There have been a number of suicides that have hit the headlines recently, including the death of the comedian Robin Williams. It is a sensitive subject that I hope has been handled in the appropriate way below.
According to the World Health Organisation, global suicide rates have increased by 40 per cent over the past 45 years; indeed, more people die by suicide than by car accidents (‘The Irony of Despair,’ New York Times, 5 December 2013).
People who are in poverty and are socially isolated are more likely to commit suicide than those in wealth and socially connected. People who attempt suicide are always subject to sociological risk factors, but are always brought to that point by an idea or story in order to justify their act.
Some people commit suicide because their sense of their own identity has been eroded, others do it because they hate themselves, still others feel that they are unable to be part of the world’s activities.
David Brooks wrote in the New York Times article: ‘In her eloquent and affecting book “Stay: A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against It,” Jennifer Michael Hecht presents two big counterideas that she hopes people contemplating potential suicides will keep in their heads. Her first is that, “Suicide is delayed homicide.”
Suicide happens in clusters, with one person’s suicide influencing other’s. If a parent commits suicide, his or her children are three times as likely to do so at some point in their lives. In the month after Marilyn Monroe’s overdose, there was a 12 per cent increase in suicides across America. People in the act of committing suicide may feel isolated, but, in fact, they are deeply connected to those around. As Hecht puts it, if you want your niece to make it through her dark nights, you have to make it through yours.
‘Her second argument is that you owe it to your future self to live. [I would put that it is like bringing down the curtain so you do not know how the play ends.] A 1978 study tracked down 515 people who were stopped from jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. Decades later, Hecht writes: “94 per cent of those who had tried to commit suicide on the bridge were still alive or had died of natural causes.” Suicide is an act of chronological arrogance, the assumption that the impulse of the moment has a right to dictate the judgement of future decades.
‘I’d only add that the suicidal situation is an ironical situation. A person enters the situation amid feelings of powerlessness and despair, but once in the situation the potential suicide has the power to make a series of big points before the world. By deciding to live, a person in a suicidal situation can prove that life isn’t just about racking up pleasure points; it is a vale of soul-making, and suffering can be turned into wisdom. A person in that situation can model endurance and prove to others that, as John Milton put it, “They also serve who stand and wait.”
‘That person can commit to live to redeem mistakes. That person can show that we are not completely self-determining creatures, and do not have the right to choose when we end our participation in the common project of life.’
In the Lancet Psychiatry, researchers from the John Hopkins University discovered that talk therapy can assist in the reduction of suicide among high risk groups (‘Suicide risk reduced after talk therapy, study suggests,’ www.bbc.co.uk, 24 November 2014). The study showed that suicides decreased by 26 per cent after five years, compared to people who had no psychosocial therapy sessions. In the first year after such sessions, the former group were 27 per cent less likely commit suicide and also 38 per cent less likely to die of any cause.
Annette Erlangsen of the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health commented: ‘We know that people who have attempted suicide are a high risk population and that we need to help them.’
She continued: ‘Now we have evidence that psychosocial treatment – which provides support, not medication – is able to prevent suicide in a group at high risk of dying by suicide.'
It is important to remember that suicide, including the attempt, can happen for a number of reasons, as I have alluded to earlier. It is often caused by mental health issues or by substance abuse (as a recent article on Paracetamol combined with alcohol has shown). There could be extreme cases where all faculties had been lost to the person (such as dementia or closed head injuries).
In the Bible, there are six suicides that are recorded: Abimelech (Judges 9: 54), Saul (1 Samuel 31: 4), Saul’s armour bearer (1 Samuel 31: 4 – 6), Ahithopel (2 Samuel 17: 23), Zimri (1 Kings 16: 18) and Judas Iscariot (Matthew 27: 5). Five of these people were commented on their wicked character, although we are not informed of the armour bearer’s character. Some commentators would also include the death of Samson (Judges 16: 26 – 31) but the primary justification for his action was to kill as many Philistines as possible.
Paul prevented the suicide of the Philippian jailer (Acts 16: 28).
There are further examples of people who suffered from depression so that they expressed suicidal tendencies, namely Jonah (Jonah 4: 8), Elijah (1 Kings 19: 4) and Job (Job 6: 9). Solomon also reached the point where, in her pursuit of pleasure, he ‘hated life’ (Ecclesiastes 2: 17). Paul reported that he and his colleagues ‘were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself.’ (2 Corinthians 1: 8)
It is noticeable that it when God intervenes that the person is relieved of these feelings. Solomon learned to ‘fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind.’ (Ecclesiastes 12: 13). Elijah was ministered to by an angel, was rested and then given a new commission. Jonah was admonished and rebuked by God. Paul learned that the Lord can bear those things that we cannot: ‘This happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.’ (2 Corinthians 1: 9)
It has to be acknowledged that it cannot always be prevented when there are exceptional circumstances (such as chemical imbalance in the brain); however, we have to acknowledge that ‘my times are in your hands.’ (Psalm 31: 15) As God is the giver of life, He is also responsible for when we leave the world (Job 1: 21).
The important thing is that we support those who attempt suicide and/or (in the cases of successful attempts) those who mourn for their loss. We need to respond with sensitivity and compassion towards all, reflecting the sense of worth that God has for all people He has created.
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