Only deeply depressed people commit suicide? People always think depression is associated with suicide ideation, and people who choose to kill themselves are obviously just deeply depressed. What do people mean?
Here are some other interpretations about this myth.
1) Suicide could solve any kinds of problems which can take them away from the negative emotions.
2) Improvement in emotional state means lessened risk of suicide.
3) One should not try to discuss suicide with depressed people.
4) People who commit suicide may feel hopeless and depressed.
Actually, most of people think depressed people have difficulties to control their negative emotions and behaviors such as uncontrollable crying and self-destructive behaviors. For most people, depressed people are full of negativity. There is a thought in society - emotion is a key for those people who commit suicide. That means we seldom see psychologically healthy people to commit suicide. Happy couldn’t be associated with suicide. Since depressed people always felt hopeless and helpless, normal people think depressed people can't confront untoward circumstances and try to end all the unfortunates. Therefore, they kill themselves to “solve” the problems eventually. In other words, they commit suicide for relieving. In the society, people tend to avoid the topic suicide with the depressed people because they are afraid of stimulating depressed people doing so.
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I understand in your explanation why someone may assume that a depressed person would want to commit suicide, but I'm wondering why people think that only the depressed are likely to make a choice to kill themselves. A study or some statistical data on this topic would be really interesting!
ReplyDeleteI felt like typing suicide into google (only AFTER reading this lol) and there's a person who claims that there are only 6 reasons why people commit suicide. It's rather interesting to try to simplify such a complicated matter, and here's the hyperlink http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2010/06/6-reasons-people-commit-suicide.html
ReplyDeleteHi, I'm leaving a comment
ReplyDelete“Only deeply depressed people commit suicide.”
I have one major issue with such a statement, one that will turn this statement simply into an uneducated myth.
The issue is causation and effect/result. The statement says “Only deeply depressed people commit suicide.” Let us pick apart this statement.
You see, to believe that people commit suicide because they are depressed is to determine a cause solely based from a result. In other words, one has inferred from the results the cause of the occurrence (when you CANNOT determine a cause of an event solely by looking at the results).
Retrospectively trying to asses a cause from a result, is almost like analyzing time backwards, it’s like wondering why the French did not prepare for Hitler’s invasion. What seems obvious after the fact may have never been suspected before the fact (the French believed Hitler to be a fad, they were unaware of the future terror he would cause and the power he actually held, they never saw he future like we have seen). To look at suicide and infer that only depressed people commit it, is to analyze time backwards and infer facts that could only be inferred from an after the fact perspective.
So in other words, what I am trying to say is that to believe that only depressed people commit suicide is to retrospectively analyze an event with the result determining the cause. This sort of analyses is neither scientific nor an accurate means of asserting a truth. Thus this statement should be invalided simply upon it’s failed logic.
Here is an article that looks into a circumstance of suicide definitely not motivated by depression: The Lessons of Heaven's Gate.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that the manipulation of one's environment and personal perception by external forces can lead to an almost mesmerized suicide. These people were stripped of all individuality and manipulated mentally into believing suicide was the best solution.
While the people selected for the cult were markedly predisposed to self-harming thought, they were not depressed: there are clearly ulterior motives to these victims' suicides!