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V.F. Wojciech, from the book “What do we know about suicide?”
Suicide is understood as “an act with a fatal outcome that was deliberately initiated and carried out by the deceased subject himself, subject to the latter’s knowledge or expectation of such an outcome, and the outcome is considered by the subject as a tool in achieving the desired changes in self-awareness and social environment.” In this somewhat complicated definition, three points are highlighted - awareness of actions, understanding that they lead to death and the desire of the suicide to influence others.
There are completed suicide, parasuicide, self-harm, suicidal thoughts, often realized in the form of an accident, and unconscious, auto-aggressive behavior. Suicide is a deliberate act, but there are many cases when there is no sufficient reason to speak unequivocally about suicide. It could simply be an accident, an accidental overdose of medication, etc. If a person survives suicide, then this is regarded as an attempt or parasuicide. Suicide attempts can be divided into three groups: those in which the individual “really wants to die,” those in which he “lost the chance of survival,” and those in which he “definitely expected to survive.”
Some authors highlight indirect suicide or self-destructive behavior. There are people who are suicidal, but their environment does not recognize this. Some subjects may consider their lives to be unnecessarily bland or unbearable due to insurmountable obstacles, and their behavior may then border on suicidal behavior. Karl Menninger described “chronic suicide,” by which he meant “indirect self-destructive behavior that undermines health.” American researcher N.B. Tabachnik defines self-destructive behavior as the commission of “any action (over which a person has some real or potential volitional control) that contributes to the individual’s advancement in the direction of earlier physical death.” Any behavior that shortens a person's life is defined as "partial", "semi-intentional", "semi-intentional", "latent suicide", "unconscious suicidal behavior" or "suicidal equivalent".
People often kill themselves slowly without realizing their intentions to commit suicide. They deny that their actions are aimed at self-destruction or harm to themselves. And yet their way of life is a movement towards self-destruction. The same mental forces that drive a person to jump off a skyscraper underlie dangerous habits such as alcohol or drug abuse, ignoring serious illnesses, overeating, excessive work, or chronic smoking. Although indirect suicide is less obvious to others, its results are nevertheless also lethal. Another place to look for disguised suicides is the roadway. The machine is the perfect instrument of self-destruction. Many deaths reported as accidents are often disguised suicides (auticide). 40% of victims of transport accidents have alcohol in their blood. It remains controversial how “accidental” these accidents were.
Experts believe that inattention, speeding, misjudgment and drunk driving are often the result of conscious or unconscious self-destructive behavior. A study conducted by the Center for Suicide Prevention in the United States found that 25% of accident victims surveyed were depressed or reported feeling helpless. Before the accident, they had fantasies of death and self-destruction. According to experts, approximately 25% of drivers who die in car accidents themselves intentionally or semi-intentionally contribute to these accidents through their recklessness and excessively risky behavior.
Road accidents are especially common among teenagers. Researchers found that young men who had frequent accidents spent most of their time on the street, had a violent and uncontrollable character, and saw themselves as a “tough guy.” When under emotional stress, they easily consumed alcohol or drugs and then drove carelessly and impulsively, showing more interest in power and speed than in driving safety.
Other forms of semi-intentional suicides. By definition, suicide is the deliberate taking of one's own life. There are people who want to die, but are not ready to consciously fulfill this desire. Suicides disguised as accidents are not as rare as is believed. Those people who are accident prone may consider themselves cautious and yet, strangely enough, behave in self-destructive ways. For example, stabbing themselves or “accidentally” taking too many pills.
Some people are not sure that they want to die, but they are also not sure that they want to live. This ambivalence manifests itself in the so-called “deadly games,” which include Russian roulette. In such games, the outcome depends on external forces, and the decision is made as if for the players. Playing with death also occurs during other risky competitions, such as car racing or skydiving.
The suicidal equivalent may be camouflaged by considerations of idealism or altruism. Martyrs give their lives in the name of God or the Fatherland. Long before death, they may unconsciously want to die. Then an opportunity arises that allows them to do this with honor and nobility. As a result, because of their selfless courage, they evoke not contempt, but reverence from their descendants.
Suicide attempt
A suicide attempt, which indicates a person's intent, is a powerful predictor of subsequent completed suicide. There is nothing more dramatic and painful than a cry for help from a suicidal person who has committed suicide. Some suicide attempts are not taken seriously. For example, a girl takes sleeping pills, confident that her attempt will be discovered. Or a man cuts himself in such a way that it cannot possibly end in death. Often family and friends take it easy. This also applies to cases where a person who tried to poison himself seeks to justify his behavior. Often people react to these events with an irritated remark: “She just wanted attention.” The point is that every suicide attempt should be taken seriously, no matter how harmless and frivolous it may seem. The most vulnerable are people who have attempted suicide in the past or have had close contact with someone who has attempted or accomplished this. Statistics show that 12% of those who make a suicide attempt, no later than two years later, definitely repeat it and achieve what they want. Four out of five suicide victims had attempted to do so in the past. After the first failed attempt, many conclude: “I’ll do it better next time.” And they remember this when they are in a state of crisis.
Causes, motives, symptoms, types of suicidal behavior
Psychological explanations for the causes of suicidal behavior are quite varied. Perhaps within the framework of each psychological concept there are their own views regarding its causes and specific mechanisms. Here we can highlight the psychoanalytic approach, the frustration theory of suicide formed under its influence, the motivational theory and a number of others.
From a practical point of view and, above all, from the standpoint of conducting expert psychological studies of suicidal behavior, the greatest interest is in identifying the immediate causes, which, as we have already noted, are usually closely related to the immediate environment: family problems, divorces, adultery, remarriages, alcoholism of one or several family members, conflicts between spouses, hostility between family members, illness, loss of relatives. All this affects not only adult family members, but, worst of all, also children.
Changes in the family lead to changes in the sphere of communication, and then one of the family members is forced to take a different position in the family. Losing your previous position and changing it to a new one means the loss of something vital: comfort, power, love, affection. This causes a complex internal conflict: the need for communication remains, but the person can no longer realize it in the forms familiar to him, and he considers suicide to be one of the ways to restore balance, used to put pressure on others or family members.
But sometimes this internal conflict can be so deep that true suicide takes place as a means of getting out of an intolerable situation.
The causes of suicide can also be intra-family conflicts, accompanied by mutual insults and humiliation. The depth of the conflict depends on the depth of communication. With superficial communication, deep conflicts usually do not occur. The closer the contacts in the family, the deeper the degree of expression of the conflict, the more sensitive it is for a person. Conflicts give rise to maladjustment, which in turn is one of the prerequisites for suicidal intentions.
Early marriage also does not reduce the risk of suicide. According to American scientists, among married boys the suicide rate is 1.5 times higher, and among married girls 1.7 times higher than among their unmarried peers. This is primarily due to the fact that early marriages are often an attempt (and not always successful) to solve some other problems not related to marriage. For example, the unbearable situation in the parental family.
The causes of suicide among young people may also be school problems associated with overload, poor performance, conflicts with teachers or peers. Often the causes of suicide are conflicting relationships with parents.
According to American scientists, more than 90% of people who commit suicide suffer from mental illness, while Russian scientists note that only 27-30 percent of suicide victims suffer from mental illness.
Despite all these reasons, the main person who decides the choice between life and death is the person himself. The choice between adaptation to life situations and suicide due to circumstances traumatic to his psyche depends only on the strength of his personality.
It is believed that the disease of suicide is depression - up to 70% of depressed patients exhibit suicidal tendencies, and 15% of them commit suicide. Therefore, the problem of suicide is a problem of depression.
Psychiatry of the past believed that almost all suicides were mentally abnormal. Now the data on the mental abnormality of those who committed suicide are so divergent that I do not dare to present them here. What I found more interesting was a Harvard study in which doctors were given case histories of people who had committed suicide and asked to make a diagnosis. The doctors did not know that some of the stories, selected at random, had been edited - they did not contain information that the person had committed suicide, everything else remained unchanged. Diagnostic results varied greatly: those whose stories included suicide were diagnosed with mental illness in 90% of cases, but only 22% of those in edited stories.
Causes of suicide. WHO lists 800 causes of suicide. Of these: - 41% - unknown - 19% - fear of punishment - 18% - mental illness - 18% - domestic sorrows - 6% - passions - 3% financial losses - 1.4% - satiety with life - 1.2% - physical illnesses. When you see such exact figures, a natural question arises: if often the person who commits suicide cannot understand the reason, then how do those who compile the statistics know this so accurately? Suicide is the final step to which many causes have led, and each cause, in turn, is the consequence of countless other causes.
The reasons for suicide vary greatly in different age groups - for example, suicides due to unrequited love in adolescents under 16 years of age account for almost half of the total number of suicides, and after 25 years of age, people commit suicide for this reason much less often.
Methods of death: WHO lists 80 methods of death: Preferred methods of suicide can vary greatly depending on the region. Thus, in the Indian state of Punjab, more than half of suicides die under the wheels of trains; in Sri Lanka, 91% of suicides are committed with the use of insecticides - Hanging. This is the method of death that most suicides choose. - Firearms. In the US, where guns are readily available, 60% of suicides die from a bullet. In Canada, where guns are less accessible, guns account for 30% of suicides. And in Austria, where the arms trade is prohibited, it is only 4%. - Poisoning. 15−18% die from drug overdose
Time: - First half of the day - 32% - Second half - 44% - Night - 24%. — There is a connection between the number of suicides and age — There are ethnic groups predisposed to suicide. For example, among the Finno-Ugric group (whether they are residents of Udmurtia, Hungary or Finland, it doesn’t matter) there is a very high suicide rate. — Suicidal risk for various professions (estimated in points from 1 to 10) looks like this: in first place is a musician (8.5 points), followed by a nurse (8.2); dentist (8.2); financier (7.2); psychiatrist (7.2). The list is completed by a librarian (3.2) and a salesperson (2.1). mob killer In China, a large percentage of suicides involve pesticides, where they are readily available. — It is believed that a large percentage of fatal accidents with a single victim are actually suicides. Difficulty of access to potential suicide weapons reduces suicide rates. So, when England switched from poisonous coke oven gas to less toxic natural gas, the suicide rate dropped by a third, and the number of suicides using gas fell from 2,368 to 11 per year.
Family status. According to statistics, married people commit suicide much less often than single or divorced people. There is a high rate of suicide among those who have lost a partner - they commit suicide three times more often than married ones.
At-risk groups. There is a direct correlation between suicide and loss of social status - what is called the “King Lear complex.” Thus, there is a high rate of suicide among demobilized officers, young soldiers, people taken into custody, and recent retirees. The highest rates of suicide are observed among drug addicts, disabled people, mentally ill people, and chronic alcoholics. Alcoholics commit about a third of all completed suicides and a quarter of all attempted suicides. — 44% of suicides leave farewell notes They are addressed to: - “everyone” - 20%, - loved ones - 12%, - bosses - 8%, - no one - 4%. — 60% of suicides consumed alcohol during their lifetime, although immediately before suicide alcohol is consumed only in 8% of cases, drugs in 4%.
Financial situation: - Satisfactory - 44% - Unsatisfactory - 56% - The standard of living and the number of suicides are not related to each other - so one of the most highly developed and rich countries in Europe - Sweden has been the leader in the number of suicides for ten years.
Sexual orientation. According to studies conducted in the United States, gay men attempt suicide 7 times more often than straight men.
Education – people with a high level of education are less likely to commit suicide. The most dangerous group is people with incomplete secondary education.
Relationships: - Communicated with a wide range of people - 24% - With several people - 60% - Were withdrawn and avoided communication - 16%
Social disasters have a direct impact on the number of suicides. For example, after the construction of the Berlin Wall, the suicide rate in the eastern sector increased 25 (!!!) times. Economic crises affect not only the material, but also the mental state. In this situation, the future seems extremely uncertain, and suicide is the only acceptable solution. — About 80% of suicides first let others know about their intentions, although the means of communicating this may be veiled. — In 6% of those who committed suicide, one of their parents was a suicide. -12% after an unsuccessful suicide attempt repeat it within two years and achieve what they want. 80% of those who commit suicide have attempted it at least once in the past. — Surrounded by every person who commits suicide, there are on average 6 people left for whom his suicide is a severe mental trauma. — Since the beginning of the 19th century, there has been a constant and uniform increase in suicide statistics in all countries of the world.
According to WHO forecast, by 2021, 1,500,000 people will commit suicide annually.
Suicidal threat
Some suicidal people are quite clear about their intentions. There may also be direct statements: “I can’t stand this. I don't want to live anymore. I want to commit suicide." More often, with serious intentions to commit suicide, statements are veiled: “You don’t have to worry about me,” “I don’t want to create problems for you,” “I want to fall asleep and not wake up,” “Soon this pain will be over,” “ They will be very sorry when I leave them.” Regardless of whether these dangerous statements take the form of open statements or hints, in any case they should not be ignored. Sometimes nonverbal behavior can be an indicator of suicide. Preparation for suicide depends on the person’s personality and external circumstances. It often consists of what is commonly called “getting your affairs in order.” This could be drawing up a will, reviewing insurance, writing necessary matters or long belated letters for loved ones, resolving disputes and conflicts with relatives and neighbors. A teenager may sentimentally give away valuable personal items. The final preparations can be made very quickly, and then suicide will immediately follow.
