Suicide

[Gustaf]

From what I understand a fair share of suicides are failed failed attempts - people who deep down may not really want it but is doing it as a cry for help, etc.

I used to live with thoughts like that for a long time as a kid. I mentally formulated my first suicide note when I was something like 5 years old. I was never really close to doing anything though.

A girl I played with as a kid who lived in my neighbourhood shot herself when she was 16. Pretty, rich, lots of friends. No one really knew why (or if someone did it never became public enough for me to know about it). That funeral was not a nice experience. I think it was very, very hard on the family. I met the dad a couple of times later (last time only 4 months ago) and he still looked really sad...

[Gustaf]

From what I understand a fair share of suicides are failed failed attempts - people who deep down may not really want it but is doing it as a cry for help, etc.

If you're failing, then you're not really trying.  I agree with you that the "attempts" are attention grabs, but I presumed that the question asked about those truly doing it.

Beet, I'm with you:  even in my darkest moments I never contemplated such a thing as taking my own life.  Part of it is because I'm not very spiritual to begin with.  If I had a soul, then I might not be afraid of letting it move on, but if all I have is this life, and no matter how bad it gets, then it is preferable to nothingness.  Also, it just seems wrong to kill myself.  Also, it is a matter of simple vanity. 

Then you grow up and have a family, and the pressures are even greater, and the stress is even greater, but so is the will to live.  So now you are compelled to keep grinding it out because others depend upon you for moral, economic, and practical support.  Now it becomes even more wrong to end your own life.  And now you have even more reason for the simple vanity that pushes you forward.  Life gets harder, but at the same time so does the need to go on living it.

I agree that you can't truly know, but speculation is all we can do, since you can't really ask the victim of a successful suicide attempt anything, can you?  Well, I guess you could ask, but you needn't wait around for an answer.  Still, as nearly as I can tell, what they all have in common, whether they do it in protest of some political policy, or as a way to draw attention to some great perceived wrong, or as an escape from a harsh reality, or as a means to avoid a difficult decision, or simply to avoid the embarrassment of being taken alive and tried in a court of law, the one common thread is that they're all extremely frustrated. 

Maybe we have just never been quite so frustrated.

Angus, my point was that from what I recall from psychology class, some people not really intending to kill themselves still end up doing it, because things go wrong, they push it too far, etc. And that this, furthermore, was fairly common.

[Gustaf]

I doubt religion has much to do with it,

I agree.  Buddhism is against it, yet there are Buddhist monks who set themselves ablaze.  Islam is against it, yet there are Muslims who kill themselves in protest.  Catholicism is against it, yet there are Catholic priests who take their own lives.  The ancient Egyptians were resurrectionists, but there were Egyptian rulers and citizens who killed themselves.  It seems that most religions are against it, yet most religions have practicioners who kill themselves.  If you're without religion, then you would seem to have the most reason not to commit suicide, and yet there are, among the irreligious, those who kill themselves.  There are also cults whose members are directed to commit suicide, and among those members there are always a few who refuse, such as the Jonestown people who survived by hiding under their cots.  Overall, religion (or lack thereof) seems not to be a deciding factor, although there might be a slight correlation, if someone cares to look that up.

There is, on the other hand, a strong correlation of suicide rates by region.  Polar countries have higher suicide rates than equatorial ones.  Even in the united states, this trend holds among the states:  Alaska has the highest rate per 100K residents, with Montana and North Dakota not far behind.  On the other hand, the suicide rate is fairly low in Georgia, Texas, and California.  There is some noise, though, with Connecticut having the lowest rate even though it's farther north than, say, New Mexico, which has a relatively high rate.  That may also have some economic bias attached, though.  I've never seen such data "corrected" for economic indicators.  Anyway, the theory I read some time ago (I think when it came up on this forum, actually), was that places with very long nights (or days) make people weird and despondent.  There was also a trend in homicide rates that ran the opposite:  high in equatorial regions and low in polar regions.  So, if you're in Fargo, you kill yourself but not others.  If you're in Atlanta, you'll kill others but not yourself.  Something in that, I think. 

There were also a rash of articles about why suicide rates were high in the "happiest places" a few years back.  E.g., Norway and Denmark have very high "happy" scale scores, and fairly high suicide rates as well.  Mexico and Egypt have fairly low "happy" scale scores, and fairly low suicide rates as well.  That was being explained via relative comparisons by some researchers.  Other researchers didn't put much stock into it and suggested that the long, dark winters had more to do with it.  Still others pointed to population density and tried to make some correlation with that.  Actually, in the US that trend sort of holds (e.g., Alaska versus Connecticut).

The idea that happy rich countries have high suicide rates have little to no empirical support. Denmark and Norway have rates similar to the US for example.

I also suspect that a lot of religious countries have highly deflated figures. My guess would be that a lot of suicides are reported as accidents in countries where suicide may have legal and/or social reprecussions.