Name Teacher Class Date Waking up in the middle of the night to a your phone ringing. Someone is calling you to tell you something tragic, your best friend has killed them self. A million thoughts go racing through your mind. How could they have done this? Why would they Just leave you behind like this? Didn’t they see that there were so many other ways to solve their problems? You thought they had a great life and had lots to look forward to. Well that’s not how a suicidal person see’s their problems. For some people their problems Just seem to keep building up until they don’t see any other way out but eath.
Even if their problems may seem small to you, the small things add up. There are other ways out of this deadly process, and there needs to be more suicide prevention. Suicide rates have been rising and it is not Just affecting one group of society. According to “The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that in the last 45 years, suicide rates have increased 60 percent worldwide” (Robinson). This is a problem. Not only are teenagers committing suicide, people of all ages commit suicide on a daily basis.
Rita Robinson also goes on to explain that even though elderly men have sually been the most likely to commit suicide, the rate of young people committing suicide has been increasing so fast that teenagers are now, in three countries, the most likely to commit suicide. The media is not helping reduce this rate at all. In fact “the nation is growing openly prosuicide” (“Introduction to Suicide: Current”). This source also explains how Hollywood glamorizes intentional self-harm and suicide. Hollywood creates movies with a “better dead than disabled” message, and movies create a right-to-die message to youths.
This making youth think that suicide is the thing to do and it’s cool. The current trend to rationalize and glamorize suicide will continue to move our national culture in a pro-suicide direction” (“Introduction to Suicide: Current”). With this trend the rates of suicide will continually climb until suicide is looked at as a prideful way to die, but suicide isn’t a good way to leave this earth. People could have such a good life but with this trend people will willingly die at an early age Just to be cool. Even though doing this makes them unable to be around to enjoy the popularity that they gain from suicide.
Even though suicide is a trend in Hollywood, there are people that feel like they imply no longer deserve to live. No one should ever feel this way, but these are the people that actually want to end their lives and these are the lives that need the protection and suicide prevention. People that want to end their lives always give off signs to show that they feel like this. In the book, Teen Suicide the author explains about suicide, talking about death, giving away favorite things, or taking unnecessary risks such as someone who may never drink alcohol or does drugs starts to do these things.
Many people who commit suicide are also depressed. mclinically depressed’ eans that a depressed person has a certain collection of symptoms that lasts more than two weeks” (Robinson 118). There are multiple signs of clinical depression as explained in the book Teen Suicide: Some signs of depression: No longer taking good care of himself or herself not eating regularly and losing weight; or eating all the time and gaining weight rapidly. Drinking alcohol; abusing drugs. Fighting with parents, siblings, even friends and teachers; not being able to control anger or other strong feelings.
Neglecting schoolwork; failing to attend classes. Spending less time with friends and family and ore time alone. Becoming undependable on a Job; calling in sick day after day. (Huddle and Schleifer 25) Even though these are Just some signs, everyone shows it differently and you don’t have to show all these sign to be depressed. Usually a depressed person tends to try and hide some of these emotions. If you think one of your friends is depressed, you should talk to them about it and try and get them some help because depression can turn into suicide.
Some people view suicide as the only solution to their problems. This needs to be changed, people should not have to feel like this is the only solution o their problems, because there are many other options. There are many ways to prevent suicide and we as a society need to help suicidal people get help from professionals. “The number and strength of the many individuals and organizations working to promote awareness about suicide continue to grow. Suicide is now considered a public health problem, not Just an individual problem” (Meyers and Fine 261).
This is good news but we need to grow as a nation to prevent suicide, it cant be just individuals trying to help a whole nation. We as a nation should Join together and help the people in our nation that are in need. Meyers and Fine also go on to explain a surgeon general’s call to prevent suicide. The report these doctors sent out included his ways to prevent suicide were awareness, intervention, and methodology. Awareness, meaning that the public needed to learn more about suicide and its risk factors.
By intervention they mean that the public needs to be educated on how to prevent suicide and there needs to be a national strategy for suicide prevention. They also says that there shouldn’t be any barriers in things like insurance for people in need of mental health care. They also refer to ethodology as to advance the prevention of suicide. By advancing this science we could enhance research, develop scientific strategies for preventing suicide and we could gain ways to take away lethal ways of suicide. It’s hard to pin point why exactly people commit suicide.
But Emile Durkheim, a French sociologist in the late 19th century who studied suicide. Durkheim came up with this evidence: “People who feel isolated or alienated from society have high levels of suicide, as do people who have major reason people may commit suicide is clinical depression. People get depressed ike this for many reasons. They may get bullied in school then go to a Job where they are told theyre worthless and get made fun of, Just to go home to fighting parents that don’t do anything but fght and yell at each other.
There are also cases of girls committing suicide because of things like naked pictures of them getting sent around school or the pressure of school or work. People that commit suicide usually don’t actually want to die they Just want to end all the pain they are in and they don’t see any other way out (Robinson 85). Also people with mental disorders such as chizophrenia, or bipolar disorder are more likely to commit suicide (103). All these people need is some hope and some where to find a little support and they wouldn’t feel the need to end all their problems by suicide.
One solution people may turn to, to feel better are antidepressants. Even though antidepressants are speculated to cause suicide doctors still prescribe them to their depressed patients (Saz, Arslan, and Egemen 13). Antidepressants can lift your sprits and help you feel a little better but if used improperly or if someone uses the wrong kind they can become more suicidal than before. In early 2004, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) asked manufactures of many antidepressants to make labeling changes to include a warning about a possible increased risk of suicidal ideation or behavior” (13).
The FDA has also said that antidepressant behaviors are almost identical to that of someone on PCP, or methamphetamine, also known as cocaine, or meth. These drugs are known for causing aggression, violence, and can lead to out of control behavior (Breggin). Also when going off of antidepressants a person can possibly become more depressed due to the sudden change of chemicals in the brain. Breggin also says in his article that the FDA also includes mania on the list of antidepressant effects. Manic people can become very violent and also become very suicidal and extremely depressed (Breggin).
This is caused by a chemical imbalance in your brain. Going off of an antidepressant or starting a new medication makes the chemicals in your brain fluctuate. These changes can affect the way you react to problems and your mood in general. The chemical affected by antidepressants controls your feelings of depression and suicide. Although antidepressants can save some peoples lives. For example, one of my old friends sed to sit in her room for days at a time and cry for no reason. There was nothing wrong with her social life or school or anything like that.
She Just happened to have a horrible chemical imbalance in her brain that caused her to be sad all the time. She had tried a series of different antidepressants but none of them worked until one day when her parents took her to the doctors office where they helped her find out how to help her chemical imbalance. They also found the right dosage of the kind of antidepressants for her. Now she is a successful person and antidepressants helped her survive. Although “there is no convincing evidence that with chemical imbalances causing depression, therefore help some people not commit suicide.
Some peoples’ religions also help as antidepressants. Religion is often used as a way to ‘pray for better days. And for some people it would be against their religion to commit suicide and they might fear going to hell. It is also used as hope for some people, that what they are going through is only temporary. Many religions also frown upon suicide. Many survivors of suicide claim that religion is a major source of comfort in their time of grief. Considering survivors of suicide as the oved ones left behind by someone who has committed suicide.
In Rita Robinsons’ book Survivors of Suicide she talks about how some religions views on suicide. One of the religions that Rita Robinson talks about is Judaism. This religion used to treat suicide as the worst sin ever. Jewish families were not even allowed a time to mourn over their deceased loved one. As time has gone on suicide has become more acceptable. In certain situations, such as committing suicide instead of being defeated by your enemies, it would be acceptable to commit suicide. The Jewish community has also softened its harsh stand against the families mourning time.
The family is now allowed about a year of deep mourning time, within this time the family is not expected to do anything. “The guidelines include an initial seven days of mourning where the family members don’t leave the house” (Robinson 148). After about a year they have a ceremony dedicated to the tombstone of the loved one, and this signifies the end of the intense mourning period for the other family members (148-149). Another big religion Robinson looked at was Christianity. Just like Judaism, Christianity has been changing their views on suicide.
Years ago suicide was considered a public scandal and t was forbidden to hold a burial with in the Christian church. Anybody that committed suicide during this time was to go straight to hell. This has been slowly changing for about the last 40 years now. Christians that commit suicide are no longer committing an unforgivable sin. In this religion it is now looked at as a problem between that person and God, and it’s God’s choice to let them into heaven. God will let them into heaven depending on why they committed suicide.
The Christian faith is used as a comfort for those going through someone committing suicide (Robinson 150-155). As Christianity evolves more people are allowed to go to eaven for committing suicide and are not deemed to hell. This religion is very helping and forgiving towards the family of the lost loved one. The Islamic religion is not as so against suicide like the Christian or Jewish religions are. In Islam the Koran, their book of faith, says not to take your own life but similar to Christianity someone who commits suicide doesn’t go straight to heaven or hell. This decision is up to God.
God makes this decision depending on why a person committed suicide. The religion of Islam treats the effects of suicide differently. For example the parents of a young child who committed suicide will grieve and be epressed for a while but they won’t suffer endlessly. Also they won’t feel ashamed. People of the Islamic faith are also told not to talk badly about someone who has passed away (Robinson 158-159). Islam’s fght a religious fght called a Jihad which is ” America believe that suicide bombers such as the ones on September eleventh of 2001 are on their Jihad. suicide bombers overall have not been found to be fundamentalist religious zealots, but have been from politically motivated extremist groups” (Vedantam). This doesn’t meant that there aren’t any religious extremist groups that don’t commit suicide bombings, but more of them happen to have olitically motivated. Also suicide bombers don’t Just act randomly to blow something up they are prepared over months to years for one bombing. Suicide bombers are not typically mentally confused or have mental disorders like a normal suicide (Vedantam).
Therefore suicide bombers are not Just Islam and Islam suicide bombers are not bombing people because their Jihad tells them to. In many cases like September eleventh, the bombers were against the way Americans treated women and they personally were extremists and had personal grudges against America. In the end the typical suicide can be caused by many things including depression, guilt, ressure from school or work, or because of a mistake made by someone like a girl sending pictures to someone and these pictures being seen by the whole school.
These suicides are very preventable and we as a city, state, and nation need to do more to prevent suicide. We need to prevent suicide more now because it is being glamorized and it is gaining popularity, and people that feel the need to take their own lives should know that there are other ways to get out from underneath their problems. People shouldn’t have to feel like they should have to take their own lives but it keeps happening more and more therefore we need more and more
