My teenage cousin was a bright and beautiful young woman with a great future ahead of her, yet she decided to take her own life. I just don't understand it. Why do people commit suicide? What causes someone to feel like taking their own life is the only answer to their problems?
While there are many factors which can influence a person's decision to commit suicide, the most common one is that they are suffering from severe depression.
They are feeling great emotional pain, but aren't able to see any way to relieve that pain other than ending their own life. When their pain gets to be too much to bear, they may commit suicide in order to make the pain come to an end.
Other mental illnesses besides depression can also play a role in suicide. For example, a person with schizophrenia might be hearing voices which command her to kill herself. Bipolar disorder, an illness in which a person experiences alternating periods of high and low moods, can also increase a person's risk for commiting suicide.
Drugs and alcohol can also influence a person who is feeling suicidal, making her more impulsive and likely to act upon her urges than she would be while sober.
Sometimes people attempt suicide not so much because they really want to die, but because they simply don't know how to get help. Suicide attempts then become a way of crying out and demonstrating to the world just how much the person is hurting.
Unfortunately, these cries for help may sometimes prove to be fatal if the person misjudges the lethality of her chosen suicide method.
Chronic pain and illness can also be a motivating factor in a person's choice to die. If a person does not have any hope of a cure or a reprieve from her suffering, suicide may seem like a way to regain dignity and control of her life.
Finally, there are some situations where what appears to be a suicide is actually an accidental death, such as a dangerous trend among teens called "the choking game," where teens attempt to aspyxiate themselves in order to feel a high.
While I can't comment on what in particular might have caused your cousin to commit suicide, I can say that outside appearances can be deceiving. While it might have appeared that she had everything to live for, it probably didn't feel that way to her. There might have been events and circumstances in her life that you weren't aware of or it might simply have been that her depression was clouding her judgment, making her unable to see anything but the negative side of her life. When a person feels that she has lost all hope and she doesn't feel able to change that, it can overshadow all of the good things in her life, making suicide seem like a viable option. While it might seem obvious to an outside observer that things will get better, a person with depression may not be able to see this due to the pessimism and despair that go along with this illness.
Suicide is defined as the act of intentionally causing one’s own death. There are many factors that play a role in influencing whether someone decides to commit suicide. Nearly everyone experiences suicidal thoughts at one point or another throughout their existence. Everyone deals with tough times, but some people have been dealt a tougher hand when it comes to life circumstances, past trauma, mental and/or physical illness, social standing, and ability to cope with depressive emotions.
People are most driven to suicide when they view their current situation as being completely hopeless and feel as if they have no way to change things for the better. Common causes of suicide include: depression, drug abuse, financial problems, as well as difficulties with relationships. Although there are crisis hotlines that have been developed to help people feeling suicidal, the jury is out as to whether they even help.
Some ideas for preventing suicide include things like: banning firearms, developing better treatment for mental illness, and economic improvement. Most people that commit suicide do so because they are in some sort of pain and cannot seem to find a way out. Much work still needs to be done on coming up with more effective ways to help individuals that struggle with suicidal thinking as up to 1,000,000 people die every year from suicide. Listed below are some of the most common causes of suicide throughout the world
Suicide is defined as the act of intentionally causing one’s own death. There are many factors that play a role in influencing whether someone decides to commit suicide. Nearly everyone experiences suicidal thoughts at one point or another throughout their existence. Everyone deals with tough times, but some people have been dealt a tougher hand when it comes to life circumstances, past trauma, mental and/or physical illness, social standing, and ability to cope with depressive emotions.
People are most driven to suicide when they view their current situation as being completely hopeless and feel as if they have no way to change things for the better. Common causes of suicide include: depression, drug abuse, financial problems, as well as difficulties with relationships. Although there are crisis hotlines that have been developed to help people feeling suicidal, the jury is out as to whether they even help.
Some ideas for preventing suicide include things like: banning firearms, developing better treatment for mental illness, and economic improvement. Most people that commit suicide do so because they are in some sort of pain and cannot seem to find a way out. Much work still needs to be done on coming up with more effective ways to help individuals that struggle with suicidal thinking as up to 1,000,000 people die every year from suicide.
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The very idea that someone wants to die is frightening. As a result, suicide is not an easy topic to discuss for many people. But talking about suicide does save lives. If one person can be saved from suicide by talking about it with someone, it is worth it; especially if that someone is you.
I am amazed at the many powerful and wise comments I have received from you about suicide. I asked you to tell me why you think people contemplate suicide and you had some amazing insights. It is clear that it is usually not just one thing that compels someone to feel suicidal. You said it is a combination of a lot of things, including:
pain
loneliness
rejection
abuse
deep depression
guilt
depression
helplessness
hopelessness
More than anything, I believe people who live with suicidal ideation feel hopeless. They are hurting so badly and want nothing more than for the pain to end. Unfortunately, they cannot imagine the pain ever going away. They cannot see the light at the end of the very dark and lonely tunnel they have found themselves traveling down. Have you ever felt this way?
It is not uncommon for a person’s circumstances or their self-image to cause someone to think negatively about themselves. Often times, people consider suicide because they are unable to find any reason to make living worthwhile. They think their problems are unsolvable and they feel completely out of control. I believe first and foremost, hopelessness is a serious spiritual problem rooted in lies and faulty thinking. Anytime you believe lies about yourself, you are listening to the wrong voices.
Jennifer said suicide has been a daily struggle for the past nine years due to being sexually abused. “I feel like suicide is the only option I have left, the only chance at peace I’ll ever have. It’s as if something will always be missing and life will never be quite right.” There is no denying that the pain of sexual abuse can be tremendous. But the abuse is not Jennifer’s fault. She needs to find the hope that she can overcome this pain. Many people just like Jennifer have overcome abuse through talking about it with a professional counselor. She needs to learn how to stop punishing herself for her abuser’s actions.
Have you ever gone through something so painful you were convinced the pain was never going to go away? Many people who contemplate suicide say something like: I don’t want to die. I just want the pain to go away. They think, “Because I’m in intense pain today, I will always be in pain.” It is this kind of faulty thinking that can lead people down the path that leads to suicide.
Kas wrote: I think about suicide pretty much every second of the day. It seems like it’s my only choice anymore. I know it’s not the answer, but at times I just feel like I can’t move on with this life anymore.
If you are already living with suicidal ideation, it is important to remember that substance abuse only works to magnify these thoughts and behaviors. Alcohol makes depression worse, impairs thinking and judgment and increases impulsivity. There is no safety without sobriety. Additionally, coping skills like alcohol, drugs, self-harm, all fail – because they never address the actual root of the pain. They only serve to temporarily cover it up.
Jordyn wrote: Some people have suicidal thoughts because they want to escape the isolation, pain, and rejection from the environment surrounding them. Others simply feel they have reached a state of loneliness and depression in their lives to the point where their thoughts become so negative, they can’t find any other reason to live. They would rather not confront it because of the fear of hurt that comes along with it.I feel that when you go through times of depression and think about committing suicide, God is there by your side. He will not abandon you. It is only a matter of whether you reach out to Him through prayer that you will be free from these thoughts.
Mandy also wrote: “Part of the very reason people do what they do is because they have failed. Suicide is the result of irrational thinking in the illness of DEPRESSION. And when people reach that level, just as my father did on the 18th of January 2016, it was a reminder that even the strong fall.
This Aug. 14, 2009 file photo shows actor Robin Williams in Los Angeles. Williams, whose free-form comedy and adept impressions dazzled audiences for decades, died Monday, Aug. 11, 2014, in an apparent suicide. Williams was 63.
Many people grieved after hearing about the apparent suicide of Robin Williams.
Fox News anchor Shepard Smith was less understanding.
"It's hard to imagine, isn't it?" he asked the camera, wondering how Williams could love his children "and yet, something inside you is so horrible or you're such a coward or whatever the reason that you decide that you have to end it."
Smith's labeling of suicide as a decision reveals a misunderstanding — or nonunderstanding — of the what-it feels-like experience of a suicidal person, the vast majority of whom are clinically depressed.
Research psychologist Jesse Bering helps correct that perspective.
"In considering people's motivations for killing themselves, it is essential to recognize that most suicides are driven by a flash flood of strong emotions, not rational, philosophical thoughts in which the pros and cons are evaluated critically," he writes for Scientific American in a heartfelt post, one that combines others' research with a discussion of his own suicidal years.
To Bering, the best (but not only) model of what that flash flood feels like comes from Florida State psychologist Roy Baumeister and his 1990 Psychology Review paper "Suicide as Escape from the Self."
This model isn't the only explanation of what leads to suicide — a study in Psychological Review lists a documented suite of risk factors— but Baumeister's theory offers one way to understand some of the thoughts and emotions that might play a role.
Before we dive in, we must emphasize that suicide is never inevitable: books like Jon Kabat-Zinn's "The Mindful Way Through Depression" can help people find a way out of chronic unhappiness, and the National Suicide Prevention Hotline can be reached at 1-800-273-8255 if you or someone you know needs to talk.
With that said, let's look into Baumeister's model of the sequence of cognitive patterns that may lead to a suicide.
- Failing to meet your standards for yourself
An outwardly privileged life is no protection from suicidal thoughts.
In fact, Bering reports, suicide rates are:
• Higher in nations with a high standard of living
• Higher in countries that "endorse individual freedoms"
• Higher in areas with nicer weather
• Higher among college kids "that have better grades and parents with higher expectations"
It's these expectations that can sometimes create suicide-driving suffering, Bering says. If you've had a privileged life, then you'll be more fragile when disappointments arrive.
You can see it in the research. Baumeister says a large body of evidence suggests "suicide is preceded by events that fall short of high standards and expectations."
For instance:
• Being poor all your life doesn't predict suicide. But going from wealth to poverty does.
• Being single all your life doesn't predict suicide. But going from being married to being single does.
Therein lies the seed.
"The size of the discrepancy between standards and perceived reality" is crucial to the start of the suicidal process, Baumeister says.
The Germans have a word for it: weltschmerz, the pain of realizing the world isn't matching your ideals.
- Condemning yourself for failing to meet those standards
It's not just that suicidal people have a low self-esteem, Baumeister finds. Rather, they may see themselves as fundamentally flawed in comparison to everybody else.
And some people hate themselves for it.
Bering details the meta-cognitive tailspin that may precede suicide:
Across cultures, "self blame" or "condemnation of the self" has held constant as a common denominator in suicides...
Feelings of worthlessness, shame, guilt, inadequacy, or feeling exposed, humiliated and rejected leads suicidal people to dislike themselves in a manner that, essentially, cleaves them off from an idealized humanity.
To Bering, the way that a sense of exile sometimes leads to suicide is most palpable in the lives of people with minority sexual orientations: if society tells you there's something fundamentally wrong with you all your life, you're more vulnerable to wanting to take your own life.
- Feeling painfully self-aware
Suicidal people may be extremely aware of themselves and how they seem to be failing, according to Bering.
"The essence of self-awareness is comparison of self with standards," Baumeister writes.
And, according to his escape theory, this ceaseless and unforgiving comparison with a preferred self often fuels suicidal ideation. The suicidal person might view this preferred self as somebody from a happier past or a goal self who is now seen as impossible to achieve in light of recent events.
Suicidal people, in other words, are often trying to escape these selves they so dislike — in any way possible.
- Experiencing "negative affect," or extremely difficult emotions
Suicide is neither the result of a single "trigger event" nor continuous anxiety, according to Baumeister.
Instead, "suicide rates are clearly associated with [perceived] personal failure and painful discovery of one's inadequacies," Baumeister writes, "with loss of family through death or divorce, with loss of membership in a community or an occupational group, and with loss of culture." Meanwhile, a mental illness like clinical depression will simultaneously dull positive experiences while deepening the sting of every negative one.
Some people, Baumeister suggests, may start considering suicide after some sort of negative shift in the way they view their identity, and suicide is seen as a means of escape from that painful experience of the self.
- Trying to avoid meaningful thoughts
The mental lives of suicidal people are considerably different than the cognition of someone mentally healthy. Suicidal people may engage in "cognitive deconstruction," where they escape from feeling bad by avoiding meaningful thought. Another way to phrase cognitive deconstruction: it all just doesn't matter.
Baumeister summarizes the collapsing process:
The time perspective narrows drastically to the present, presumably in response to the anxious recall of past events. The future is denied, and long-term plans or goals are either completely absent or conceptualized in unrealistic, irrational terms; however, more evidence that distal goals are absent in the suicidal person's thinking is needed. Suicidal thinking is very concrete, focusing on immediate tasks and details. The person enters a cognitively rigid state, avoiding new ideas, thoughts, or interpretations.
This "deconstruction" shows up in surprising ways.
In one study, suicidal people drastically overestimated the passage of time, showing that feeling suicidal is somewhat like being bored — the "present seems endless and vaguely unpleasant," Baumeister writes.
There's also often attempt to absorb oneself in rote work as a way of escaping these crippling feelings. Bering reports that many suicidal college students "exhibit a behavioral pattern of burying themselves in dull, routine academic busywork in the weeks before" before attempting to kill themselves.
- Dis-inhibition
"Most people most of the time would not even consider killing themselves," Baumeister writes, "for reasons that may include laws, desires for self-preservation, internalized social norms, feelings of obligation to others, and expectations for future happiness. These long-term (high-level) inhibiting factors must be overcome in order for the person to attempt suicide."
Thus the need for dis-inhibition: in some way, these often abstract or future-thinking factors may have to be sidestepped for someone to go through with suicide. Baumeister notes that this might be why alcohol is so often linked with suicide, since being drunk lowers inhibitions.
Similarly, recent research suggests that people need an "acquired capability for suicide" to actually go through with it.
The capability comes by being habituated to harm.
"Physical or sexual abuse as a child, combat exposure, and domestic abuse can also 'prep' the individual for the physical pain associated with suicidal behavior," Bering writes, noting how specific the preparation can be. "For example, a study on suicides in the U.S. military branches found that guns were most frequently associated with Army personnel suicides, hanging and knots for those in the Navy, and falling and heights were more common for those in the Air Force."
What can all this tell us about the death of Robin Williams?
Hard to say, since we don't have access to the great comic's mind. But Baumeister and Bering's research into suicide can help us be more aware of some of the mental patterns — often present in mental illness — that may lead people away from seeing the meaningfulness of their own lives.
To that end, we'll allow Bering — a psychologist who struggled with suicidal impulses in his younger years — to have the last word:
I do hope that if you ever are unfortunate enough to experience these cognitive dynamics in your own mind — and I, for one, very much have — or if you suspect you're seeing behaviors in others that indicate these thought patterns may be occurring, that this information helps you to meta-cognitively puncture suicidal ideation. If there is one thing that I've learned since those very dark days of my suicidal years, it's that scientific knowledge changes perspective. And perspective changes everything. Everything.
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