I Tried to Kill Myself Again Last Night
Personal Health
After a Suicide Attempt, the Risk of Another Endeavor
My family is no stranger to suicide and suicide attempts, and we are not alone. To recount just two instances:
A 20-year-old nephew, subsequently receiving a very caring letter from his sis-in-police force explaining why she could non be his lover, went to his room, shot himself in the head and died.
A beloved uncle, who had been plagued for years past bouts of severe depression that alternated with mild mania, was seen at a major hospital psychiatric clinic on a Friday and told to come dorsum on Monday. Instead, he took every pill in the house and lay downwardly on a rock jetty in the ocean waiting to die. Luckily, he was found alive by the police, and after hospitalization, a proper diagnosis and treatment for bipolar disorder, he lived into his 80s.
Suicide surpasses homicide in this land. Every 13 minutes someone in the United States dies by his own hand, making suicide the nation's 10th leading crusade of expiry over all (42,773 deaths in 2015), but 2nd among those aged xv to 34. Amongst children aged 10 to xiv, the suicide rate has defenseless upward to the decease rate from traffic accidents.
Many times that number – more than a meg adults and eight percent of loftier school students — try suicide each year, co-ordinate to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Withal a woeful minority receive the kind of handling and attention needed to keep them from repeating a suicide endeavor.
A common yet highly inaccurate belief is that people who survive a suicide attempt are unlikely to endeavor once again. In fact, just the opposite is true. Within the offset 3 months to a year post-obit a suicide try, people are at highest risk of a 2nd try — and this fourth dimension peradventure succeeding.
A recent assay of studies that examined successful suicides among those who made prior attempts found that one person in 25 had a fatal repeat attempt within five years.
At present a new report reveals just how lethal suicide attempts, as a gamble gene for completed suicide, are. The report, led by Dr. J. Michael Bostwick, a psychiatrist at the Mayo Clinic, tracked all starting time suicide attempts in ane county in Minnesota that occurred between Jan 1986 and December 2007 and recorded all the deaths by suicide for up to 25 years thereafter. Eighty-one of the 1,490 people who attempted suicide, or 5.four percent, died by suicide, 48 of them in their first effort. The findings were reported in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
When all who succeeded in killing themselves were counted, including those who died in their get-go attempt, the fatality rate among suicide attempters was near 59 percent higher than had been previously reported.
"No i had included people who died on their offset recorded endeavour, so it'southward not in the medical literature," Dr. Bostwick explained in an interview. "That about 2-thirds end up at the medical coroner after a first attempt is astounding. We need to rethink how we look at the data and the miracle of suicide. Nosotros need to know more than and do more for those who volition complete suicide earlier they become to u.s. for whatever kind of aid."
The study also showed that the odds of successfully committing suicide are 140 times greater when a gun is used than for any other method. Dr. Bostwick said that most suicide attempts are "impulsive acts, and information technology'southward critical to prevent admission to tools that brand impulsive attempts more deadly.
"Suicide attempters often take 2d thoughts, but when a method like a gun works so effectively, at that place's no opportunity to reconsider," he said.
In an accompanying editorial entitled "You seldom get a second chance with a gunshot," Dr. Merete Nordentoft, a mental wellness specialist in Copenhagen, and her co-authors wrote that "a suicidal act is the result of a temporary state of the listen." Given "the high lethality of guns," they urged that availability should be restricted through such measures every bit "legal restrictions regarding permission to purchase firearms, waiting periods, safe storage, background checks and registration guidelines." Such measures have been linked to decreased rates of firearm suicides.
"Nigh people who attempt suicide modify their mind," they wrote, adding that "virtually often, firearms practise non allow for a alter of heed or medical attention to arrive in time. It is, thus, alarming that 21,175 (51 percent) persons who died by suicide in the U.S. in 2013 used firearms."
In the Minnesota study, men were more than than 5 times as likely to die by suicide as women; they were besides more than likely to use a gun. However, women who used guns were every bit likely to dice equally a issue equally were the men.
Equally if non more important to preventing successful suicide is paying attending to premonitory signs of suicidal intent and taking appropriate activeness to diffuse it. People who are depressed, who corruption substances similar alcohol or illegal drugs or are having serious relationship difficulties should be considered high take a chance, Dr. Bostwick said.
In urging practicing physicians to pay more attending to the mental wellness of their patients, Dr. Catherine Goertemiller Carrigan and Denis J. Lynch wrote in the Primary Intendance Companion Periodical of Clinical Psychiatry that "over 90 per centum of persons who commit suicide have diagnosable psychiatric disease at the time of decease."
Psychiatrists, too, demand to pay more than attention to physical ills, they wrote. "Up to 50 percent of patients with psychiatric complaints have been found to harbor unrecognized medical illnesses that may accept contributed to their mental deterioration," yet fewer than ane in 5 psychiatrists routinely perform concrete examinations.
But mostly, family members and friends are in the best position to spot a potential suicide and take steps to head information technology off. In addition to depression and substance abuse, signs include making statements (verbal or written) of being amend off dead; withdrawing from family and friends; feeling helpless, hopeless, enraged, trapped, excessively guilty or ashamed; losing interest in near activities; acting impulsively or recklessly; and giving abroad prized possessions.
Well-nigh important is to take the person or your suspicions seriously and go immediate professional aid even if the person resists. Unless yous are a mental health professional, don't assume you can talk the person out of suicidal intent.
For those who attempt suicide, the chances of a subsequent suicidal death are greatly reduced if i or more follow-up appointments are scheduled, and even further reduced if the person keeps the appointments, Dr. Bostwick said.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/08/well/live/after-a-suicide-attempt-the-risk-of-another-try.html
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