Gaybria Rhoads: Suicide Epidemic

Phil Donahue once said, “Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem,” (Phil Donahue Quotes.) What are these temporary problems that are so significant that a person would choose to drown themselves rather than ride the tough waters? Most teens succumb to suicide after a long period of bullying. This social epidemic affects mothers, fathers, siblings, spouses, employees, friends, teachers and classmates.  Our local county has seen too many suicide cases over that last few months all teens from just down the road from our high school. Suicide is the second leading cause of death for ages 10-24 in the U.S. and tenth leading cause of death the U.S. today for all age groups (Youth Suicide Statistics.). It is sickening to know that more children will die from suicide than they will cancer, or aids, or whatever viral disease outbreak of their generation. It’s even more appalling to know that suicide is totally preventable. This is not the type of thing that happens from fate such as a plane crash, or someone being pushed into a hole. Suicide is controllable and should be controlled.

History of Suicide

            Suicide has been prevalent since the beginning of time. People have been taking their own lives for as far back as we can trace.  Back then, just as it is now, certain demographics condoned the act of suicide while others condemned it (“The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica”). Monotheistic religion sectors namely like, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, were and still are against suicide (1). One famous suicide in biblical in history is the suicide of Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve apostles, and the only one to betray Jesus. Unlike today, failed suicide attempts were punishable by law during these ancient times. Because most governments of these mentioned eras were theocracies, any sin or hamartia against God, small or large, was also a crime against the government. During the ancient era of Greece, it was acceptable for convicted criminals to take their own lives. In the Buddhist culture, it is not rare for monks and nuns to commit sacrificial suicide as a form of social protest (1).  Since the Middle Ages, the laws have changed in various in order to strategically attack the slowly forming crisis of suicide, but that has done little to lower the actual suicide rate, the world came to a general consensus that criminally convicting an individual for attempting to take their own life was absurd. England was the last to open their eyes, it was not until the year 1961 that the country abolished their laws against suicide (1). In 1997, the US state of Oregon raised eyebrows as they took their side on this touchy subject that comes in the form of two pills; they passed the Death with Dignity Act, allowing for physician assisted suicide in their state for the terminally ill (“Death with Dignity Act”). Since 1997, only two more states, Washington and Montana have adopted the law in the last twenty years (1). Most terminally ill patients who would rather go in peace and not pain have to travel to one of these three states to receive care under a practicing doctor whom is comfortable with prescribing the medication. The fact that only three of our nation’s fifty states have adopted this law speaks for itself on how morally taboo physician assisted suicide is in the United States (“The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica”). This uprising questions the moral nature of the physicians that treat these patients and the mental state of these terminally ill individuals (1).   

Effects on Society

            It’s safe to say that, in the ancient era, suicide was the result of last resort and it was more common in adults. Reasons for suicide included not wanting to be punished or tortured because of a criminal action, not being able to provide for the family, and being a part of the socially oppressed demographic. But now, in modern times, the most emergent reason for suicide is bullying in teens. Today, expressing our nasty and unpleasing feelings towards someone and somethings is just that much easier because of social media. Cyber bullying steadily increases each day, which is a social epidemic in itself, but the effects that is cyber bullying epidemic has had on the ever growing suicide rate is tremendous. This epidemic has long tem effects on the whole world. When a person decides to take his own life, he also takes the lives of those closest to him. Suicide, like most epidemics, is like a domino effect that infects the neighboring lives; the only difference is, there’s no vaccine or antibiotic to cure the pain left from a person’s rashness.

Just back in December our county saw firsthand how bullying can lead to suicide. Brandi Vela, a local Texas City senior took her own life after years and years of cyber bullying. Her death opened the eyes of many, especially the high school age community kids. Her death left her friends and family in shock, her classmates lost, neighbors, coworkers, customers all wondering why. Why didn’t they do something? Why didn’t they notice? Why didn’t they help? Why didn’t they push harder for her to talk about what was going on? Her inner circles, her community, her whole city was lost for words. How they had let things get so bad that they ley Brandi slip form their hands.

    

Since this, there has been two more publically known suicides in Galveston County, both committed by teens who were the dart board to bullying. One of the most famous cyber bullying- suicide cases that my generation was unfortunate enough to live through was the case of Amanda Todd (“The Unforgettable Amanda Todd Story”). The teenager posted a YouTube cry for help using flashcards to tell her story of being black mailed and bullied for flashing a stranger on a webcam chat (1). This stranger used her photo to make Facebook profiles, using her picture so Amanda took to the internet to help heal her pain, but the virtual world did the exact opposite and only reinjured her scars as well as her classmates (1). Amanda was tormented and beaten at school just for being the girl in the picture. She was alone and friendless with her final cry for help only being a fail (1). A few months later, Amanda Todd hanged herself in her home. The publicity behind her death shook the whole world (1). Although Amanda’s death was unfortunate, the buzz that it caused really shed light on the cyber bullying epidemic our world is facing. Suicide is an emerging social epidemic that needs to be discussed. It is a social epidemic that is controllable and shall be controlled.

Solutions

Suicide is self-harm and not airborne virus, or a transmittable disease, so there is not a real solution to this social epidemic. Suicide cannot be solved per say, but only prevented by victims and their families. So, the only solution to suicide is being aware of the signs of suicide. Suicide is completely preventable, but only if society is aware of the signs. Science and research finds that about ninety percent of suicide victims have a small and treatable mental illness at the time of their death (Suicide Causes).

This mental illness is more often than not depression. Depression is literally a silent killer and it affects more than eighteen percent of the population (1). Often times, people that suffer from depression either do not know that they are depressed, so they do not seek help, or they are too far gone in their depression that the mire thought of getting help is unforeseeable. Many people who are depressed are either being bullied or have suffered from a major change/ event in their life (1). That event could be anything from a death, an illness, abuse, a conflict with another person or even yourself, or a something as small as a change in medication. Accordingly, society has to recognize the signs of depression, as well, since long term depression is the gateway to suicidal thoughts. The ability to know how to identify depression, or even just the whit to know when something is wrong with a close friend or family member, is golden. Depression seems very small scale looking from a personal perspective, yet it is slowly becoming increasingly more and more common, and so are suicide rates to follow. These two epidemics are closely related and they should be taken very seriously. Sadly, the world that we live in fails to do so which could be the reason that suicide rates have been rising in the United States since 2000.

Suicide is so prevalent in this day in age that it needs to be a topic in school. All the while we are learning about the Rachel’s Challenge and remaining drug free during Red Ribbon Week, schools fail to go to the extremes about the causes of suicide and the signs of depression. Even if it only saves one person in each school district, it will work. Society has to become comfortable with the signs of depression, the causes of suicide, and then they have to know how to ask for help. If not just for them, for their friends and family, their generation. So, to tie a bow on it, all in all, the solution to suicide having intelligence on how to diagnose the epidemic.

A common misconception about suicide is people believe that once a person has suicidal thoughts in his head, he cannot be saved, meaning that he cannot do anything to help a suicidal person. This is not true! In all actuality, we find that people with suicidal thoughts feel misunderstood. They also believe that since they are not therapist or professionals, they will say the wrong things and the person will revert anyway. This is also not true. What researchers find is actually true, no alternative facts, is most of the simple talking can literally talk a person off of a ledge. Suicidal people suffer in silence for so long that, it is almost euphoric when someone simply talks to them. So another key to suicide is simply talking. The only downside about talking to someone who is at their breaking point is, if you usually do not talk to that person, but all of a sudden you try to talk the “off of the ledge” they will fail to see you as a genuine person whom is actively trying to help and just the person who wants to be the hero.

Camus and Absurdity

            Oddly enough, Albert Camus fought the title “philosopher” tooth and nail in his day of living. Yet, all in all, he was a philosopher by nature. His philosophy, absurdity, goes hand in hand with suicide (“The Myth of Sisyphus.”). Camus wrote, "There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide” (1).  Albert Camus believed that suicide was the equivalent to saying that your life no longer has any meaning on earth which is absurd.  If you deem your life useless and you feel that you have no purpose, Camus basically says that suicide is the best alternative (1). Today, if Camus was to see these rising rates of suicide. I think he would have to say that society is simply losing its meaning. That seems simple minded in a nutshell, but if you truly analyze it. This is the truth. Society’s human purpose has slowly drifted off and we live in a more selfish world. People are now channeling more and more into themselves and less and less about the productivity of the world.

Conclusion                                                                          

Suicide has been on the rise, for over that last decade, but that this does not have to stay that way. It is our job as a society to make the change. Cyberbullying Trolls need to no longer be accepted, and we need to education ourselves on the crisis at hand. Just because you or someone you know has not been affected yet, does not mean that you are exempt from sitting in the same misery as Brandi Vela, or having to live with the aftermath of her personal demons like her close friends and family.  This is a serious problem that should be taken seriously. As a human race, we need to lift up the Amanda Todd’s of the world instead of putting them down. Suicide as a whole will probably never go away, but we can surely do something to lower the occurrence of it.