still, or even especially, work to be done. References: 1. Benjamin W. Theses on the Philosophy of History. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theses_on_the_Philosophy_of_History. Accessed June 18, 2018. 2. Freud S. Civilization and Its Discontents. Seaside, OR: Rough Draft Printing; 1913. 3. Benjamin W. The Destructive Character. www.revistapunkto.com/2011/12/destructive-character-walter-benjamin.html. Accessed June 19, 2018. 4. Schopenhauer A. On the Suffering of the World. London/New York: Penguin; 2004. 5. Sartre J-P. Literary and Philosophical Essays. New York: Collier; 1955. 6. Camus A. The Myth of Sisyphus. Trans. Justin O’Brien. New York: Vintage; 1983. Source: www.psychiatrictimes.com/suicide/historical-perspective-suicide The 3-Day Rule and Suicide Many people who attempt suicide do so impulsively. Extremely impulsively. One study of people who attempted suicide found that 48% thought of suicide for fewer than 10 minutes before making the suicide attempt. The haste with which many people die by suicide is staggering. Had they waited a little longer, then the intense impulse to act on suicidal thoughts might have passed. This brings me to the 3-day rule. I’ve heard about this rule anecdotally and read about it here and there on blogs and other websites. One site in particular sums it up quite well: “For me I have a 3 day rule. With most big decisions that will affect my life, I give myself 3 days. If I still think it is the best choice for me after 3 days, then I go with it. Yes even with suicide… “If even for one moment you feel a smidge of joy or like life is actually worth living, you have to start the 3 days again. Again time many times brings clarity.” The author, Ali McCollum, also states, “Spoiler… death by my own hand has yet to feel like the right choice for 3 straight days.” Keep On Keeping On The old adage “one day at a time” holds true here. With suicidal thoughts, however, the mantra may be “one hour at a time,” or “one minute at a time.” Even “one moment at a time” can be difficult. If you hold off for three days, chances are you will not feel 100% intent on dying that entire time. And maybe you will even feel hope, or pleasure, or some other reason to live. If your suicidal thoughts are so intense that even waiting 3 days seems impossible, please get help immediately. Call 911 (or, if you are outside the U.S., whatever the emergency number is in your country). Or go to an emergency room. Or call someone who will help you stay safe. Really? Suicidal Thoughts Stop After 3 Days? Keep in mind that I’m not talking about all suicidal thoughts. It would be foolish to say that suicidal thoughts tend to pass in 3 days. Some people think of suicide for weeks and months, even years. What I m referring to is the profound intent to act on suicidal thoughts. If someone is on the verge of suicide, those 3 days can mean the difference between life and death. Suicidal thoughts might persist, but the impulse to act on them can change many times over three days. To quote the late psychologist Edwin Shneidman, one of the pioneers in suicidology: “The acute suicidal crisis (or period of high and dangerous lethality) is an interval of relatively short duration – to be counted, typically, in hours or days, not usually in months or years. An individual is at a peak of self-destructiveness for a brief time and is either helped, cools off, or is dead.” Naturally, my hope is that you are helped or cool off. What If 3 Days Go By and Suicide Still Beckons? Time does not heal all wounds, especially not quickly. The 3-day rule aside, I do not mean to imply that you should end your life if you still feel acutely suicidal after three days. In some ways, 3 days is a long time. A lot can happen. Feelings can change. Perspective can change. Getting a good night’s sleep during those 3 days, or talking with a friend or suicide hotline, or simply surfing the waves of moods, can weaken the suicidal impulse. In other ways, 3 days is hardly a blip on the radar screen of an entire life. If after 3 days you still are intent on dying, please get help. Reach out to others, whether someone you know or a stranger at hotline or online. For a list of places where you can get help anonymously, you can start here. What Next? Even if you follow the 3-day rule and no longer feel adamantly that suicide is your only option, the suicidal thoughts might still persist or revisit. Ultimately, to survive suicide’s assault, more is needed than waiting. You might need to uncover reasons for living. Tapping into hope and rediscovering pleasure can also help. More than anything, talking back to suicidal thoughts and learning to cope with them can fortify you in your fight against suicidal forces. A Good Starting Place The 3-day rule is a good place to start. Not only can it save your life, it can also show you with amazing clarity that suicidal thoughts can waver in their intensity. Those 3 days can demonstrate that at least the strength of suicidal thoughts, if not suicidal thoughts themselves, can be temporary. Suicidal thoughts can change, as can you, your mood, and your life. Source: www.speakingofsuicide.com/2014/12/07/the-3-day-rule-and-suicide/ Don't know what to say? Try one of these opening lines to get the conversation rolling: "I've noticed you've been down lately. What's going on?" "Hey, we haven't talked for a while. How are you?" "Are you OK? You don't seem like yourself lately." "I know you're going through some stuff: I'm here for you." "No matter what you're going through, I've got you're back." "This is awkward, but I'd like to know if you're really all right." "I haven't heard you laugh in a while. Is everything OK?" "I'm worried about you and would like to know what's up so I can help." "Is there anything you want to talk about?" "Hey, you seemed frustrated today. I'm here for you. Want a hug? Or a chat?" "Hey, where have you been? Missed you at practice." "You ok? I noticed you've missed school a few times." "I feel like something's up. Can you share with me?" "Your face is telling me you could use a good talk." "You know you can tell me anything. I won't judge." "Seems like something's up. Do you wanna talk about what's going on?" "Listen, you're my friend, and I just want to know how you're feeling." "Whenever you're ready to talk, I'm ready to listen." "I know life can be overwhelming sometimes. So, if you want to talk, I'm here." "Is there anything you want to get off your chest?" "Maybe it's me but I was wondering if you were all right." No need to be an expert. Just be a friend. These tips should make starting a conversation about mental health a lot less awkward: Keep it casual. Relax: think of it as a chill chat, not a therapy session. You seized the awkward. What now? Keep checking in, and if you want to do more, there's a bunch of other ways to help your friend: Don't give up. Maybe the first attempt didn't go so well or maybe they just weren't ready to talk. Show your friend that you're there for them. Stay available and keep checking in. In an emergency. If you or your friend needs urgent help, call 911 right away. Or even take your friend to the emergency room for assistance. If you feel it's safe, stay with your friend or find someone to stay with them until help arrive. In a Crisis. Get immediate free support 24/7 by calling 800-273-8225 or text SOS to 741741. They won't judge, and everything you tell them is confidential, unless it's essential to contact emergency services to keep you or your friend safe. How To Talk About Your Mental Health When No One Wants To Listen According to the American Psychiatric Association, people from racial and ethnic minority groups are less likely to receive mental health care than the rest of the U.S. population. Communities of color often lack adequate access to medical treatment for mental illnesses. They also face challenges like higher levels of stigma, misinformation and language barriers. “While an individual may have their own [mixed feelings] toward how they think about mental health, it is then intertwined within the views that were being expressed within their household, school, work and so on,” said Shari Fedra, a licensed clinical social worker based in Brooklyn, New York. But those barriers can be broken down. HuffPost asked several psychologists and mental health care providers who primarily treat patients of color how to have an effective and serious conversation about mental health and why it’s so hard to talk about in the first place. Here’s their advice: Seeking professional help is OK ? even if it doesn’t seem like it. June Cao, a New York-based clinical psychologist who specializes in working with Asian-Americans, said that one of her clients shared that silence was the default mode of communication between her family members. “Her parents told her over and over that she just needed to endure and tough through, then her depression would be gone,” Cao said. Cao’s patient is part of a larger trend: Asian-Americans are three times less likely to seek mental health services than whites, according to the American Psychological Association. Karen Caraballo, a clinical psychologist working with Latino families in Brooklyn, said that because of the significant value placed on family, many members of the Latino community do not seek outside help for mental health problems. “Latinos are expected to rely on [immediate] family, extended family, church, el curandero and friends,” Caraballo said. (A curandero is a spiritual guide within a community that people go to when they are sick.) “We are expected to keep our problems within our inner circle.” Knowing when to see a medical professional for your mental health is important because the longer you go untreated, the more potential consequences could arise, including the worsening of your symptoms. “The pressure to hide your problems could make you more fearful of your mental illness and cause you to isolate yourself,” Cao said. “Transparency and awareness is probably the most successful way to overcome this fear.” Assert the importance of conversation. When dealing with friends or family members who aren’t as open to talking about your experiences or getting professional help, Cao suggested that you should genuinely and assertively request a conversation by using phrases like “I need to speak with you,” “I need your help,” or “Please listen to me before you say anything.” B. Nilaja Green, a licensed clinical psychologist based in Atlanta, said that you should find a time to speak to your loved ones when they are calm and you can have their full attention. “Be as transparent with them as possible about what you’re experiencing, how these experiences are impacting you, and why you believe the experiences are serious enough to warrant outside intervention,” Green said. Use language that your loved one can understand. When discussing a topic as sensitive as mental health, you want to make sure that you communicate in a way that makes sense for both the person you’re talking to and yourself. Cao recommended doing this by avoiding general and weighted vocabulary such as “mental disorder” or “abnormal,” as this may reintroduce the feeling of shame associated with these terms. Instead, try starting the conversation by talking about any physical symptoms you may be feeling, such as a loss in appetite or insomnia that will help break the ice. “You may find it easier to communicate about physical symptoms first, like insomnia and appetite changes, because there is no stigma or shame attached,” Cao said. It’s also important that you communicate in a tone that makes you sound open to receiving feedback if that is your goal of the conversation. “We often notice another person’s resistance without being mindful of our own resistances,” Fedra said. “Create an open [atmosphere] within your communication style by being mindful of your words, tone and feelings.” Religion and mental health support aren’t mutually exclusive. One of the main reasons mental health usually isn’t openly talked about within the black community is because of the reliance on religious beliefs to solve or fix mental health issues without considering additional supportive resources, Green said. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, only about 25 percent of African Americans seek mental health care, compared to 40 percent of whites. “I have heard clients share that family members and friends have either undermined them going to treatment and/or referred them back to the church as their most appropriate source for healing and help,” Green explained. If religion is a major part of your family’s lifestyle, Green said that you could inform your loved ones that there are resources that cater to families with religious backgrounds. “There are counselors and therapists of varying religious backgrounds who integrate their faith into the work,” Green said. “Even if you do not want to go to a therapist who identifies themselves in a particular way, most therapists have training that allows them to appreciate and respect the religious beliefs of their clients.” Take advantage of outside resources. If you are absolutely unable to talk to relatives or friends about the state of your mental health, there are several other options to choose from. “Seek professional help from a psychologist, psychotherapist, mental health counselors who speak your language and understand your cultural background,” Cao recommended. If you believe you’ll have trouble paying for treatment, Cao said you can seek help from hospitals and clinics that offer appointments on a sliding scale adjusted for income. There are also online options and free alternatives that can still be helpful, like support groups. The Anxiety and Depression Association of America created a list of support groups throughout the U.S. that you can filter by group name or support topic. Bottom line: Own your experiences and know that a living with a mental health condition doesn’t make you “weak.” The more you talk about it, the more people will start to pay attention. Experts agree that open communication can play a vital role in eliminating the shame and stigma surrounding mental health. “Simply talking about your situation and illness to someone understanding may reduce some of the stress you have,” Cao said. “It can also help your loved ones to understand you better and relieve their concerns about you." Source: www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/how-to-talk-about-mental-health_us_5b450d8ce4b0c523e263b100?utm_source=Copy+of+Weekly+Spark+8%2F10%2F18&utm_campaign=Weekly+Spark+August+10%2C+2018&utm_medium=email Method, Choice and Intent It is intuitive to think that those who attempt suicide and live were less intent on dying than those who died by suicide. While seriousness of intent plays a role in severity of attempt and choice of suicide method (means), the relationship is not a straight-forward one. Many studies (some described below) find little relationship between intent and medical severity or between intent and choice of method. Other studies, however, do find a relationship (e.g., Townsend 2001, Hamdi 1991, Harriss 2005). One reason for the mixed results is that other factors also play a role, such as the availability and acceptability of methods and attempters’ knowledge of the likely lethality of a given method. Many people who attempt suicide have inflated expectations about the lethality of common methods like poisoning and cutting. (Editor's note: Or whether it is a man or woman. A differrence is that men have been indoctranated since birth around the expression of feelings. Big boys don't cry. Don't be a victim. Man up. Deal with it. Handle it. Don't ask for help. This is, I believe, the main reason why men use lethal means which have a much smaller failure rate that any other method. That's why men represent the majority of successful suicides (about 75%) and women represent the majority of suicide attempts (about 75%) Thirty patients who attempted suicide with motor vehicle exhaust were interviewed (Skopek 1998). Reasons given for choosing the method included availability, painlessness, and lethality. Suicide intent scores were not high, which was inconsistent with most patients being aware that the method was highly lethal. Relationship problems were the most frequent precipitating circumstance. Most attempters regretted the attempt. Survival was due largely to failure of the method or unexpected discovery rather than to patient factors. Sixty patients presenting to a large urban medical center for a suicide attempt completed questionnaires measuring the seriousness of their suicidal intent and other factors (Plutchik 1988). No relationship was found between level of intent and medical seriousness of the attempt. Among 268 self-poisoning patients in rural Sri Lanka, 85% cited easy availability as the basis for their choice of poison (Eddelston 2006). Patients had little knowledge about the lethality of the poison they chose. There was no evidence that attempters who used highly toxic poisons were more serious or deliberative in their attempt than those using less toxic poisons. Patients’ expectation of the lethality of their attempt (as measured by the Beck Suicidal Intent Scale item 11) was not associated with observed medical severity in a sample of 173 attempters treated in an urban emergency department (Brown 2004). Only 38% of the patients were accurate in their expectations regarding severity; 32% were inaccurate, and 29% did not know whether what they did was likely to be lethal. A study of 33 people (mostly young men) who attempted suicide with a firearm and lived found that all used firearms obtained in their homes (Peterson 1985). When asked why a firearm was used, the answer given most often was, “Availability.” A Houston study compared nearly-lethal suicide attempts with less-lethal attempts and found that expectation of dying, planning, impulsivity, and taking precautions against discovery were not associated with the medical severity of the attempt (Swahn 2001). Intent is a complex matter and falls along a continuum. While some attempters are probably at the low end of the spectrum with very little intent to die, and others are at the high end, many fall into an ambivalent middle ground. Still others have high intent but only during very brief episodes. It is these latter two groups for whom reducing easy access to highly lethal methods of suicide is likely to be most effective in saving lives. Brown GK, Henriques GR, Sosdjan D, and Beck AT. Suicide intent and accurate expectations of lethality: predictors of medical lethality of suicide attempts. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. 2004;72(6):1170-74. Eddleston M, Karunaratne A, Weerakoon M, Kumarasinghe S, Rajapakshe M, Sheriff MH, Buckley NA, Gunnell D.Choice of poison for intentional self-poisoning in rural Sri Lanka.Clin Toxicol (Phila). 2006;44(3):283-6. Hamdi E, Amin Y, and Mattar T. Clinical correlates of intent in attempted suicide. Acta Psychiatr Scand. 1991;83(5):406-11. Harriss L, Hawton K, Zahl D. Value of measuring suicidal intent in the assessment of people attending hospital following self-poisoning or self-injury. Brit J Psych. 2005;186:60-66. Peterson L, Peterson M, O’Shanick G, and Swann A. Self-inflicted gunshot wounds: Lethality of method versus intent. American Journal of Psychiatry. 1985;142:228-231. Plutchik R, van Praag HM, Picard S, Conte HR, and Korn M. Is there a relation between the seriousness of suicidal intent and the lethality of the suicide attempt? Psychiatry Resesarch. 1988; 27:71-79. Skopek MA and Perkins R. Deliberate exposure to motor vehicle exhaust gas: the psychosocial profile of attempted suicide. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry. 1998;32(6):830-38. Swahn MH and Potter LB. Factors associated with the medical severity of suicide attempts in youths and young adults. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior. 2001;32:21-29. Townsend E, Hawton K, Harriss L, Bale E, Bond A. Substances used in deliberate self-poisoning 1985-1997: trends and associations with age, gender, repetition and suicide intent. Soc Psychiatr Epidemiol. 2001;36(5):228-34. Source: /www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/intent/ 'Like a busy emergency room': Calls to suicide crisis centers have doubled since 2014 The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline saw calls double from 2014 to 2017, an increase in volume that coincides with rising suicide rates across the United States. The helpline answered over 2 million calls in 2017, up from approximately 1 million calls in 2014. In 2015 and 2016, the helpline answered over 1.5 million calls each year. The helpline consists of a nationwide network of over 150 local crisis centers, as well as national backup centers to assist local lines. But an uptick in calls may not only be attributable to rising suicide rates in the U.S. Increased public attention about helpline services has also led to greater call volumes, said Frances Gonzalez, director of communications for the national helpline. "Due to media events and increased public awareness of suicide prevention and the Lifeline’s services, more people aware of this resource and are getting help and support," Gonzalez said. "The Lifeline has been proven to deescalate moments of crisis and help people find hope." Gonzalez could not comment on 2018 projections for the helpline. What do more calls mean for crisis centers? Crisis centers never have a predictable day, according to Bill Zimmermann at Rutgers University Behavioral Health Care in New Jersey. In June 2013, their crisis center answered 1,390 calls. In May 2018, they answered 3,699 calls. "This work is like a busy emergency room to some degree, even though the patients aren’t physically here with us," Zimmermann said. "It’s busy, hectic, demanding work at times.” Zimmermann said their crisis center has opened more lines to help address the increase, especially overnight when calls to suicide hotlines tend to spike. Suicide rates increased more than 25 percent between 1999 and 2016, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report released June 7. The states with the highest jumps in suicide rates were North Dakota, Vermont and New Hampshire, which saw 57.6 percent, 48.6 percent and 48.3 percent increases. Cindy Miller, executive director of FirstLink, a crisis center in North Dakota, said crisis centers are also seeing an uptick in calls because more people are sharing their information on social media – especially after high-profile deaths of celebrities like Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain in June. FirstLink fielded 2,512 calls about suicide in 2016 and 6,533 calls in 2017, a more than 160 percent increase in calls in a year. "With social media, the number’s out there a lot more," Miller said. "I don't want to say it's a good thing, but now we're getting them help and support." Crisis centers are encouraged that a higher call volume means more people are reaching out for help, said John Reusser, executive director of the Idaho Suicide Prevention Hotline. The hotline received 9,531 contacts in 2017 and 2,869 contacts in 2014, which includes calls, chats and texts to their crisis center. Emily Carpenter, a database and resource specialist at FirstLink, said their crisis center has also opened more lines of communication. Carpenter said much of the increase in their call volume is due to their call-back program, in which individuals released from mental health facilities or hospitals can opt to be called within the first 24 hours of being discharged. “We have gone to having more staff on at certain times of the day so we can always answer those calls and they don’t roll over to the next call center," Carpenter said. "We want people in our state to be able to talk to someone who’s in North Dakota and can maybe relate to them a little better, but there is always a backup center. Who answers calls at a crisis center? Crisis center staff include social workers, medical professionals and trained volunteers. Jennie Rylee, a former environmental educator and current volunteer at the Idaho Suicide Prevention Hotline, said she was motivated because of her family history with suicide. “My mom was an attempt survivor. I am an attempt survivor. As I did therapy and worked through that business, through depression, I thought I could turn this into something positive," Rylee said. “This is the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done, and I’m 62 years old." Some crisis center volunteers and employees go beyond answering calls and chats. Jennifer Illich, director of helpline operations at FirstLink, said their employees make hand-written cards to support callers enrolled in their call-back program. Illich said she spoke with a former caller who uses her card to remind her to reach out if she needs assistance. "When she’s in an anxious situation, she just pulls it out of her purse and peeks at it and puts it back in her purse," Illich said. "She said that gives her the strength to get through the anxious situation." How crisis centers help A crisis center can serve callers who are depressed or considering suicide and inform them on what services are available in their community for themselves and their loved ones, in addition to dispatching emergency services. Some callers are hesitant to reach out to crisis centers because they are afraid volunteers and employees on the other end of the line are going to call police or emergency workers, even if the caller just wants to talk, according to Carpenter. “It’s important for people to understand that we’re not here to get you into trouble or send the police. We’re here to provide that listening and that support so that you don’t need that service," Carpenter said. "Everything they tell us is confidential unless what they tell us poses a danger to themselves or someone else." Listening to those struggling is the primary goal of crisis centers across the country, Rylee said. Source: www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/07/18/suicide-hotlines-uptick-calls-suicide-rates-rise/698556002/ 'Silence can be deadly': 46 officers were fatally shot last year. More than triple that — 140 — committed suicide. Suicides left more officers and firefighters dead last year than all line-of-duty deaths combined — a jarring statistic that continues to plague first responders but garners little attention. A new study by the Ruderman Family Foundation, a philanthropic organization that works for the rights of people with disabilities, looked at depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and other issues affecting first responders and the rates of suicide in departments nationwide. The group found that while suicide has been an ingrained issue for years, very little has been done to address it even though first responders have PTSD and depression at a level five times that of civilians. Last year, 103 firefighters and 140 police officers committed suicide, whereas 93 firefighters and 129 officers died in the line of duty, which includes everything from being fatally shot, stabbed, drowning or dying in a car accident while on the job. Miriam Heyman, one of the co-authors of the study, said the numbers of suicide are extremely under-reported, while other more high-profile deaths make headlines. There were 46 officers who died after being fatally shot on the job in 2017, nearly 67% less than the number of suicides. The number of firefighter suicides may only represent about 40% of the deaths, she said, meaning the deaths could total more than 250 — more than double the amount of all line-of-duty deaths. First Responder Deaths - 2017 Line of duty deaths Suicide Firefighters and EMT's 93 103 Law enforcement officers 129 140 Source: Ruderman Family Foundation “It’s really shocking, and part of what’s interesting is that line-of-duty deaths are covered so widely by the press but suicides are not, and it’s because of the level of secrecy around these deaths, which really shows the stigmas,” Heyman said. She said departments don’t release information about suicides, and less than 5% have suicide-prevention programs. It’s something first responders are ashamed to talk about and address, which is having a deadly result, she said. “There is not enough conversation about mental health within police and fire departments,” the study says. “Silence can be deadly, because it is interpreted as a lack of acceptance and thus morphs into a barrier that prevents first responders from accessing potentially life-saving mental health services.” The stigma isn’t just in silence, the study outlines. Families want to hide the reasoning behind the death of a loved one. Officers feel they’ll be looked down on or taken off the job if they speak up about depression. Dying by suicide means they aren’t buried with honor. There have been some discussions and pushes for mental health programs in departments, but the process is slow. The report highlights programs and policies to push the issue, such as peer-to-peer assistance, mental health check-ups, time off after responding to a critical incident and family training programs to identify the warning signs of depression and PTSD. A project published this year by the International Association of Chiefs of Police detailed the issues around suicide and highlighted many of the same programs. It noted that first responder suicide is nearly impossible to track since it's often not reported. "It is a departmental issue that should be addressed globally," the report notes. "Departments must break the silence on law enforcement suicides by building up effective and continuing suicide-prevention programs." A big push is for police and fire chiefs to address depression and suicide more candidly and share their experiences. Attention is sometimes given to PTSD in the immediate aftermath of a high-profile incident, such as a natural disaster, terror attack or mass shooting, like the recent high school shooting in Parkland, Fla. “Here’s the reality, though: Police and firefighters witness death and destruction daily,” Heyman said. “It would be silly to think it wouldn’t put a toll on them.” She said when first responders are affected and don’t get help, it can also have a negative result on the community they serve and can be thought of more as an “occupational hazard.” “These individuals are the guardians for our community,” Heyman said. “What happens when their decision-making is flawed? We need for them to be healthy.” Source: www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/04/11/officers-firefighters-suicides-study/503735002/ A new emphasis on mental health for cops, other officers The relentless pressures of prison life on inmates’ mental health — gang violence, solitary confinement and arbitrary discipline, among them — have long been subjects for psychological and academic research. But the cumulative impact on corrections officers, including an apparent high rate of suicide, has rarely been studied in depth. That is about to change. In California, one of the nation’s largest prison systems — housing about 130,000 people on a given day— the union of active and retired corrections officers is participating in an extensive study over the next few years to assess the need for permanent mental health services for the state’s roughly 26,000 officers. “We do a decent job with saying that ‘this system messes with the incarcerated, this system impacts their lives’, but what we don’t do, what we don’t say is, ‘what’s the impact that this job is having on the correctional officers?’ ” said Stephen B. Walker, the director of governmental affairs for the union, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association. According to association data, the suicide rate for its members, in 2013, was 19.4 deaths per 100,000, compared with 12.6 deathsinthegeneralU.S.population. “We are finally saying, there is something wrong and we need to fix this,” Walker said. Suicides, post traumatic stress disorder and other mental-health problems that afflict corrections officers as well as police officers are an underreported sector of the criminal justice system. The federal government doesn’t track suicides by law enforcement officers, although line-of-duty deaths are tallied. But an awakening of sorts — from the halls of Congress to the prisons of California — is under way. Earlier this month, the California peace officers association completed the first major step of a partnership with the University of California, Berkeley, by analyzing the results of a 61-question survey from more than 8,600 corrections and parole officers statewide. The responses serve as the basis for an ambitious plan to develop, test and implement a range of mental health services for officers across the state’s prison system. The survey was designed by Amy E. Lerman, an associate professor of public policy and political science at Berkeley, and lead researcher of the Correctional Officer Health and Wellness Project. The survey asked respondents about a range of topics that include their experiences with violence, suicidal thoughts, and how prisons can improve. The union distributed the survey and promised a free barbeque to the correctional facility that produced the highest participation rate. Lerman shared a sample of the results with The Marshall Project: Three of four corrections officers said they had seen someone killed or seriously injured at work; when asked about PTSD, 65 percent of officers said they had experienced at least one of its symptoms; about one in nine reported having thought about, or attempted, suicide. “We need more research,” Lerner said. “We need to know what works, and what type of investments makes a difference.” Lerman and Walker’s teamwork will stretch into 2020. Their next steps include in-prison focus groups with corrections officers, and randomized field experiments that will try out yet-to-be selected mental health services. These could range from increased access to peer support officers to mandatory training on stress management. Corrections officers will then be invited to participate in a follow-up survey to assess their experiences with the sample offerings. Those results will be used to help design permanent mental health programs. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, in a series of emailed statements, acknowledged that the agency had no substantive psychological resources for its staff, and is cooperating in the Berkeley partnership. “It is our responsibility as an organization to look closely at what we are doing,” wrote Scott Kernan, secretary of the corrections department. Capitol Hill is taking up the cause too. In May, the Senate unanimously passed the Law Enforcement Mental Health and Wellness Act, which calls on the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs to share with Congress a list of recommended “mental health practices and services” that could be adopted by federal and local officers. It also asks that the U.S. Attorney General research the effectiveness of annual mental health checks for cops and access to crisis hotlines. What the bill doesn’t do, however, is require the tracking of police suicides. James Pasco, the executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, the nation’s largest police union, says union officials met with the bill’s architect, Sen. Joseph Donnelly (D-Indiana), before the legislation was introduced. “We invariably asked that statistics-gathering be mandatory,” Pasco said. Donnelly, who introduced the bill with Sen. Todd Young (R-Indiana), explained that requiring police departments to collect numbers, or even implement specific programs, would have been a “difficult” undertaking. “What we tried to do was to get the doable done right now” he said. A House version of the bill remains in subcommittee. At the same time, some local law enforcement agencies are being lauded for taking action on their own. Since 2015, police departments across the country have vied for the annual Officer Wellness award given out by The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund — a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that tracks police deaths, but not suicides, and organizes National Police Week. This year’s winner, the Stockton (Calif.) Police Department, was cited for its “wellness network,” which Chief Eric Jones defined as having “three sides: mental, physical and spiritual.” Cops are given books to read on police psychology, compete in Crossfit competitions, talk about their feelings at roll call, and are encouraged to speak to either peer support officers or outside therapists as needed. Jones says he had a series of “aha! moments” as officers confided in him about low morale after the city filed for bankruptcy in 2012. The department, which has more than 400 cops now, lost a quarter of its officers during the fiscal downturn. Shootings and murder rates increased to record highs. Stockton’s force now has fewer complaints against officers, fewer workers’ compensation claims, shootings and homicides. “I definitely think if our officers, by and large are coming to work mentally and physically ready, and they enjoy their job, they are going to be much better at reducing crime,” Jones said. Source: www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/06/14/new-emphasis-mental-health-cops-other-officers/102677982/ Cops don't usually talk about 'horrible things.' Mental health professionals help them cope with trauma When Police Chief Gregory Mullen started getting calls about a potential “mass casualty” at the Emanuel AME Church downtown, he knew the first officers on the scene might need some extra help. Not reinforcements or more firepower, but help coping with what he suspected would be a horrific scene. And he was right. In barely six minutes on the night of June 17, 2015, nine people at a Bible study at one of America’s oldest African-American churches were murdered when a young white man opened fire, spewing racial epithets and 77 hollow-point bullets. Eight victims died on the spot; one died later in the hospital. To counsel the first responders, Mullen called in cops who had experience with tough crime scenes. Some of those “peer-group cops” were from Blacksburg, Virginia, and had responded to the slaughter of 32 students and teachers at Virginia Tech in 2007. For decades, police have kept silent about the toll trauma takes on them, their families and their careers. One result, according to researchers, is that they have higher suicide rates than the general population. To change that, police departments across the country are turning to nonprofit or state-funded programs that help cops cope by connecting them to their peers and to mental health professionals. “There’s a much greater awareness of the effects of exposure to traumatic events in just the past five years,” said James Baker, a director with the International Association of Chiefs of Police. Many of the nonprofit programs are based on the Law Enforcement Assistance Program (LEAP) that began in South Carolina 20 years ago. Eric Skidmore, a Presbyterian pastor, launched the program with a federal grant, and now runs it in partnership with the state police. State taxpayers can check a box to contribute on their income tax forms, and the nonprofit raises additional money from supporters. Skidmore and his peer-support cops arrived less than 48 hours after the shooting at the church known as Mother Emanuel. “We did some psychological first aid,” Skidmore said. Later some of the responders attended a three-day seminar, where they talked in both large and small groups of officers who’ve gone through trauma, too. Programs like LEAP also offer professional mental health counseling, teach techniques to dispel lingering memories, and even provide massages to relieve tension. Arkansas, Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas and Virginia have similar programs, and Kentucky is creating one. In Florida, police departments in Miami-Dade and Seminole counties are leaders in providing strong psychological support for officers, Baker said. Not a single Charleston officer has retired early or quit the force as a result of the Emanuel Church shooting, according to Mullen. He credits the sessions put on by South Carolina’s LEAP program. “A really important part of law enforcement is making sure you keep your people mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually fit so they can do the work they are meant to do,” Mullen said. Cops typically don’t talk about “the horrible things that one human being does to another,” said Gregg Dwyer, a psychiatrist who works with the police assistance groups in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. “There’s fear of what it will do to them on the job if they open up. They worry, ‘Who’s going to know? Will it cost me a promotion?’” Dwyer, a former agent with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), said the military’s increasing openness to helping service members cope with trauma is starting to spread to police departments. But many police officers are still reluctant to open up. “The ethos of policing is: ‘We’re super people and we can’t be weak. We’re not a bunch of sissies,’ ” said John Violanti, a research professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo who studies police health. “What they forget is that they’re human.” Between 7 and 19 percent of America’s cops suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, although those numbers may be low because police don’t readily report their emotional health, according to Violanti. And police are much more likely to commit suicide, he said. Police have a 69 percent higher risk of suicide than the average worker, and detectives have an 82 percent higher risk, according to Violanti’s analysis of data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The cumulative effect of seeing mayhem over years makes cops more vulnerable to heart disease and diabetes, too, according to Violanti’s research. “It’s the classic example of mind affecting body,” he said. Cops also are working in a highly charged political atmosphere now, with criticism of police shootings of unarmed people, he said. “I relate it to the Vietnam War, where vets were spat on and called ‘baby killers,’ ” Violanti said. “It’s demoralizing.” The ‘Warrior Rescuer Mentality’ Benny Back was a deputy sheriff in Surry County, Virginia, in 2005 when he got the call that an 8-year-old girl had been hit by a driver as she was crossing the street. It was his daughter, Isabella. Though he’d been in the Army and been a cop for two decades, the loss hit him hard. “I started drinking heavily; I fell into alcohol, and had thoughts of suicide,” said Back, 51, who is now a deputy sheriff in Charles City, Virginia. His brother, Capt. Aaron Back of the North Carolina State Highway Patrol, hooked his brother up with the LEAP program in South Carolina, and took him there for a three-day session. “My brother fought me all the way. He didn’t want to go, no one would understand, blah, blah, blah,” Aaron said. The program was so successful for his brother that Aaron helped start a LEAP program in North Carolina in 2012. “Quite honestly, it saved my life,” Back said. When cops show up for a three-day seminar on dealing with trauma, they all have that reluctant “what have I gotten myself into” look, said Rita Villareal-Watkins, executive director of the Law Enforcement Management Institute in Huntsville, Texas, which has been running trauma sessions for five years. At the beginning of a typical session at many of these programs, officers (and sometimes their spouses) sit around a big table with peer-group cops and mental health professionals. The officers tell their stories, sometimes for the first time. Everything is confidential — their police chiefs won’t hear about what is said in the sessions. “It’s gut-wrenching,” said Watkins. “There’s a lot of emotion that first day. We share so much that the day is excruciatingly long.” On the second day, the participating officers break into small groups, then meet one-on-one with a health professional or a peer-group cop, and maybe get a massage. “These people are carrying so much physical stress and they don’t even realize it,” Watkins said. Then they participate in a technique to ease symptoms of trauma called Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). It’s an internationally known mode of treatment that combines talk therapy with rapid eye movement like you experience in deep sleep. People dealing with trauma can’t get the images of the violence they’ve seen out of their minds. “It’s like a 60-inch plasma color TV in front of your face all day long,” said Lt. Steve Click of the Ohio State Highway Patrol, who directs the Ohio program. After EMDR training, he said, “it’s a 20-inch black-and-white in the corner somewhere.” Karen Lansing, who’s known as the “cop whisperer,” is an expert on EMDR and has treated hundreds of police and U.S. military personnel who suffer from PTSD and other forms of trauma. Lansing was the first to study brain images and trauma in police. She says it’s tough to break through the “warrior rescuer mentality” that first responders and military people have. When she does an EMDR session, she asks officers to close their eyes and recall the traumatic event and focus on every thought, feeling, physical reaction and emotion they experienced. Lansing and the officer break the episode into minute-by-minute segments and discuss them over and over. “It’s a clinically controlled flashback,” she said. “We’re reactivating physical memory, what they tasted in their mouth, like the taste of metal, which is really adrenaline. What they actually felt as the bullet entered. What were the sounds around them,” Lansing said. “We do it again and again and again until we neutralize these bombs.” Stateline is a nonpartisan, nonprofit news service of the Pew Charitable Trusts that provides daily reporting and analysis on trends in state policy. Source: www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/07/22/cops-dont-usually-talk-horrible-things-mental-health-professionals-help-them-cope-trauma/496469001/ Top 20 Professoins Ranked by Suicidality 1. Farmworkers, fishermen, lumberjacks, others in forestry or agriculture (85 suicides per 100,000) 2. Carpenters, miners, electricians, construction trades (53) 3. Mechanics and those who do installation, maintenance, repair (48) 4. Factory and production workers (35) 5. Architects, engineers (32) 6. Police, firefighters, corrections workers, others in protective services (31) See Copline.org 7. Artists, designers, entertainers, athletes, media (24) 8. Computer programmers, mathematicians, statisticians (23) 9. Transportation workers (22) 10. Corporate executives and managers, advertising and public relations (20) 11. Lawyers and workers in legal system (19) 12. Doctors, dentists and other health care professionals (19) 13. Scientists and lab technicians (17) 14. Accountants, others in business, financial operations (16) 15. Nursing, medical assistants, health care support (15) 16. Clergy, social workers, other social service workers (14) 17. Real estate agents, telemarketers, sales (13) 18. Building and ground, cleaning, maintenance (13) 19. Cooks, food service workers (13) 20. Child care workers, barbers, animal trainers, personal care and service (8) Source: CDC Is a Suicide Attempt a Cry for Help? “She is not really suicidal. She just wants attention.” “He did not really attempt suicide. It was just a cry for help.” “If she had really wanted to die, she’d be dead.” These are often the reactions of friends and family to a suicidal person. Sometimes, it is true that a person who made what appeared to be a suicide attempt did not really want to die. One large study found that of people who reported that they had attempted suicide, almost half nevertheless endorsed the following survey item about their intentions: “My attempt was a cry for help. I did not intend to die.” The flip side of those study results is that the majority of people who reported a suicide attempt did intend to die. They endorsed one of two survey items: “I made a serious attempt to kill myself and it was only luck that I did not succeed” or “I tried to kill myself, but knew that the method was not fool-proof.” (On a side note, I take issue with the wording of these items, as no method is fool-proof.) When Suicidal Behavior Really Is a Cry for Help Even among those who reported a suicide attempt but did not actually intend to die, there still are serious problems for which these people deserve compassion and concern – certainly not derision – from others. First, people who hurt themselves in what they view as a suicide attempt do so because of great pain, desperation, or other distressing emotions. If they are crying out for help, there is usually a good reason for them to do so – and a good reason for others to listen. Second, it is normal for people to need and want attention. Everybody has a need for attention; what differs among people is how they go about getting it. Threatening or attempting suicide is a very unhealthy way to get attention or communicate distress to others. It is a sign that something is wrong. Even if the person does not really plan to die by suicide, he or she needs help. There are other, more healthy ways for people to let others know that they are suffering, angry, depressed, or otherwise in trouble and need help. Third, even people who threaten or attempt suicide to get other people’s attention can still die. Mistakes happen. A study of teens found that half overestimated the amount of Tylenol needed to cause death. So, a teen who did not truly want to die but took Tylenol as a means to signal distress to others could still die. Who knows how many of the suicides every year are a cry for help gone awry? Take All Suicidal (or Potentially Suicidal) Behavior Seriously In short, suicidal behavior is a serious, potentially fatal problem. This applies to suicidal thoughts as well as attempts. If someone you know is saying they really want to die by suicide – or has already tried – take them very seriously. They deserve empathy, compassion, and assistance, whether from you or professionals (or both). Which would be worse – to presume that somebody really is suicidal when they are not, or to presume that somebody is not suicidal when they really are? Although both situations are complicated, the second scenario can result in death. It is better to err on the side of safety. Source: www.speakingofsuicide.com/2013/06/17/cry-for-help/ Is Suicide Inevitable for Some People? A 61-year-old man, E.H., survived suicide attempts, received care for depression in psychiatric hospitals, and battled alcoholism for many years. His father died by suicide. E.H. was convinced that one day he, too, would kill himself. In 1961, he fatally shot himself in the head. Was his suicide inevitable? Ernest Hemingway, the famous author and the man described above, died by suicide in 1961. Eventually suicide also would claim two siblings and a granddaughter. A controversial article uses Hemingway as an example of what the author calls “inevitable suicide”: “the patient whose suicide will occur regardless of the most expert and skilled therapeutic intervention.” The article’s author, Benjamin Sadock, MD, blames this (supposed) inevitability on the unfortunate confluence of factors that can create excruciating despair, pain, and pathology: “When all of these areas—mental illness, genetics, and other risk factors— reach a critical mass, the extent of which remains to be determined, the likelihood of a particular patient taking his or her own life is increased to the point of inevitability.” Dissenting Views: Suicide is Not Inevitable for a Specific Person Two letters to the editor came out a few months after Dr. Sadock’s article. One letter, by psychologist Thomas Ellis, PsyD, states: “…the word inevitable is appropriate in some contexts, such as, ‘It is inevitable that some suicides will occur among psychiatric patients.’ But it is a different matter to suggest that some individuals’ suicides are or were inevitable. To do so is to risk rationalizing patient care practices that should be examined and corrected.” The other letter, by Thambu Maniam, MBSS, MPsychMed, likewise objects to the notion that any one person’s suicide was inevitable: “I remember a psychiatrist, whose patient had recently committed suicide, saying ‘You can’t stop suicide. Whatever you do, they will still die.’ I wonder what consequences such a fatalistic view would have on his practice.” My View: Suicide Prevention is Limited, but a Specific Person’s Suicide is Not Inevitable It is true that suicide is not, with our present state of knowledge, 100% preventable. So in that sense, in general, some suicides are inevitable. But – and this is an important distinction – the suicide of any one person in particular never is or was inevitable. As long as the suicidal person is alive, there is hope for change. Anything can happen in life at any moment to change the person’s situation, suffering or outlook. For our part, as mental health professionals, we have many tools to help a suicidal client recover hope, strengthen reasons for living, learn to cope better with emotional pain, and recover from psychological problems such as depression. Cognitive behavioral therapy and other evidence-based treatments, active listening, risk assessment, safety planning, skills training in mindfulness and other coping techniques, and the therapeutic relationship itself are just some of the healing tools that mental health professionals can draw from. Physicians and prescribing nurses have the added tool of medications. So why would Dr. Sadock declare some people’s suicides inevitable? He has good, if misguided, intentions. He writes that the concept of “inevitable suicide” can lessen the guilt of clinicians who unfairly blame themselves for the suicide of a client. The implication seems to be that if a specific client was going to die by suicide no matter what, then the people treating that person are not to blame. But this is a false dichotomy. A suicide need not be “inevitable” for a clinician to be blameless. A great many factors that can lead up to a suicide are well beyond the clinician’s control. This fact does not mean that any one specific person’s suicide is inevitable, only that psychotherapists and other mental health professionals are inherently limited in what they can do to prevent suicide in general. “Inevitability of Suicide” versus “Limitations in Suicide Prevention” As I said above, anything can happen at any moment to change a suicidal person’s path. This works both for us and against us. Although positive changes can occur suddenly, so can negative changes. There are so many things beyond the clinician’s control that the suicide of a client does not necessarily mean that the clinician did a bad job. With our current state of knowledge and tools, it is impossible to predict who will or will not attempt suicide. Some clients understate their suicidal intent, to avoid psychiatric hospitalization or interruption of their suicidal plan. On top of that, mental illnesses respond unpredictably to psychological and pharmacological treatments, with no treatment offering 100% effectiveness. And those are only a few of the limitations inherent to suicide prevention. We are limited in other ways, too, which I describe in my post: “You Can’t Do Everything”: Limitations in Helping a Suicidal Person. My motto is, “Do everything you can but know that you cannot do everything.” Summing Up: The False Premise of Inevitability Undermines Hope Even when mental health professionals bring all their skills and training into the room, even when they conduct a thorough risk assessment, even when they develop an attentive, empathic, therapeutic relationship with the client, even when they do do everything they can, the client still might die by suicide. It might sound like I agree with Dr. Sadock about the inevitability of some people’s suicides. I do not. Recall that he defines inevitable suicide as “the patient whose suicide will occur regardless of the most expert and skilled therapeutic intervention.” I agree that some people will die by suicide despite their clinicians’ “most expert and skilled therapeutic intervention.” I disagree that this means those people’s suicides were inevitable. To say that any one person’s suicide is inevitable is a nihilistic view that degrades hope, belies possibility for change, and can lead to complacency on the part of the professional. Instead of deeming suicide inevitable for any specific suicidal client, we need to look at the limitations that mental health professionals face with every suicidal client. These limitations merit research and other efforts to diminish them. I am grateful that we usually can help suicidal clients in spite of those limitations. Source: www.speakingofsuicide.com/2013/09/16/is-suicide-inevitable/ “You Can’t Do Everything”: Limitations in Helping a Suicidal Person Just about every list of “suicide myths” mentions this one: “If a person is serious about killing themselves then there is nothing you can do.” But is it always a myth? In important ways, yes, it is a myth. There are many things that loved ones of a suicidal individual can do to help – things like asking directly about suicidal thoughts, fully listening to the person, providing nonjudgmental emotional support, removing firearms and other lethal means from the home, giving a list of resources for help and support, and helping them to get professional help. At the same time, especially when suicidal thoughts and behaviors persist for many months or years, loved ones may come to a point where they have to recognize their limitations. In some important ways, their hands are tied. Recognizing My Own Limitations with a Loved One I came to the realization many years ago that I could not fully protect a close friend from suicide. She went through an extremely suicidal time for over a year. One night, she came to my house at midnight with her wrist bleeding. She had attempted suicide. She refused to let me call an ambulance, and it even took much persuading before she would let me take her to the ER. They gave her stitches and discharged her to my house (she refused hospitalization and did not meet criteria for involuntary commitment). The doctors advised me to remove all sharp implements and pills from her reach. My friend stayed with me a couple days. When she went back home, I was left with this feeling of abject helplessness, this recognition that she might kill herself, and also this sudden acceptance that ultimately I could not control if she died by suicide. Even when she was at my house, even with all my sharp implements and pills hidden in the locked trunk of my car, I could not have prevented her suicide. I had to use the bathroom sometimes. I had to sleep. She could have walked out the door at any time and found other sharp implements, pills or means to die by suicide. Ultimately, though I did what I could, I was helpless. Recognizing Your Limitations No matter how desperately you may wish otherwise, there is only so much you can do to stop another person from dying by suicide. You cannot monitor a family member or friend every second of the day. You cannot remove all means for suicide entirely from their world. Although you can talk with them about their suicidal thoughts, you cannot read their mind if they choose not to share them Even professionals are not fully able to prevent suicides. One study found that almost 1 in 5 people who died by suicide had seen a mental health professional within 30 days of their death. That means that in the United States, with almost 43,000 people dying by suicide in 2014, more than 8,000 of them had recently seen a mental health professional. A study in Finland found that almost 10% of suicides occurred within 24 hours, at most, of an appointment with a health professional. Even inside locked psychiatric hospital units, even when patients are under constant supervision, some patients die by suicide. That is staggering. It is also illuminating. If mental health professionals and psychiatric hospitals cannot prevent all suicides, then how can friends and family be expected to do so? Coping with Your Limitations When I realized my inherent limitations with my friend, I came up with a saying (I’m sure I’m not the first): Do everything you can, but know you can’t do everything. It is hard, terribly hard, to sit with the fundamental helplessness you may feel about your loved one who is in danger of suicide. At these times, it can be helpful to really recognize that most people who end up dying by suicide have depression, post-traumatic stress or another mental illness, a genuine and sometimes severe illness, just like cancer or heart disease. Although the illness is treatable in most cases, and although most suicidal people go on to live many years without ever dying by suicide, the illness might prove to be fatal. Michael J. Gitlin, M.D., is a psychiatrist who lost a patient to suicide shortly after finishing his psychiatric residency. He wrote about his experience in a poignant journal article. As somebody who specialized in treating people with severe depression, he articulated the high probability of suicide among some of his patients. He came to accept that his work was like that of a doctor working with cancer patients: Not everyone could be saved. I am not saying that loved ones and therapists should not do what they can to prevent a person’s suicide. Of course they should! Many lives have been saved by the actions of concerned others who did their best to help. But if a life is lost, that does not necessarily mean that anyone failed, that anyone made a grave mistake, that anyone is to blame. You do everything you can, with the understanding that “everything you can” cannot be everything. Source: www.speakingofsuicide.com/2013/06/21/you-cant-do-everything/ U.S. deaths from alcohol, drugs and suicide hit highest level since record-keeping began The number of deaths from alcohol, drugs and suicide in 2017 hit the highest level since federal data collection started in 1999, according to an analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data by two public health nonprofits. The national rate for deaths from alcohol, drugs and suicide rose from 43.9 to 46.6 deaths per 100,000 people in 2017, a 6 percent increase, the Trust for America's Health and the Well Being Trust reported Tuesday. That was a slower increase than in the previous two years, but it was greater than the 4 percent average annual increase since 1999. Deaths from suicides rose from 13.9 to 14.5 deaths per 100,000, a 4 percent increase. That was double the average annual pace over the previous decade. Suicide by suffocation increased 42 percent from 2008 to 2017. Suicide by firearm increased 22 percent in that time. Psychologist Benjamin Miller, chief strategy officer of the Well Being Trust, says broader efforts are needed to address the underlying causes of alcohol and drug use and suicide. "It's almost a joke how simple we're trying to make these issues," he says. "We're not changing direction, and it's getting worse." The health and well-being trusts propose approaches including: More funding and support for programs that reduce risk factors and promote resilience in children, families and communities. Trauma and adverse childhood experiences such as incarcerated parents or exposure to domestic violence increase the risk of drug and alcohol abuse and suicide. Policies that limit people's access to the means of suicide, such as the safe storage of medications and firearms, and responsible opioid prescribing practices. More resources for programs that reduce the risk of addiction and overdose, especially in areas and among people most affected, and equal access to such services. While overdose antidotes and treatment for opioid use disorder are needed, Miller says, "it's not going to fix" the underlying problems that lead people to end their lives, whether or not it's intentional. In most states, deaths from alcohol, drugs and suicides increased in 2017. In five – Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Utah and Wyoming – those deaths fell. Deaths from synthetic opioids, including the narcotic pain reliever fentanyl, rose 45 percent. Such deaths have increased tenfold in the past five years. Loribeth Bowman Stein says the lack of social connection fuels hopelessness: "We don’t really see each other anymore." "We don’t share our hopes and joys in the same way, and we aren’t as available to one another, physically and emotionally, as we need to be," says Stein, of Milford, Connecticut. "The world got smaller, but lonelier." LoriBeth Bowman Stein of Milford, Conn. says people aren't connected as much as they used to be. Miller agrees. When people feel a "lack of belonging," he says, "they seek meaning in other places." That can lead them to withdraw into addiction. The new report emphasizes what should be done differently. Kimberly McDonald is a licensed clinical social worker who has worked in a hospital, for county government and in private practice. She lost her father to suicide in 2010. "We are a society that criticizes and lacks compassion, integrity, and empathy," the Richmond, Wisconsin, woman says. "I work daily with individuals who each have their own demons." McDonald's father took his own life after diagnoses of Lewy body dementia and Parkinson’s disease. "He knew the trajectory of where the disease would take him," she says. John Auerbach, the former Massachusetts state health secretary who heads Trust for America's Health, says the country needs to better understand and address what drives "these devastating deaths of despair.” If you are interested in connecting with people online who have overcome or are struggling with issues mentioned in this story, join USA TODAY’s "I Survived It" Facebook support group. Source; www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2019/03/05/suicide-alcohol-drug-deaths-centers-disease-control-well-being-trust/3033124002/ Suicide prevention experts: What you say (and don't say) could save a person's life Mental health experts say it's time to normalize conversations about suicide. For every person who dies by suicide, 280 people think seriously about it but don’t act, according to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. There's not one answer to what makes someone move from thinking about suicide to planning or attempting it, but experts say feeling connected to other people can help. "Reaching out ... can save a life," said Jill Harkavy-Friedman, a clinical psychologist and vice president of research at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. "Everybody can play a role.” Tip 1. If someone seems different, don't ignore it The most important thing you can do is look for a change in someone's behavior that suggests they are struggling, said April Foreman, a licensed psychologist who serves on the American Association of Suicidology's board of directors. It could look like a friend who would always pick up your calls but now seems to be avoiding you. Or a family member who was an adventurous eater now barely eating or skipping meals. "Trust your gut," Foreman says. "If you’re worried, believe your worry." Foreman notes changes in behavior are some of the most telling indicators, but it's also important to look for specific warning signs: Talking about wanting to die or to kill themselves Looking for a way to kill themselves, like searching online or buying a gun Talking about feeling hopeless or having no reason to live Talking about feeling trapped or in unbearable pain Talking about being a burden to others Increasing the use of alcohol or drugs Acting anxious or agitated, behaving recklessly Sleeping too little or too much Withdrawing or isolating themselves Showing rage or talking about seeking revenge Extreme mood swings Tip 2. Don't be afraid to ask. Then act The most important thing you can do if you think someone may be suicidal is to ask. It may be hard, but it works. Don't buy into the disproven idea that there's nothing you can do to help, or that bringing up suicide might do more harm than good. The National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention and the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline have identified these five steps to help reduce deaths: Ask: In a private setting, ask the person you're worried about directly if they're thinking about suicide. Studies have shown that it does not "plant the idea" in someone who is not suicidal but rather reduces risk. It lets the person know you're open to talking, that there's no shame in what the person may be feeling. If a person tells you they're thinking about suicide, actively listen. Don't act shocked. Don't minimize their feelings. Don't debate the value of life itself. Focus on their reasons for living. You could ask questions such as, "What's kept you safe up to this point?" or "What stops you from killing yourself?" Keep them safe: Determine the extent of the person's suicidal thoughts. "We want to know, are you thinking about killing yourself? Do you have a plan? What were you thinking of doing? Do you have the materials to do that? Have you gathered those things? Where are they? What could I do to help you stay around until this passes?" Harkavy-Freidman said. If a person does have a plan, it's important to take action to remove the lethal means. (Guns were used in 23,000 of the 45,000 deaths by suicide in 2016, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.) Be there: If someone tells you they're thinking about suicide, continue to support them. Ask them to coffee. Give them a call. Some people will eventually stop having suicidal thoughts and feelings, others will continue to struggle throughout their lives. Deena Nyer Mendlowitz, 40, of Cleveland, is a suicide attempt survivor who has had chronic thoughts of suicide since she was 8. Mendlowitz said one of the moments she felt most supported was when she was going through electroconvulsive therapy and a friend brought her a meal. "I just felt like I had a regular disease at that point, because they were doing an action they would have done for a friend who was going through anything else," she said. "And I thought, somebody cares about me in the regular way they care about people." Help them connect: Encourage them to seek additional support. That could mean calling the Suicide Lifeline (800-273-8255), suggesting they see a mental health professional or helping them connect with a support group. Jennifer Sullivan, a 21-year-old college student at Worcester State University in Massachusetts, struggled with suicidal ideation as an adolescent. It grew worse after she was raped twice, she said. Joining a sexual assault support group made her feel less alone. "I met a fantastic group of young ladies," she said. "One became one of my best friends. When I had feelings of wanting to die or cut, I would tell her I was having a bad day." Follow up: Keep checking in. Call them, text them. Ask if there's anything more you can do to help. Tip 3. Pay special attention when someone is going through a difficult time You can check in on people based on what you know about them, said John Draper, director of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. "All those warning signs that we’ve listed for what makes a person look suicidal are fairly generic and hard for us to be able to spot unless you’re a diagnostician," Draper said. "However, you know when a person is having relationship problems or going through a divorce – you know when somebody has serious financial loss. ... These are very human recognizable signs that people could be needing help." While experts caution that suicide is never the result of a single cause (bullying, a breakup, job loss), when those events are combined with other health, social and environmental factors they can heighten risk. Tip 4. If someone makes an attempt and survives, continue to be there One of the risk factors for suicide is a prior attempt. Studies show that suicide survivors often experience discrimination and shame and may struggle to talk about their feelings because they are worried people will judge or avoid them. "When I started publicly speaking about my experience ... people would treat me differently," said Chief Warrant Officer Cliff Bauman, a suicide survivor in the Army National Guard. "Somebody, if he was my friend and we laughed and joked the day before, now suddenly doesn’t know how to approach and talk to me." If someone you know is a suicide survivor, the Suicide Lifeline says: Check in with them often. Tell them it's OK for them to talk about their suicidal feelings. Listen without judgment. Tell them you want them in your life. If they start to show warning signs, ask directly if they're thinking about suicide. Call the Lifeline for advice on how to help. Tip 5. You don’t need to have all the answers It's important to encourage someone who is having suicidal thoughts to call the Lifeline (800-273-8255), find a support group or reach out to a therapist, particularly one who specializes in evidence-based suicide prevention techniques such as Dialectical Behavior Therapy and Cognitive Behavior Therapy for Suicide Prevention. Resources to get help Suicide Lifeline: If you or someone you know may be struggling with suicidal thoughts you can call the U.S. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255) any time of day or night or chat online. Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7, confidential support via text message to people in crisis when they dial 741741 and text "SOS" For people who identify as LGBTQ, if you or someone you know is feeling hopeless or suicidal, you can also contact The Trevor Project's TrevorLifeline 24/7/365 at 1-866-488-7386. The Military/Veterans Crisis Line, online chat, and text-messaging service are free to all service members, including members of the National Guard and Reserve and veterans, even if you are not registered with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) or enrolled in VA health care. Call 1-800-73-8255 and press 1 of text to 838255 Stories of hope: Stepping back from the ledge Suicide never entered his mind. Then 9/11 happened. She worked in suicide prevention. Then one day she had to save herself. You may also be interested in: Suicide is one of the nation's top killers. When will we start acting like it? If you've ever had suicidal thoughts, make a safety plan To connect with suicide survivors and others, join USA TODAY's Facebook group I Survived It After a suicide, here’s what happens to the people left behind Source: www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/09/10/suicide-prevention-how-help-someone-who-suicidal/965640002/ When a child's friend dies by suicide. First: Deal with your own feelings When your child's life is touched by the suicide of a peer or a friend, you may find yourself experiencing a lot of different things about the same time. Initially, you will most likely be stunned by the death. Suicide is, in fact, a rare occurrence that is difficult for most of us to understand. When a young person makes the devastating choice, our personal sense of shock and confusion can be overwhelming. The questions of how and why did this happen are often fodder for neighborhood gossip and speculation. This is when its so important to remember that suicide is a complex act that is always related to a variety of causes. We may never know all the reasons for any suicide, and within this vacuum of complete and accurate information we are often presented with halffacts and speculation. Especially after the suicide of a young person, we tend to feel if we can ferret out the causes, we can protect ourselves, and our children, from a similar fate. And while its true that understanding the risk factors and warning signs of suicide can be very helpful, we don't want to make judgments or assumptions about this particular death. So don't give in to random conversations about the reasons for death. The most important thing any of us can say is that this young person was not thinking clearly and made a terrible choice, and the cost was his or her life. If you knew the deceased personally, you may feel a jumble of emotions yourself. Give yourself sometime to let the news settle. Expect shock to mix with sadness and helplessness. Ultimately, the fact that this youngster completed suicide will be less central to your emotions than the fact that he or she is dead and will be missed by you. It is critical for you to take time to deal with your own feelings before you approach your child. Remember the directives from air travel about the use of oxygen masks . you must put on your own mask before you can help anyone else with theirs! Next: Help your kids This initial response of shock may be followed quickly by concern for your own children. If your child had a personal relationship with the deceased, your child's grief should be your first priority. Grief in childhood looks differently than it does in adulthood. Children tend to experience intense feelings, such as those that accompany a significant loss, in short bursts. Such feelings normally pass quickly, which is why it is important to seize those teachable moments� when the door to conversation about the death may be open. Start by expressing your own sadness and confusion about the death, and then ask your child to share his or her reactions. Validate whatever you hear. I can appreciate your sadness, confusion, anger, lack of understanding. Be prepared fore the classic response of �"I don't know" and validate that too! I understand when something like this happens, it can be hard to know how you feel. If you've been hearing rumors about the death, chances are your child has heard them also. Address the rumors with your child. There are a lot of rumors floating around about what happened. Have you heard anything? Explain that although some of the rumors may be true, they are only part of the story and we have to be careful not to make judgments based on limited information. Emphasize that the most important piece of the story is the fact that the deceased felt so terrible or was thinking so unclearly that he or she did not realize in the consequences of what he or she was doing. This is especially important to discuss if drugs or alcohol are implicated in the death. Remind your child, without preaching or lecturing, about the effects of drugs on impulse control and judgment. Because children normally imitate or copy the behavior of peers, you may want to underscore the dangerous consequences of the deceased�s behavior. Sometimes children are intrigued by the circumstances of a suicide completion or attempt, so it is essential to state emphatically that there can be a fine line between dangerous and deadly behavior . and their friend�s death is a reflection of this. If they hear any of their friends talking about coping the behavior of the deceased, they need to tell an adult immediately! This leads into the final part of the conversation: a discussion about help seeking. Emphasize that nothing in life is ever so terrible or devastating that suicide is the way to handle it. Ask your child to whom she or he would turn to for help with a serious problem. Hopefully, your name will be on the top of the list, but don't be upset if it isn't. Depending on your child's age, his or her allegiance may have shifted to peers. Agree that friends are a great resource but that when a problem is so big that suicide to peers. Agree that friends are a great resource but that when a problem is so big that suicide is being considered as its solution, its essential to get help from an adult, too. Ask which adults your child views as helpful, especially with difficult problems. If the list is short or nonexistent, make some suggestions. Good choices can include other adult family member, school staff such as teachers, counselors, coaches or the school nurse, clergy or youth ministers, a friend�s parent and older siblings or even neighbors. This identity of the person is less important than the fact that your child recognizes the importance of sharing problems with a trusted adult. You may also want to recognize that your child may be concerned about the well�being of a friend or classmate and that these same adults are a great resource in those situations, too. Its never good to keep worries about a friend to one�s self, especially if the worrisome are about something as serious as suicide. Revisit these messages about help seeking in other conversations. Unanswered questions and complicated feelings about a suicide linger, even if they are unspoken, and ignoring them does not make them go away. Talking about suicide can't plant the idea in your child's head. On the contrary, creating an open forum for discussion of difficult subjects like suicide can give your child the opportunity to recognize you as one of his trusted adults and will offer the chance to practice help seeking skills. WHAT TO DO Deal with your own reactions Avoid gossip about the causes Remain nonjudgmental about the deceased Share your reactions with your child Ask for his/her response and validate it Acknowledge rumors and put into context Underscore the dangerous behavior of the deceased Introduce topic of help seeking Keep channels of communication open! The Complexities Behind the Act of Suicide Editor's note: For a comment from the Editor in Chief, as well as reader response(s) to this article, please click here. I am a 78-year-old retiree, living in Australia. I notice that there have recently been a few articles about the contentious subject of suicide in Psychiatric Times. My first wife died from suicide about 40 years ago, and my second wife died 3 years ago after a short illness. Some people do commit suicide, and this has surely happened since humans first walked the earth. This is not a treatise on the causes or possible reasons for suicide, but the complexities behind the act have puzzled me for many years. In particular our seeming abhorrence and our obvious dismay, regret, and great sadness that anyone should even contemplate the need to end their life, by whatever means has taxed my understanding and the meaning of my life. What follows below is my considered opinion. I ask the question—why is suicide considered such a bad thing? Now I am not advocating that anyone should commit suicide. I am just trying to pick apart the emotional clutter that accompanies this very personal and private act. The only answers I get are that it is a waste of a (usually) young person’s life; that they were loved; that they had unlimited potential, now never to be realized; that they had a future to live for . . . etc, etc. This is partially correct but is not a real answer. The person concerned—the person now deceased—obviously had a different view of life. I am not discussing his or her view—I have no idea what that was. I am discussing our view—that of the outsider—the ones left behind. Why are we “outsiders” (I deliberately use this word because we are “outside” that person’s inner world) affronted because someone considers living—in their current situation—to be so bad, so threatening, so limiting as to be not worthwhile continuing? Are we discomforted because this rejection, this dismissal of all we have striven for (in “our” world), may reflect poorly on us, those left behind, regarding the way we have organized the world? Are we disturbed by the confronting prospect of having to admit that we make mistakes and that the way in which the economy, our legal, welfare, and education systems are set up may actually cause distress, that we are not always fair or just in our dealings? Do we feel guilty that we have developed a financial system that promotes the massive imbalance between the very wealthy and the very poor and the disadvantaged? We have to recognize that we are all, all, party to the ills of the world. We created them. If we look with even a modicum of insight, we should see in ourselves the cause of these shortcomings and see ourselves reflected in the eyes of the distressed. And we should be dismayed. Is this why we consider suicide a “bad thing” and are so shocked when it occurs? It is needful to remember that we, each one of us, have our own experiences of life. These are our own. No one can see the world through our eyes with the same imagery and emotional response. No one can see the world through our eyes with our life experiences and our interpretations of those experiences—these are our own. So, I ask the question again—why is suicide considered such a bad thing? Obviously for the person concerned the prospect of death is more alluring than continuing living as currently experienced. What is “wrong” with that? It is their choice. Then, for some to say that only God can decide when or where a person dies is surely a gross over assumption—how do they know? What special insight do they possess? Is it not possible, because (I assume) God gave us free will that God may have already decided to allow a person who wants to die, to die? Furthermore, to declare (as some authority figures do) that most people who commit suicide suffer from a mental “illness” or disorder is surely wrong. It is also highly presumptuous on the part of the person making such a declaration—how do they ACTUALLY know! This is categorizing a person, who now has no recourse or ability to refute the presumption. This is putting a label on someone. And what about those “outsiders” left behind to live with the event—the family and friends? Are they to be made to suffer further pain with the stigma provided by so called experts who provide the “knowledge” that their son, daughter, friend, brother, sister “must have been mentally deranged” to have committed such an act. This implies that no “normal” person would ever do such a thing! What about self-sacrifice when there is loss of life? Isn’t this an act of suicide? But if it saves the life of others it is considered “noble”! (“There is no greater love than this, that a man should lay down his life for his friends,” English King James Bible: John 15:13). Research on completed suicides is notoriously difficult. It is always referring to an historic act—something that has already happened. Police, the coroner’s, autopsy, psychiatric and psychological, and counselling reports are analyzed and carefully combed through to try and establish some reason or motive for the suicide. This is fraught as it is impossible to know what was actually going through a person’s mind at the precise moment they took their own life. At that moment they made a choice. Why? We can never know. Shall we now look at what suicide actually is? Someone taking his or her own life—right? It seems that the “act” is only considered suicide if it results in the quick death of the person concerned. But what about those who commit suicide in the “long term”? Those who drink or drug themselves to death over a number of years, what about them? They may suffer from abuse, or from unbearable pressures associated with their domestic arrangements or at work. They may determine that the easiest and most “socially acceptable” way of easing this pressure or pain, is to get drunk or to get “stoned” on a regular basis. It may take some time but in possibly 5 or 10 years they will be dead. The emotional (and economic) “cost” of this (“long-term suicide”) far exceeds that of any number of “quick” suicides. To get back to the “mental illness or disorder” accusation. Disordered from what? What are these people supposed to be disordered from? From “normal”? As far as I can discover, there is no accepted definition of “normal.” Possibly those considered “disordered” react to life’s trials and tribulations differently from those around them. Are they wrong? Or are we “outsiders” just being intolerant and lacking in understanding or compassion? Maybe these people are just eccentric—God knows there are enough odd-ball people in the community! Some behavior may be considered maladaptive or possibly antisocial by “outsiders” but not by the people concerned—otherwise they wouldn’t act the way they do! Similarly, why should anyone “live” according to another’s expectations? The Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711-1776) wrote the essay, “Suicide,” wherein he said, “I believe that no man ever threw away Life while it was worth keeping.” What follows is a warning relating to antidepressant drugs, with which you will be familiar: US FOOD AND Drug Administration Product Information Warning Patients with major depressive disorder, both adult and pediatric, may experience worsening of their depression and/or the emergence of suicidal ideation and behavior (suicidality), whether or not they are taking antidepressant medications, and this risk may persist until significant remission occurs. Although there has been a long-standing concern that antidepressants may have a role in inducing worsening of depression and the emergence of suicidality in certain patients, a causal role for antidepressants in inducing such behaviors has not been established. Nevertheless, patients being treated with antidepressants should be observed closely for clinical worsening and suicidality, especially at the beginning of a course of drug therapy, or at the time of dose changes, either increases or decreases. Consideration should be given to changing the therapeutic regimen, including possibly discontinuing the medication, in patients whose depression is persistently worse or whose emergent suicidality is severe, abrupt in onset, or was not part of the patient’s presenting symptoms. From the above it is apparent that psychopharmaceutical medications are not always the answer! Finally, I give you a quote from the Indian sage Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895-1986), who said, “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” There we have it—in a nutshell! Source: www.psychiatrictimes.com/suicide/complexities-behind-act-suicide From the Editor: As anticipated, the commentary “The Complexities Behind the Act of Suicide” by Andrew Campbell-Watt in the March 2019 issues of Psychiatric Times generated a wide range of feedback. Our intent in publishing this commentary was to give voice to the author, a 78-year-old man who has reflected on the suicide of his first wife for over 40 years—a person deeply affected by a suicide who was compelled to share his personal perspective after deliberating on the meaning of suicide for decades after the loss of his wife. As clinical psychiatrists, understanding how individuals grieve, process, and in some cases make peace with the suicide of a loved one can only serve to enhance our own empathy for our patients and any person whose life has been impacted by suicide. Many factors can shape a person’s understanding of the reasons, experiences, and circumstances that ultimately converge on an individual’s decision to take their own life. As Mr. Campbell-Watt states, often we will never know the personal deliberations that occurred in the moments before a completed suicide. As psychiatrists, it is our ethical and professional duty to intervene to prevent a person from suicidal actions. Often, days, weeks or months after our intervention to prevent a suicide the person involved is grateful for our intervention, especially when the circumstances, experiences, symptoms or substance abuse issues have been thoughtfully addressed and that great healer “time” has enacted its gift. However, this is not always the case, and a subset of individuals will continue to attempt suicide until they succeed. Suicide is, indeed, a complex act. We encourage a healthy and respectful discussion on the many facets of suicide, some of which may invite us to explore beyond our personal beliefs and opinions. We will post follow-up letters to the editor to encourage this discussion and exploration. John J. Miller, MD Editor in Chief, Psychiatric Times From Our Readers: Nancy B. Graham, MD The commentary in the March, 2019 issue on suicide written by Andrew Campbell-Watt was profoundly disturbing to me as a psychiatrist. I do not know what professional or educational credentials Mr. Campbell-Watt possesses to qualify his writing knowledgeably on this topic in this newspaper. Obviously, much of our psychiatric work is devoted to deciding when people might be a danger to themselves and to try to prevent their suicides. He asks why suicide is such a bad thing. There are many reasonable answers to that question, but I suspect he would accept few of them. First, suicide has been considered an evil, selfish act throughout thousands of years in all Judeo-Christian cultures. Only in so-called pagan cultures (e.g. the Greeks, the Romans, the Japanese samurai society) would suicide be an acceptable or even noble act. Next follows the reality that practicing psychiatrists have all seen suicidal patients stop wanting to die when their mental illness was treated or their social or emotional or physical needs were met. Many of our patients, after nearly dying from a suicide attempt, no longer have any wish to die. In fact, people who survived leaps off the Golden Gate Bridge have usually said they regretted their decision to die on the way down. The wish to die is generally a transient wish linked to certain changing circumstances. Third, Mr. Campbell-Watt does not consider the traumatic and permanently life–altering effect of suicide on the family and friends of the deceased. This act is never a solitary affair and grieving people are forever left with unanswered questions, never fully quenched pain, and a great hollow inside. Most patients who have tried to kill themselves have told me they weren’t thinking of their loved ones when they acted, because their pain was so great. Is that not then, though understandable, a profoundly selfish act? The rate of suicide, by the way, is greatly increased in the children of parents who killed themselves. What a wonderful legacy to give your kids! He also conflates suicide and dying to save another life. Suicide is performed only to end one’s life—that is the purpose and method of “escape.” Sacrificing one’s life for another is NOT suicide. The person dying does not do the act to die but to save life. How different are the motivations though each person dies! In the end suicide is exactly what the word means – “murder of self.” Murder—just contemplate that word. How much better is the suffering person trying to murder himself than the one who murders another? He is taking a life he never gave himself and slaughtering that life, admittedly out of pain. But there is help for pain. Pain is a momentary thing, even if it lasts some years. All pain comes to an end naturally in time. If the sufferer endures the pain, he may be restored to health, partially or fully. As long as he lives, there is hope, yet suicide takes away hope. Even those who, as Mr. Campbell-Watt, puts it, commit “long-term suicide” by abusing their bodies still have the opportunity to change for the better and live a full life. Again, drug abuse or other destructive habits are not an active attempt to kill oneself but to feel better. The commentary’s author does not mention that slippery ethical slope at the top of voluntary, adult suicide to the mud-slicked bottom of involuntary killing of various people. It’s not so far from there to “helping” the elderly, the chronically sick, the handicapped, the “deformed,” and the unwanted on to their reward. Ask the Netherlands how involuntary euthanasia is working out for them after they allowed voluntary suicide. Read about the patients who pin notes on their chests saying, “Do not kill me” when they go in the hospital. Follow the news stories about the babies and children whose parents decide they should die because of their poor health. Once it seems expedient for some people to move on, it is much easier to see how others should, too. Finally he asks why “anyone should live according to another’s expectations.” Killing oneself is not living at all and has nothing to do with others’ expectations. Incidentally we all live according to some social expectations, and those who don’t end up in prison or dead; society dictates that we shall not rob others, we shall not rape others, we shall not kill others, we shall not abuse others. Those are very good rules. Total personal autonomy is not only antisocial and harmful—it is impossible. Sincerely, Nancy B. Graham, MD Richmond, KY From Our Readers: Alicia Vaughn Dear Mr. Campbell-Watt, I read your piece in Psychiatric Times with great interest. Many of the questions you raise have puzzled me, too. While I did find some of your ideas disturbing, Dr. Nancy Graham’s letter was equally troublesome, to me. Respectfully, may I suggest to both of you that Is suicide such a bad thing? is the wrong question? Is it wrong, evil, and selfish? only compounds the problem and obfuscates the way forward. As someone who has lived with suicidal thoughts for much of my life, these questions have worked against my efforts to remain alive. Guilt and shame—and their unholy offspring, stigma—encouraged my parents to keep secret my first suicide attempts just as strong religious traditions in my part of the country continue to fuel the difficulties I face in managing my mental health issues. You ask many questions about suicide but curiously, you leave the one area that would seem of most interest to readers of Psychiatric Times unexplored. Where I live, firearms, drugs and other means by which I could commit suicide are readily available. As long as I don’t disclose my intentions to anyone, ending my life is a relatively straightforward endeavor. It’s when I decide to try to stay alive, and begin to navigate the American health care system—a process euphemistically referred to as getting help—that complexities arise. Perhaps it’s different, where you live, but the central issue in the United States is that if I commit suicide while in the care of a mental health professional, that person can be held liable for my death, a fact of which I’m sure not a single Psychiatric Times reader is unaware. It’s no surprise to me that among clinicians who assume those risks are countless “outsiders” who are decidedly “affronted” by the idea of suicide. This peculiar dilemma and its infuriating collection of resultant complexities have shaped the psychiatric care available to me more than anything having to do with the “complexities behind the act” of suicide itself, or even my own needs, as a person experiencing suicidal thoughts. Please picture this...I’m at a psychiatric clinic, sitting across from a caring, well-trained and experienced outpatient provider. The moment I utter the “s” word, all efforts to see my “circumstances [and] symptoms... thoughtfully addressed” as Dr. Miller describes, are immediately suspended to allow for thorough risk assessment. From this point forward, my relationship with my doctor will split its focus between the treatment of my symptoms and the management of the threat I pose to his or her livelihood. Every decision he or she makes now must balance what might be best for me against what can be defended in court. So there we are, this doctor and I, in the same room, with the same goal: keep me from dying by suicide. To effect that outcome, what does this clinician really have to offer me? He or she can try to alleviate the symptoms of my depression, but that may or may not affect my suicidal thoughts. What about drugs specifically developed to reduce the likelihood of suicide? There are none. What about this doctor’s specialized training in treating suicidal clients? There’s very little to be had, I’m told. Does he or she have access to a knowledge base of relevant research? What research is currently underway, I wonder, apart from that aimed at improving risk assessment so as to better indemnify those individuals who care for patients likely to succumb to suicide? As far as I can tell, my outpatient provider has little choice but to rely on assumption, anecdote and personal experience in place of evidence-based medicine. The bewildering statements Dr. Graham offers throughout her letter: the wish to die is generally a transient wish... pain is a momentary thing... killing oneself has nothing to do with others’ expectations... evince the familiar dismissive, accusatory approach favored by the majority of my 28 years’ worth of health care providers. While Dr. Graham’s truisms might not be true, they do make suicide is wrong easier to accept. Rolling them out again and again also makes it easier to convince me that attempting suicide means I’m petulant, short-sighted and selfish. Those three in turn justify the ever-present implication that a doctor’s duty includes the application of additional guilt and shame—maybe even a little intimidation—because the “standard of care” requires I be made to understand that suicide is wrong, lest attempts to investigate my motivations, validate my feelings or accept that ultimately, my personal autonomy in this context is absolute might be mistaken for approbation. To trade condemnation for productive efforts at meaningful change might accidentally reward me, the wrongdoer. What I’m getting at is that getting help often proves far from helpful. The Is it so bad? / Is it wrong? debate devalues the humility required to ask the questions that need asking, and the courage required to answer them with enough honesty to facilitate actual improvement. Absent that humility, my doctor and I are left in a sadly adversarial situation, full of bullying and empty assurances (even if they’re born of genuine empathy for the worried human being charged with my care) that yes, I feel better now. While I appreciate Dr. Graham’s sincere belief that her patients regret their actions, all she can really know is what they report to her, and if suicide is wrong is in the room, what they say might speak less of their genuine experience than of the guilt and shame engendered by her (hopefully) unspoken but plainly apparent contempt for those who, even “admittedly out of pain,” attempt to end their lives. I’ve had 28 years to wonder why doctors resort to such negative tactics. I don’t know that I ever arrived at an answer, but at some point, that question turned into a different one: What is it reasonable for me to expect from someone who assumes the risk of treating me in return for (I kid you not) $60 per visit? Who in their right mind (pardon the expression) would accept that risk? Once I arrived at those questions, it upset me less that most outpatient providers won’t accept me as a patient, not with my history of medically-serious attempts, multiple hospitalizations and failed medication trials. I understand now that the risk I represent is just too great. I’ve also spent the last 28 years evaluating and re-evaluating the risk my family and I take, every time I seek help. How profoundly will another pointless hospitalization jeopardize our financial future? How likely is it that a doctor on my insurance company’s panel will have the training and experience to help me avert a sixth attempt instead of intensifying my feelings of helplessness? It has been several years since my last serious struggle with suicidal thoughts. These days, I am not involved in any efforts to end my life. Should thoughts of suicide arise in the future, will I try to get help? Not if the resources available to me are the same ones available to me at the present time. The risk that such help will not prove helpful and that the cost will only add to the stressors driving my suicidal thinking is just too great. I feel a great deal of empathy for you, Mr. Campbell-Watt; I can’t help but imagine that you are a lot like my own husband—hurt and confused, with as genuine a desire to understand your wife as my husband has to understand me. My suicide is not yet an historic act, however, and the questions which matter to me do so in an immediate and concrete way. So I ask you, and Dr. Graham, Dr. Miller, and all Psychiatric Times readers: If it’s too risky for me to seek treatment, and too risky for psychiatrists to accept me as a patient, is that so bad? Is that wrong? I think it is. Sincerely, Alicia Vaughn Source: www.psychiatrictimes.com/suicide/complexities-behind-act-suicide/page/0/3 Supporting LGBTQ Youth in the Wake of Suicide We all have a responsibility to educate, counsel, organize and demonstrate so that no LGBTQ youth feels life is not worth living. Gender Spectrum joins in the pain and sorrow following the recent death of a transgender* teenager whose online expression of pain and call to action has gone viral. The outpouring of support from those sharing this story clearly comes from those yearning to make the world a better place for young people. But while online calls to action can be effective tools to create visibility and action, there can also be a downside to some viral stories depicting deaths by suicide. Three years ago twelve LGBTQ and Mental Health Organizations co-published a guide with recommendations about how to talk about suicide and LGBTQ youth. The document shared the best research in the field, which indicated that: Viral campaigns about suicide and LGBTQ youth can make suicide seem like a logi­cal consequence of the kinds of bullying, rejection, discrimination and exclusion that LGBTQ people often experience Idealizing people who have died by suicide may encourage others to identify with the victim or seek to emulate them The underlying causes of most suicide deaths are complex and can’t be explained by one incident or factor Detailed descriptions of a person’s suicide death can be a factor in leading vulnerable individuals to imitate the act We encourage everyone who cares about transgender young people and suicide to learn more by reading this 4 page document. Now is a time for us to be proactive. We all have a responsibility to use the variety of tools at our disposal to educate, legislate, counsel, organize, and demonstrate so that no young people feel that being transgender means their life is not worth living. We need to identify the many ways in which individuals experience personal resiliency while facing the challenges inherent in society’s narrowly defined gender roles. It is not enough to temporarily mobilize in the wake of tragedy. There are simple, yet powerful things every one of us can all do as a regular part of our lives. Gender Spectrum collaborated with the HRC Foundation in 2014 on a report called, “Supporting and Caring for Our Gender-Expansive Youth.” (32 page PDF) In the report we identify three ways we can all make a difference for youth: Educate yourself. There is so much more to gender than we realize. Even for those of us who spend our lives dedicated to this issue, we continue to learn every day. Create space in which children and youth can safely explore gender identity** and expression. Listen to what young people are telling you about themselves. You don’t need to worry about what to say, just listening will make a tremendous difference. Advocate for more gender-inclusive environments within your community’s schools, medical facilities, religious and other institutions. Your voice can make all the difference to a child or teen who otherwise feels isolated and alone. Before you forward a viral image or story related to young person who died from suicide, consider how you can help youth see a future that they can be a part of. The Gender Spectrum website has considerable resources focused on parenting, teens, education, medical, legal, mental health, social services and faith. Additional useful resources include: PFLAG: provides specific resources for parents with transgender children. The Family Acceptance Project: a research, intervention, education and policy initiative that works to prevent health and mental health risks for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) children and youth, including suicide, homelessness and HIV – in the context of their families. The Transgender Law Center: works to change law, policy, and attitudes so that all people can live safely, authentically, and free from discrimination regardless of their gender identity or expression. The Trevor Project: provides crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) young people ages 13-24. *Transgender: Sometimes used as an umbrella term to describe anyone whose identity or behavior falls outside of stereotypical gender norms. More narrowly defined, it refers to an individual whose gender identity does not match their assigned birth sex. Being transgender does not imply any specific sexual orientation (attraction to people of a specific sex and/or gender.) Therefore, transgender people may additionally identify with a variety of other sexual identities as well. **Gender identity: One’s innermost core concept of self which can include male, female, a blend of both or neither, and many more—how individuals perceive themselves and what they call themselves. One’s gender identity can be the same or different than the sex assigned at birth. Individuals become conscious of this between the ages 18 months and 3 years. Most people develop a gender identity that matches their biological sex. For some, however, their gender identity is different from their biological or assigned sex. Some of these individuals choose to socially, hormonally and/or surgically change their physical appearance to more fully match their gender identity and some do not. Gender Spectrum provides education, training and support to help create a gender sensitive and inclusive environment for all children and teens. Source: www.tolerance.org/magazine/supporting-lgbtq-youth-in-the-wake-of-suicide Risk and Protective Factors A combination of individual, relationship, community, and societal factors contribute to the risk of suicide. Risk factors are those characteristics associated with suicide—they might not be direct causes. Watch Moving Forward to learn more about how increasing what protects people from violence and reducing what puts people at risk for it benefits everyone. Risk Factors Family history of suicide Family history of child maltreatment Previous suicide attempt(s) History of mental disorders, particularly clinical depression History of alcohol and substance abuse Feelings of hopelessness Impulsive or aggressive tendencies Cultural and religious beliefs (e.g., belief that suicide is noble resolution of a personal dilemma) Local epidemics of suicide Isolation, a feeling of being cut off from other people Barriers to accessing mental health treatment Loss (relational, social, work, or financial) Physical illness Easy access to lethal methods Unwillingness to seek help because of the stigma attached to mental health and substance abuse disorders or to suicidal thoughts Protective Factors for Suicide Protective factors buffer individuals from suicidal thoughts and behavior. To date, protective factors have not been studied as extensively or rigorously as risk factors. Identifying and understanding protective factors are, however, equally as important as researching risk factors. Protective Factors Effective clinical care for mental, physical, and substance abuse disorders Easy access to a variety of clinical interventions and support for help seeking Family and community support (connectedness) Support from ongoing medical and mental health care relationships Skills in problem solving, conflict resolution, and nonviolent ways of handling disputes Cultural and religious beliefs that discourage suicide and support instincts for self-preservation Source: www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/suicide/riskprotectivefactors.html Small shifts in diurnal rhythms are associated with an increase in suicide: The effect of daylight saving Abstract Large disruptions of chronobiological rhythms are documented as destabilizing individuals with bipolar disorder; however, the impact of small phase altering events is unclear. 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Neural Transm. 2000; 107: 271–9. 16 Nathan PJ, Burrows GD, Norman TR. The effect of dim light on suppression of nocturnal melatonin in healthy women and men. J. Neural Transm. 1997; 104: 643–8. 17 Brun J, Claustrat B, David M. Urinary melatonin, LH, oestradiol, progesterone excretion during the menstrual cycle or in women taking oral contraceptives. Acta Endocrinol. 1987; 116: 145–9. 18 Kostoglou-Athanassiou I, Athanassiou P, Treacher DF, Wheeler MJ, Forsling ML. Neurohypophysial hormone and melatonin secretion over the natural and suppressed menstrual cycle in premenopausal women. Clin. Endocrinol. (Oxf.) 1998; 49: 209–16. 19 Wetterberg L, Arendt J, Paunier L, Sizonenko PC, Donselaar W, Heyden T. Human serum melatonin changes during the menstrual cycle. J. Clin. Endocrinol. Metab. 1976; 42: 185–8. 20 Wright KP Jr, Badia P. Effects of menstrual cycle phase and oral contraceptives on alertness, cognitive performance, and circadian rhythms during sleep deprivation. Behav. Brain Res. 1999; 103: 185–94. 21 Berk M, Dodd S, Henry M. The effect of macroeconomic variables on suicide. Psychol. Med. 2006; 36: 181–9. 22 Goodwin FK, Jamison KR. Manic-Depressive Illness. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1990. 23 Young DM. Psychiatric morbidity in travelers to Honolulu. Hawaii Compr. Psychiatry 1995; 36: 224–8. 24 Frank E, Kupfer DJ, Thase ME et al. Two-year outcomes for interpersonal and social rhythm therapy in individuals with bipolar I disorder. Arch. Gen. Psychiatry 2005; 62: 996–1004. Received 29 April 2007 Accepted 28 July 2007 Published 28 July 2016 Issue Date January 2008 Source: link.springer.com/article/10.1111/j.1479-8425.2007.00331.x?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20201030&instance_id=23637&nl=the-morning&regi_id=131682667&segment_id=42861&te=1&user_id=f8b0d065ce70ad558045f0c378582e0b What Can Be Learned From Differing Rates of Suicide Among Groups White Americans have higher rates than most other racial and ethnic groups. U.S. suicide rates vary widely across racial and ethnic groups in ways that can upend expectations. The explanations may suggest avenues for prevention. Suicide in America has been rising for two decades, with rates for white Americans consistently well above those for Asian-Americans, Black Americans and Hispanics. In data released in 2017, the rate for white Americans was around 19 per 100,000, and it was about 7.1 for both Hispanics and Asian-Americans/Pacific Islanders, and 6.6 for Black Americans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Emotional and social stress is associated with suicide. From this, a puzzle emerges. ‘Whether through family, church or another community’ Because of pervasive racism, Black Americans experience substantial stress, fewer opportunities for advancement and more threats to well-being. These negative experiences can degrade mental and physical health, as well as limit education, employment and income — all of which can increase suicide risk. Unemployment, which is higher for Black Americans than white Americans, is itself a source of stress. Yet the Black suicide rate is about one-third that of whites. “Social stressors — lower socioeconomic status and racism among them — are more prevalent and severe for the Black population than the white one,” said Joshua Breslau, a senior behavioral and social scientist at RAND. “But suicide and some risk factors for it, like mental health conditions, are less prevalent in the Black population. This is puzzling.” One explanation may be a racial disparity in suicide data. Ian Rockett, an epidemiologist with West Virginia University, studies mortality data. “Because suicides can be difficult to prove, many may be misclassified as undetermined intent or accidents,” he said. “This problem is greater for Black Americans than white Americans.” His work, and that of others, shows that deaths of Black Americans are far more likely to be coded as undetermined than those of white Americans, in part because Black Americans dying by suicide are less likely than whites to leave a note and to have a record of mental disorders. (Lower rates of mental health diagnoses reflect at least in part poorer access to health care and treatment that stems from racism.) But misclassification cannot fully explain the racial difference in suicide. Other factors may help protect Black Americans from suicide, despite conditions that would seem to place them at higher risk. Dawne Mouzon, a sociologist and associate professor at Rutgers University, suggested that religious involvement is one source of protection. Black Americans overwhelmingly identify as Christian. “Because of their faith, Black Americans are more likely to believe suicide precludes reaching heaven after death,” she said. Although church membership has trended downward over the last two decades, it has been lower and fallen faster for white Americans than Black Americans. According to a national survey by the Pew Research Center, by almost any measure of religiosity, Black Americans are more religious than whites. Emotional and social support from a church congregation may also confer mental health benefits, Professor Mouzon added. It’s a much debated connection. A recent systematic review of studies found that attending religious service is not especially protective against suicidal ideation (thinking about or planning suicide), but it does protect against suicide attempts, and possibly protects against suicide. Other types of group activities may confer a similar sense of belonging. Volunteers with caregiving responsibility maintain a significantly reduced suicide risk, a 2019 study found. As a 1976 study put it, social support is anything that leads someone “to believe that he/she is cared for and loved, esteemed, and a member of a network of mutual obligations.” Jonathan Lee Walton, dean of the School of Divinity at Wake Forest University, sees another angle to Black religiosity that could reduce suicide rates. “It’s in the Black theological tradition that in this life you will experience trouble and hardship,” he said. “Unfortunately, this is born of tragic experiences in this nation. This prepares one for paths of despair, for traveling the lonely road of heartbreak, perhaps in a way that white Americans don’t learn to the same degree or from a young and formative age.” Single parenthood is another possible explanation. Black women are more likely to be single parents than white women, and they have the lowest suicide rates across any race/gender group. (Suicide is less common among women than men in general.) “For single parents, being the sole financial, instrumental and/or emotional support provider for children can deter suicide, even in times of extreme distress,” Professor Mouzon said. Another way single parenthood may reduce suicide risk is through the coalescing of extended family and community support for the care of the child. It’s possible this support, once in place, also confers mental health benefits that reduce suicide risk for the mother. Experts say some reasons for the relatively low suicide rate among Latinos — who also tend to be poorer and face discrimination — are close social and family networks, which can build and maintain resilience, as well as moral objection to suicide based on religion. A study published in 2014 in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry suggested that immigrant families can lose some of that protection when they assimilate and lose ties to Latino culture. Though it’s impossible to predict who will attempt or complete suicide, the broad risk factors that contribute to suicide in all racial and ethnic groups are widely documented. They include mental health challenges and psychiatric disorders, exposure to suicide by others, being bullied, substance use, loneliness and social isolation, and exposure to stressful life events. In the last two decades, there has been a sharp rise in so-called deaths of despair — suicides, drug overdoses or alcohol abuse — among middle-aged white Americans without a college degree. In their research on the subject, the Princeton economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton pointed to, among other factors, loss of community and loss of status. Over all, the C.D.C. report found higher suicide rates in rural America than in medium/small and large metropolitan counties. Most gun deaths in America are suicides, not murders, and white men are more likely to own a gun. The C.D.C. report said rates of suicide by gun in rural counties were “almost two times that of rates in larger metropolitan counties.” Among Asian-Americans, one study suggests that collectivist cultures among immigrants that promote care for others could be a protective factor. Another points to close family relationships. But what holds for one group may not for another. Aparna Kalbag, a mental health research psychologist and advocate, works with South Asian-Americans. “Their relatively higher education also plays a role,” she said. “It influences how they perceive and react to mental health symptoms. They view them as something they can change, and they have the resources to do so.” This is not the case with other, lower-income groups whose access to mental health care is more circumscribed. The group with the highest suicide rate Suicide rates are highest among Native American and Alaska Native populations: 21.8 per 100,000 people. One study found that American Indian youth in southeastern Montana are more likely than white youth to report feeling sad or hopeless — one predictor of suicide risk. Greater alcohol and drug use among Native American populations is also associated with higher suicide rates. Another study documented high rates of psychological distress among Indigenous populations. According to scholars of suicide in Indigenous populations, these are all byproducts of colonization. “Colonization is not only in the past,” said Desi Rodriguez-Lonebear, an assistant professor at U.C.L.A. and a citizen of the Northern Cheyenne Nation. “It’s an ongoing system, a series of structures that continue to disenfranchise, erase and traumatize Indigenous peoples.” One of the most obvious and tangible effects of colonization on those populations is their forced segregation into reservations and the intergenerational trauma that ensued from severing ancestral relationships to their lands, cultures, languages and ways of life. “The psychological, social, and economic harms this causes cannot be overstated,” Professor Rodriguez-Lonebear said. Explanations for variation in suicide rates across racial and ethnic groups point to ways to reduce it. “Whether through family, church or another community, emotional and social support is key to suicide prevention,” said Lillian Polanco-Roman, an assistant professor of psychology at The New School. “Beyond that support, these groups can also serve as bridges to mental health services.” Source: www.nytimes.com/2020/12/30/upshot/suicide-demographic-differences.html Alarming VA Report Totals Decade of Veteran Suicides As indicated by a report discharged for the current week by the Defense Suicide Prevention Office, 139 dynamic obligation troopers, 68 mariners, 60 pilots and 58 Marines passed on by suicide a year ago, 40 more help individuals than the earlier year. The figure is higher than the aggregate of passings revealed by the individual administrations in January – the consequence of proceeded with death examinations – and shockingly surpasses the past record of 321 of every 2012. For three of the administrations, the numbers speak to an expansion over the earlier year. The Army in 2017 saw 114 passings by suicide, the Navy, 65, and the Marine Corps, 43. Just the Air Force saw a decrease in suicide from the earlier year. In 2017, it had 63. Prior this year, Defense Department authorities said the paces of suicide, which give an increasingly exact comprehension of the event among the military populace, are “crushing and unsatisfactory and not going in the ideal course.” “My partners and I realize that each and every life lost is a disaster and every one has a profoundly close to home story. With every passing, we know there are families and frequently kids with broke lives,” Elizabeth Van Winkle, Director of the DoD’s Office of Force Resiliency, told individuals from Congress during a joint hearing on veterans and military suicide May 21. The military passings mirror a national pattern. In the U.S. the suicide rate has expanded by 33% since 1999, and suicide is the subsequent driving reason for death among individuals 10 to 34 years of age. The Defense and Veterans Affairs Departments have teamed up on endeavors to diminish suicide in the positions and among veterans, who kick the bucket by suicide at a normal pace of 20 per day. The Defense Department is getting ready to give a far reaching report on military suicides this late spring, and the two divisions are preparing for a joint gathering on suicide, planned to be held in Nashville this August. An investigation of Defense Department suicides in 2017 distributed for this present year found that generally 50% of the individuals who finished suicide that year had a realized psychological wellness condition and half had contact with the military well-being framework inside 90 days of their demises Most were male (95%) and white (81%) and the greater part had a past filled with organization (57%). As per the report, the suicide rate in 2017 among dynamic obligation troops was 21.9 passings per 100,000 individuals, a slight uptick from the 2016 pace of 21.5 per 100,000, yet not considered a “factually noteworthy” increment. The age-balanced regular citizen rate, which incorporates American regular people and administration individuals, is 17.4 passings per 100,000. The year-end figures for 2018 demonstrated a drop in suicides in the Reserve part, from 226 of every 2017 to 216 of every 2018. There were two additional passings among National Guard individuals in 2018 from the earlier year, 135 up from 133. The National Guard keeps on having the most noteworthy pace of suicide among parts, at 29.1 suicides per 100,000 individuals. Notwithstanding distributing the information for 2018, the Defense Suicide Prevention Office discharged data on the quantity of suicides by military work force in the main quarter of 2019. From January through March, 90 dynamic obligation administration individuals passed on by suicide, including 30 troopers, 20 mariners, 26 aviators and 14 Marines. In a similar time allotment in 2018, 81 help individuals kicked the bucket by suicide: 36 fighters, 23 mariners, 9 pilots and 13 Marines. Van Winkle said every misfortune “resounds past the unit, past the administrator and past the administration” and the Defense Department and administrations stay focused on the prosperity of administration individuals. “We should meet that consecrated commitment since we need every single lady and man who fearlessly joins to battle for this country,” she said. The Coast Guard, which is in the Department of Homeland Security, doesn’t distribute its suicide information and has not given the data notwithstanding different solicitations. An unconfirmed rundown posted online by a Coast Guard veteran who strolls to help suicide mindfulness and aversion said at any rate four Coast Guard people kicked the bucket by suicide in 2018 or How many veterans die each day 2020. Source: www.aveteransday.info/how-many-veterans-die-each-day/ Culture matters in suicidal behavior patterns and prevention, psychologist says - American Psychological Association Women and girls in the United States consider and engage in suicidal behavior more often than men and boys, but die of suicide at lower rate - a gender paradox enabled by U.S. cultural norms of gender and suicidal behavior, according to a psychologist who spoke Thursday at the 118th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association. "Everywhere, suicidal behavior is culturally scripted," said Silvia S. Canetto, PhD, of Colorado State University. "Women and men adopt the self-destructive behaviors that are expected of them within their cultures." While the gender paradox of suicidal behavior is common, particularly in industrialized countries, it is not universal, she said. In China, for example, women die of suicide at higher rates than men. In Finland and Ireland, men and women engage in nonfatal suicidal behavior at similar rates. There are more exceptions to the gender paradox of suicidal behavior when one examines female/male patterns of suicidality by age or culture, she said. In some cultures, particularly in industrialized countries, such as the United States and Canada, suicide is considered a masculine act and an "unnatural" behavior for women, Canetto said at a symposium entitled "New Perspectives on Suicide Theory, Research and Prevention." "In these countries, the dominant view is that `successful, completed' suicide is the masculine way to do suicide. In the U.S., women who kill themselves are considered more deviant than men. By contrast, in other cultures, killing oneself is considered feminine behavior (and is more common in women)," she said, citing, among others, the Aguaruna people of Peru, who view suicide as an indication of a feminine inability to control strong emotions. Yet in other cultures, men's and women's suicidal behavior is similar. For example, in Sri Lanka, the same types of issues (problems with spouses, parents or in-laws) are typically associated with both women's and men's suicides. "A broad cultural perspective shows that women and men do not consistently differ in terms of the kinds of suicidal behavior they engage in, or with regard to the circumstances or the motives of their suicidal behavior," she said. "When women and men differ with regard to some dimensions of suicidal behavior, the meaning and salience of these differences vary from one social group to another, one culture to another, one historical period to another, depending on local scripts of gender and suicidal behavior." The cultural variability in patterns and scripts of women's and men's suicidal behavior calls for "culturally situated suicidality research and prevention," Canetto said. At the same symposium, James L. Werth Jr., PhD, of Radford University, discussed reasons why the suicide rate in rural America is consistently higher than it is in urban areas. In addition to general suicide risk factors, such as mental illness, a family history of suicide and feelings of hopelessness, rural residents may be more isolated, be less willing to ask for help and have increased access to lethal means such as guns and pesticides, he said. "County by county or state by state, the top areas in terms of suicide are rural," Werth said. "The top five states are Alaska, Montana, New Mexico, Wyoming and Nevada, whereas D.C., New Jersey, New York Connecticut and Massachusetts have the lowest rates." Some of the possible contributing factors to the higher rates in rural America are more poverty, higher unemployment and lack of access to treatment resources, Werth said. "People are not going to drive five hours to visit a counselor," he said. In suggesting possible solutions to the rural suicide rate, Werth said greater access to broadband would help by increasing access to resources, as will integration of mental health practitioners into primary care. "Even though people live farther apart, there may be stronger connections - they need to rely on one another," he said. "There may be longstanding relationships among families and more religiosity …. we need to build on those existing qualities and strengths and beliefs." Source: medicalxpress.com/news/2010-08-culture-suicidal-behavior-patterns-psychologist.html Suicide risk for seniors moving into residential homes While a move can represent a positive change, all moves involve some degree of loss," say Carol Podgorski from the University of Rochester in New York and colleagues in an article published this week in PLoS Medicine, and this can lead to heightened risk for suicidal behavior. Whether by choice or necessity, more older adults are now living in residential homes. And while the residences themselves are designed to be appealing, the underlying reasons that precipitate moving into a residential home, as well as the ensuing adjustment process, often result in stress that can sometimes lead to suicidal behavior. Dr. Podgorski and colleagues lay out risk factors for suicidal behavior in older adults living in residential communities including social factors (widowing, divorce, substance abuse, loss, and family discord) and medical factors such as increased physical and psychotic illnesses. The authors suggest ways that public health systems and residential communities can counter suicidal behavior in older adults living within communal accommodation: "The public health approach to suicide is consistent with theories of aging in that it calls for actions that aim to mitigate the multiple, cumulative losses for which older adults are at increased risk." The authors conclude that "there is no single blueprint for a suicide prevention plan. It is incumbent upon each facility to assess its own characteristics and resident populations and to use that information to set priorities and establish relevant goals." Source: medicalxpress.com/news/2010-05-suicide-seniors-residential-homes.html When Shame Becomes Deadly: The Relationship between Suicidality and Shame; a Personal Perspective - 11/2/23 Abstract Following the death by suicide of a client of mine and after many years working with suicidal clients, I recognized a common thread: that of shame. Then my own brother committed suicide, and this brought back to me memories of my own suicide attempt decades before, and the years spent trying to understand and deal with it and with my own shame. I decided it was time to delve into the subject more deeply. I began my research. This article is the culmination of that research. In it, I describe toxic shame, the shame of existing, the sources of shame, the neurobiology of shame, and, most importantly, the effect of shame on the relationship to the Self. Source: www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00332925.2023.2242019 Overcoming the Shame of a Teenage Suicidal Attempt Don’t Let the Shame of a Teenage Suicidal Attempt Silence Your Story As a teenager, understanding the way you feel is practically impossible. Your emotions are all over the spectrum, constantly fluctuating. Other times our emotions seem as if they are a one-way street. At times all you feel is down, alone, or misunderstood. As a teen, you think that these difficult times are never going to get better. To some suicide may seem like the only solution. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently released a report that showed the percentage of suicides is the highest it has been in 30 years. The weight from shame of a teenage suicidal attempt can be detrimental. An article by Jamie Brickhouse in The New York Times discusses the steps she took to overcome the shame of a teenage suicidal attempt. Many people who go through their first suicide attempt get to that point because they were experiencing feelings of hopelessness and failure. They are often suffering from depression or other mental illnesses that are contributing to these feelings. Talking about these feelings can be difficult and people often remain silent about what they are going through. Whether it was a teenage suicidal attempt or an adult suicidal attempt, being silent about your experience can create serious risks. Jamie Brickhouse remained silent about her first suicidal attempt and she states “My silence nearly killed me.” Addressing the Cause The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention reports that approximately 40 percent of those who have died by suicide have made a previous attempt at some point in their lives. Shame of a suicide attempt is what kept Jamie Brickhouse silent about what she was going through. Due to this, she never sought out help and it ultimately resulted in her second suicide attempt. It is important to address the cause or causes of your suicidal thoughts. If you’re experiencing a mental disorder such as depression, a difficult life situation, or painful memories, discussing them with someone can be the difference between life and death. Jamie Brickhouse owns her suicide survival story so that the story doesn’t kill her. She urges closeted suicide attempt survivors to do the same. If you’re suffering from a teenage suicidal attempt, find or create a safe group where you can talk about it. Don’t let the shame of a teenage suicidal attempt stop you from seeking the help you need. Source: www.viewpointcenter.com/teenage-suicidal/ Marital breakdown, shame, and suicidality in men: a direct link? Abstract The influence of feelings of shame originating from marital breakdown on suicidality is examined. The role of mental health problems as probable mediating factors is also considered. Internalized shame, state (related to separation) shame, and mental health problems were significantly correlated with the score for suicidality during separation in both genders. Tested structural equation model indicated that internalized shame was not directly linked to suicidality, but was mediated either by state shame or mental health problems in males in the context of separation. Our findings seem to indicate that separated males are more vulnerable to the experience of state shame in the context of separation, which might lead to the development of suicidality. Source: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21470294/ Healing the 'Invisible Ache' behind the suicide crisis among Black men and boys. NPR ..11/15/23 Actor Courtney B. Vance was a young actor on Broadway in the 1990s when he received a call from his mother that would tear his world apart: His father was dead, she said, by suicide. Years later, Vance's godson, a promising college student, would also die by suicide. In the wake of these devastating losses, Vance has focused on peeling back the layers of both his father's pain and his own struggles as a Black man in America. In a new book, The Invisible Ache, Vance and psychologist Robin L. Smith (who often goes by Dr. Robin) explore the trauma unique to Black men and boys, and address what they see as an urgent need to change the conversation about mental health. "[With] Black boys and Black men, the rates of suicide is increasing," Smith says. "The rate is accelerating faster than any other group in the country, in the United States. And so we have to ask why." Smith points to a modern culture of isolation and loneliness, which the surgeon general has referred to as a public health emergency. But, she adds, those factors are compounded for Black men and boys. "If we then put race and racism with isolation and loneliness, surely we understand that Black boys and Black men are up against historical trauma as well as current-day trauma," Smith says. Though the book is focused on the mental health of Black boys and men, Vance says the issue has universal implications: "We are all interconnected. ... My ache is your ache. If I'm aching, [and] you [are] clutching your purse as I walk by, you're aching. You're as much in a prison as I am," he says. Interview highlights On Vance's father Vance: He was my hero, and he was the smartest man in the room and was able to talk on any topic, which was very intimidating to me. Smith: His father is still his hero. His father did not lose his stature because he died by suicide. And I think it's really important for us to know that when we understand that someone had a struggle that we didn't know anything about, that we don't need to punish them or ourselves for the mystery of what was unknown. On the silence around suicide and mental health Smith: We hear the old adage that silence is golden, [but] we often don't hear the times in which silence is deadly, because there is so much moving in the inner world of a person. And if they feel isolated, if they feel that there is no safe place to explore and express what's going on inside, that manifests in lots of ways. And one of those could be suicidal thoughts. It could be thoughts that life is too much. And if you're living in that silence and isolation by yourself, it can take you to very dark and scary places. On the shame around suicide Smith: [The term] "committed suicide" is like a crime. Suicide is not a crime. It's an act of desperation. It's an act of running out of steam and hope. "HOPE" is an acronym that we use for "Hold On, Pain Ends." But if I don't know that the pain is going to end, if I think whether I am a young Black boy or an older Black man, that there's no way out except death to bring relief and release, the truth of the matter is that's a prison of a different kind, and so the shame is so misdirected. On skepticism in the Black community about therapy Smith: When I think of the disservice that that [skepticism] has perpetuated in men and particularly Black men, that "I don't want anybody to get in my head," "I don't want anyone in my business," "I don't want anyone messing with my mind." "I don't need any of that because I've got this." So all of those messages are conditioned responses to trauma and to dis- and mis-information. If you understood that you were whole and whole people need other people who are safe to explore their internal worlds, you wouldn't need the defense that you don't want anyone getting close. ... So when you talk about stigma for therapy — that therapy is for white people, for rich people, for sick people — not only is that not true, therapy ... at its best, it's an opportunity to be in a safe space and [to] overhear the conversation that you've been having with yourself all of your life, but it's never been safe to listen. On the trauma of living in a racist society Smith: If you go into a store and someone is following you around simply because of the melanin in your skin, that is a traumatic moment. It's a traumatic event. If ... a Black boy ends up being chased or shot and killed, too often, this is about: How is it that Black boys are often seen as scary and dangerous, even when they are 6 or 7 or 10? The experience that the white world has of them is their skin color and their gender, [which], put together, creates a level of fear. So that person who I'm describing, who is pathologized and demonized, can ingest that as if those lies are true and then never expose and be treated for what it has cost them to be Black and male in America. On needing to go deep within himself Vance: There's a mathematical formula for as high as you want a building to go, you have to go a certain amount of feet deep. And if you want to later on try to add to the height, you cannot do it. You have to tear that building down and go deeper into the ground. So if you want to go higher, you must go deeper. And I want to go higher. And it's going to cost me something. Everything that's worth doing costs you something. And just because it's hard work doesn't mean there's something wrong. It just means it does work. You got to go through it. Source: www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/11/15/1213089999/courtney-b-vance-robin-l-smith-black-men-mental-health-invisible-ache Suicide Risk Highest Right After Depression Hospitalization Discharge 2/14/24 Incidence extremely high in the first 3 days Patients hospitalized for depression had a very high risk of suicide in the first few days after discharge, a longitudinal Finnish registry study showed. An analysis of nearly 200,000 hospitalizations for depression from 1996 to 2017 revealed a suicide incidence rate of 6,062 per 100,000 person-years during days 0-3 following discharge (95% CI 4,963-7,404), according to Erkki Isometsä, MD, PhD, of Helsinki University Central Hospital in Finland, and co-authors. Suicide incidence remained high but fell to 3,884 per 100,000 person-years in the 4-7 days after discharge (95% CI 3,119-4,835), and continued to fall thereafter, they reported in JAMA Psychiatry. Several factors were associated with suicide during the first days after discharge, including age, male sex, and clinical risk factors such as severity of the depressive episode, high illness severity and impairment, and current suicide attempt, the researchers found. They noted that "each factor indicated about 2-fold to 5-fold higher relative risk of suicide in the few days after discharge." The researchers also found temporal patterns for suicide risk in the 2 years following discharge. Men and those who'd previously attempted suicide consistently had a higher risk of suicide after leaving the hospital, they reported. Over time, age and acute clinical risk factors (severe depression, severe illness with impaired function, and current suicide attempt) had a decreasing association with suicide risk, they reported. Conversely, several factors showed a pattern of increasing risk, including involuntary admission, alcohol use disorder, substance use disorder, and living alone, they found. Although suicide risk waned over time, "the high-risk postdischarge period still requires intensified attention," Isometsä and colleagues wrote. "Continuity of care and access to enhanced psychiatric outpatient care within days of discharge should be imperative." Jacob Ballon, MD, MPH, of Stanford University in California, who wasn't involved in the study, told MedPage Today that these results would likely be similar in the U.S., and that they highlight the challenge of treating individuals with depression who need to be hospitalized. "It's not like a near-miss in a plane crash, where you re-evaluate everything that possibly could have gone wrong [and] you fix it all, then the day after that you're at the lowest risk ever for a plane crash," Ballon noted. He said the findings emphasize the importance of wrap-around care that extends beyond high-level, acute psychiatric care. "There has to be a real effort to make sure that there is a solid plan on discharge for the person to be checked in with within that first week after hospitalization," Ballon said. To conduct the study, the authors included 91,161 individuals with 193,197 hospitalizations for depression from 1996 to 2017. The patients had a mean age of 44 and 56.2% were female. They used Finnish registers for hospital discharge, population, and cause of death, and included all hospitalizations for depression as the principal diagnosis. The authors allowed a maximum follow-up time of 2 years per patient and followed up on a total of 226,615 person-years. In total, 1,976 patients died of suicide during the study period, including 1,219 men and 757 women. The study was limited by a lack of information about the overall course of a patient's depression, including incomplete data on prior suicide attempts, clinical status at discharge, or whether they voluntarily continued treatment after discharge. Source: www.medpagetoday.com/psychiatry/depression/108741?xid=nl_mpt_Psychiatry_update_2024-02-14&mh=b937dc55b2fe4b8487dbc9f0a665c555?xid%3Dnl_mpt_Psychiatry_update_2024-02-14&mh=b937dc55b2fe4b8487dbc9f0a665c555&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Automated%20Specialty%20Update%20Psychiatry%202024-02-14&utm_term=NL_Spec_Psychiatry_Update_Active   ©2017-2024, www.ZeroAttempts.org/suicide-3.html 032724