Explanations For Suicide

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Explanations For Suicide

The facts of suicide are not easy to explain.
A person who dies by suicide is no longer available to explain why they suicided.

For survivors, feelings about the death make it difficult to know what might have been the real facts. Research theories are only best guesses. They describe a complex decision influenced by many contributing pathways.

Shneidman, Comprehending Suicide: Landmarks in 20th Century Suicidology, 2001

There is no single cause when a person dies by suicide.

Suicidal behavior is influenced by biology, personal and social psychology, roles and relationships, and issues about the very meaning of each of our lives. Many factors come together in a multitude of different combinations to make a death by suicide.

Orbach, A taxonomy of factors related to suicidal behavior, Clinical Psychology Science and Practice, 1997

Suicidal behavior occurs for many different reasons.

Suicidal behavior is not a single problem, but a collection of issues that eventually end in self-harm or death. There is no typical suicide but it is very unlikely for suicide to occur for no reason at all.

Jobes and Mann, Reasons for living versus reasons for dying: Examining the internal debate of suicide, Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 1999

There are many choices leading to suicide.

Suicide is an outcome of a process within a person?s life. There is a development of predisposing, precipitating and even perpetuating events and experiences.

During this process, there are choice points where suicide can be made less likely.

Some of these are choices available to a person at risk and some are choices made by others or even by society at large.

Lester, Why People Kill Themselves: A 2000 Summary of Research on Suicide (4th ed.), 2000

Many things, big and small, can lead towards suicide.

Seldom does a single catastrophic event lead to suicide, though that does occur. Much more common are events and experiences that eventually overwhelm the person and lead to a loss of their usual effective coping.

Suicide may become an option at this point but life can also be chosen and usually will be if there is someone to help sort out the choices.

Heikkinen and others, Age-related variation in recent life events preceding suicide, Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 1995

For many, suicide is about escaping pain.

Suicide is usually not about seeking death. Death may be the outcome, but the goal was to escape a life where the burden of suffering and pain can be removed.

Many who consider suicide would prefer to find a way to live.

Thoughts of suicide occur when living life as it has been is no longer possible. Something must change. One solution is no life, but another is to find another way to live. Most people find another way out. Suicide is not a first choice.

There is an interview with a person who jumped off a very high bridge ? and lived. He recalled thinking on the way down that he had made the wrong choice and really wanted to live.

Malone and others, Protective factors against suicidal acts in major depression: reasons for living, American Journal of Psychiatry, 2000

Fewer than 1 in 5 of those who suicide leave a note to explain their action.

Written notes or other messages from those who die by suicide are not common. Those that are left are usually more about who should or should not be blamed for the action than any explanation of the reason(s) for taking the action.

McClelland, A last defence: The negotiation of blame within suicide notes, 2002

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