I think the timing of this article might have something to do with the recent ruling on the Second Amendment and gun ownership. I did notice that in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling, newspapers ran articles on the relationship between suicide rates and gun ownership. So, in my view, this piece is as much of a commentary on recent political trends as it may be on long-standing issues in mental health.

As a Canadian, with no experience of any constitutional personal vs. military right around handgun ownership, the only reason I can imagine The Times would run this particular magazine piece on "Understanding Suicide" now is linked to the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling on gun control.
The story focuses on the "impulsivity factor" and method in suicide. I haven't read your stories on this, Philip, but the author stresses guns as one of the two fastest ways to die by suicide. (The other is jumping from a precipice.)
He argues that suicide rates would drop if loaded guns were not too easily and quickly accessed and "suicide bridges" were barricaded.
In Toronto in 2003, after nearly six years of debate, a barrier was built on the Bloor St. Viaduct. Suicide rates have dramatically dropped here since.
Minutes can make the difference between life and almost always certain death, as the two rare survivors – of a hollow-point gun shot head wound and a Golden Gate bridge jump – poignantly stated.

sandy and maria, my hunch is that this article was in the works many months ago. the reporting is too extensive to have been turned around in a few weeks and the lead time for articles in the mag is at least a month. but i can understand why you might think it was tied to the heller case.

my own thought is that guns and jumping are certainly among the fastest means, but so is poisoning and other means i dare not get into.

i should've linked my own babbling on this subject, but i was being lazy:

here's something i wrote in jan 2004:

http://www.seattleweekly.com/2004-01-14/news/one-suicide-too-many.php

and something i wrote last fall on attempts to get a jumping barrier on the second worst suicide bridge in the US (maybe the world) which happens to be in seattle. sadly the link to my mag article is dead. not sure why, but you'll get the gist from what i wrote:

http://www.furiousseasons.com/archives/2007/09/seattle_suicide_bridge_may_get_barrier_adobe_execs_could_care_less.html

one of these days, when my back is better, i'll poke around more and find a cache of that mag article which was actually pretty good and had some nice pics.

The reason the NYT wrote the article (this is my guess) is recently a very up and coming Eastern European Model jumped from her high-rise Manhattan condo to her death. Then a few days later, a prominent doctor jumped to his death at Beth Israel hospital only a few days later. The model's death of course received much more attention from the media. The young model's birthday was this past weekend (I think she was 21) and I believe after she had been splashed across the covers of the Post and the New York Daily News for several days, people just want to know why.......

Here's the Seattle Magazine article Philip-- with one photo.

Poisoning is not fast and usually does not work. I wish the article would have focused more on the demographics of suicide in the U.S. which aren't what most folks think. The highest rate is among elderly white men who have been widowed or were never married and have access to guns. Maybe an age limit on guns would help? The focus on the fact that suicide barriers on bridges work and reduce the suicide rate was very helpful to anyone trying to get such in their community.

I'm a little sceptical of their claim that folks who try once impulsively once don't try again, why is the suicide rate so much higher among previous attempters than?

not fast? cyanide? i think cyanide is plenty fast.

strangely the original link works if you first search for the link in google, and go to it via the search result.

Must be some hidden characters putting a gremlin in the mix.

Suicide is not a difficult concept to comprehend..
It is extreme despair , something which can happen to anyone..
There is no huge myth or secret to be uncovered about suicide..

Philip:

Thanks for posting the link to your article. It was an enlightening read. I didn't know about the much higher suicide rate in Seattle relative to the murder rates. However, having lived a couple of decades in the Pacific Northwest (Vancouver, B.C.), I always wondered about the relationship between place and the grizzly types of murders that made the headlines in British Columbia back in the 1970s and 1980s.

I wasn't aware of these current high profile suicides that probably prompted the NYT piece. (You are right, it takes more than a couple of weeks to research such a piece...)

However, I have been very closely touched in the last two weeks by a suicide -- a jump from the Golden Gate Bridge. Until recently, I believed that erecting barriers at high points and reducing the convenience factor for other methods would only delay but not deter people from suicide.

Anyway, I have changed my position completely on the issue of a barrier on the Golden Gate Bridge. The bridge district is taking its time because (and I might have this wrong, in terms of the party in question, but not the issue) its lawyers said that the barrier wouldn't be 100 percent safe and so leave the district open to litigation....

According to this article, almost one-third of suicides are of the impulsive type if statistics from the "coal-gas" example in Britain are used.

The FDA released a General Warning on March 22, 2004. The fourth paragraph stated that antidepressants can cause Impulsivity in both psychiatric and non-psychiatric conditions.

Here is the address for the FDA Warning:
http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/antidepressants/AntidepressanstPHA.htm

The Website www.SSRIstories.com has this FDA Warning posted on its links page.

www.SSRIstories.com has a wealth of information on its Cover Page, Index and Links page.

I think that every Suicide Prevention Center in the world should read this New York Times Magazine article.

I haven't studied this article closely yet but on a first reading it's one of the best articles on suicide I've ever read. He does a great job of "de-stigmatizing" suicide; he doesn't think of someone who's attempted suicide as having a "life long mental disorder" as any mental professional surely would. I love this. A huge number of suicides are the result of loss of impulse control in a moment of passion or despair, nothing more, nothing less and much more about the availability of the means to do it (the "how"). The only thing missing from his article is the fact that antidepressants are well known for their effect on impulsivity. They increase it dramatically. As far as I'm concerned this is one of the best descriptions of how a suicide on an antidepressant is likely to occur that I've ever read.

Dearest Philip:

Here we go again, let's take away the constitutional rights from those with mental disorders on the grounds that it's makes society safer.

FACT: people with mental disorders are no more or less dangerous than the general population.

Let's be reminded that those that are deemed a danger to themselves or others by some so called mental health professional have in reality fewer rights than a prison inmate and much worse care (the old 5150 removal of all rights due to a judgment call, without due process or representation by a lawyer or presentation/trial before a judge, or jury of their peers).

Now the Supreme Court has ruled those with mental disorders are not qualified to represent themselves in the courts; now let's extend this stupidity to blame the guns and bridges.

Anyone who has even a clue about reality and common sense can see what's going on. Last time I checked this was not NAZI Germany, and our constitution and bill of rights were intended for each and every citizen of this land.

Why don't we pull the drivers licenses of all with mental disorders since there are so many block walls out there (not to mention canyons, over passes, train crossings, and large semi-trucks full of toxic ingredients)?

Let’s make all those deemed to have mental disorders eat with plastic forks and knifes while being supervised by certified professionals also (since those metal ones are much too dangerous to be in the hands of those dangerous crazy people, and as an added bonus it might give those psychiatrist something to do besides write prescriptions promoted by their latest drug rep friends at Harvard or Stanford University).

Let’s also censor their speech so they don't secretly pass good suicide ideas around, and force medicate those with mental disorders into a zombie state that in all reality will kill them just fine over time anywise. (In this way big Pharma; Catch, Drug, and Release Hospitals, and the heartless political animals benefiting from their donations and funding can at the very least reap the tremendous profits from this prolific problem of suicide within are society{ did I forget to mention the APA and NAMI? Damn it!}).

I mean why not folks? Isn’t it all about keeping everyone safe RIGHT! I could list ten thousand simple ways to off yourself quite adequately here without using a gun or bridge. Maybe we should make all people with mental disorders live in a plastic safety bubbles on far away islands?

The New York Times has about much credibility as MAD magazine. Another one of those pesky speed bumps on this road of verbosity and fear mongering along the HWY to socialistic hell via journalistic enthusiasm; and just one more demon in a long line of liberal rags trying to propagate their own agenda to take away each citizens rights and especially the rights of those with mental disorders.

Maybe if we really wanted to stop or limit self destructive behavior including suicide; we can throw out the whole idea of a free press along with all our other rights. I'm sure the New York Times would love that one; since it would without doubt save the masses from the misery of reading their crap, and in turn limit the depression that may lead to suicidal thinking and idealization.

All these arguments against guns and so called other methods are just plain ignorant! To even think we can stop or limit suicide by removing the means is completely naive in both concept and results.

Wake up and smell the roses people.

Now, that should fire up a few puppet pundits out there. So let’s see the comment flow!

In closing this rant: If someone has truly without any doubt decided to end their own life; then please tell me how you intend to stop them from doing so?

Stan

articles like this are timeless as the issue of suicide is timeless.

In my opinion, we are near a cultural equivalent of what was known as the "great depression" of the 1930's, with the financial hassles, lack of healthy and responsible cohesiveness within communities, much less between states, and our lack of understanding and respect between our country and the rest of the planet.

So, if I am right this is similar to that of a depressed period experienced 70 years ago, strap on the shoulder belt, folks, cause this ride gets more intense until you see the end of the tracks coming. Suicide is inherent to depression, so even if depression here is a term for financial and cultural situations, it seems applicable to that experienced in a mood disorder. What is strongly associated with suicidal thoughts and intent: hopelessness. That feeling seems a bit too prevalent these days, true?

After all, and this is purely opinion here, our political process for the upcoming presidential election has to be offering one of the weakest fields of candidates I personally have seen as a registered voter for the past 3 decades. If that is not depressing in and of itself, I don't know what else to offer. Not that I or anyone else should be suicidal over this, but I have to ask where is hope when our elected officials are anything but representing us as the electorate body that put them there in the first place.

As I said in the last posting that spoke about suicidal issues, if you or someone you know are dealing with suicidal issues, seek out a mental health care provider. Suicide is a terminal solution to temporary problems.

I think Philip was most accurate: to fill space in the NY Times Mag; they mean well, but sounds like it was not the best presentation in the end.

I finally sat down and read the NYT article. I can see why people I know who subscribe are cancelling their subscriptions. Is it me, or is the Old Gray Lady dropping it's standards for it's writers? Or are they writing for a different audience now?Anyway-

While it's laudable the author points out how many suicides and would be suicides are impulse events, he did not investigate how many were thought out and planned down to the last detail.

I can tell you my attempts were planned down to the last detail, investigated. Most people I have met say the same thing. What misfired was the brand of rope, the wrong type of gun, poisons that didn't work as quickly as the internet said they would, a catalytic converter kicking in a car, or simply a guardian angel interrupted because it wasn't the persons time to die.

The Golden Gate jumpers stats have been used over and over, most notably by Colt in 86 and Schnienman back in the 60s.

"Like carpenters they want to know which tools. They never ask why build"- Anne Sexton had it right.

My opinion about this article the mental illness is main reason for people committing suicide every year. It is really bad sign increasing day by day.
The government should conduct more seminar & mental health center.
***********

sharu


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