Understanding Problem Is The First Step To Hope
Life is long, not short. A suicide crisis is short, not long. If young people can be helped to weather the temporary emotional storms that trigger thoughts of death and suicide, a long life becomes possible.
No one, especially a young person, should die to solve what is almost always a treatable problem or a problem that - with the simple passage of time - will solve itself.
These are difficult times for teenagers, but not impossible times. With greater awareness and knowledge about the causes of suicide and its warning signs, there is every reason to hope solutions to this crisis can be found.
More than 30,000 Americans commit suicide each year. Of these, approximately 5,000 are young people. The two most at-risk groups for suicide are young people and elders. The eighth leading cause of death overall, suicide and self-injurious behavior has become a public health priority.
Of equal significance are the estimated 5 million living Americans who have attempted suicide.
In 1993 in Spokane County alone, four local hospital emergency rooms examined more than 1,000 people who attempted suicide, admitting 523 for treatment. Hospital charges averaged $5,000 to $30,000 per episode of care.
Excluding doctor’s charges, medications and follow up, the medical costs ran into the millions of dollars. Many more non-fatal suicide attempts were neither recorded nor received professional attention.
Compared to suicides in other states, Washington ranks 14th overall, with a suicide death rate of 13.4 per 100,000, twice that of New Jersey, but just less than half of Nevada’s. It is our Northwest youth suicide rate that is so alarming.
Since the middle 1950s, the youth suicide rate in America has tripled, or, depending on whose figures you choose, quadrupled.
But in Washington and Idaho, youth suicide reached an all-time high in 1993 when, for the first time, suicide became the single most common cause of death in 15- to 19-year-olds, exceeding accidents and all other causes, as well as far exceeding the national average.
With these tragic numbers in hand, the Washington Legislature funded a Governor’s Youth Suicide Prevention Task Force. The task force produced a statewide plan which is, according to Dr. Lloyd Potter of the federal Centers for Disease Control, “the best youth suicide prevention plan in the country.”
The Spokane County Health District also formed a Suicide Prevention Task Force. It has completed a comprehensive community plan to accomplish the top priorities that experts agree are essential to reducing the toll of selfinjurious behavior: raising suicide awareness and gatekeeper training.
Suicide is the most preventable form of death. Worldwide, most of those who kill themselves are suffering from highly treatable forms of mental and emotional illness. Unrecognized, undiagnosed, untreated depression leads the list, accounting for 60 percent of those who take their own lives.
The tragedy is that we have effective treatments. Approximately 80 percent of those suffering from depression respond extremely well to psychotherapy, antidepressant medications, or a combination of both.
Compared to only a few decades ago, depression is now impacting younger and younger people. Recent studies show the rate of clinical depression in boys doubles at age 13 and quadruples in girls. By age 16, 20 percent of all teenagers will have had at least one episode of clinical depression.
Being depressed does not always lead to thoughts of suicide, and one does not need to be depressed to feel suicidal. Some experts argue that children who have no known mental or emotional problems can become vulnerable to suicidal thoughts and feelings if they are suddenly caught up in a situational crisis from which they can see no escape.
In many ways suicide is the most complex, least understood of all human behavior. Research is scarce, theories are many, and experts often disagree about what should and can be done. Still, there is every reason to hope. Here is a short list of things we can do:
We can identify some kids who are more at-risk than others. Those at elevated risk range from the straight-A perfectionist child who sees life as one long, unremitting achievement test to the boy who abuses alcohol and gets into trouble with the law.
Many teens face double or even triple troubles: drug and alcohol abuse, attention deficit disorders, school adjustment difficulties. These factors may be complicated by broken families, substance abusing parents, and a lack of support from church or community.
To help our children thrive, we adults must remember the old African saying, “It takes a whole village to raise a child.”
We can accept that suicide is a reality and that it needs to be talked about. Talking about suicide does not “put ideas in people’s heads.” Kids are hungry to understand the nature of suicide, what causes it, and what they can do to help themselves or a friend survive a crisis.
We can combat Hollywood’s phony message that suicide can solve all of your problems at once. By age 18, the average American youngster has seen more than 3,000 suicides glamorized on television and many hundreds more at the movies. The remedy: straight talk from reasonable adults who know something about real-life problems and how to solve them.
We can understand that suicide is not the problem, only a faulty solution to problems. Most people who kill themselves do so to solve ordinary problems, not extraordinary ones. Most people who kill themselves did not want to die so much as they could not find a way to live.
Untreated depression, broken relationships, unexpected losses, substance use and abuse, unemployment, these are all either time-limited situations or highly treatable conditions. Fix these, restore hope, and the desire to die evaporates.
This fall, the Spokane County task force will make suicide prevention training available throughout the community. It will feature an aggressive awareness-raising campaign and early detection and referral of those at risk. If each of us can find the courage to act, suicide rates can be dramatically reduced.
A final thought. It is from the Talmud. “Whoever preserves one life, it is as if he preserved an entire world.”
Paul Quinnett, a clinical psychologist, is the author of “Suicide: The Forever Decision.” He is director of adult services at the Spokane Community Mental Health Center and clinical director of Greentree Behavioral Health.
Quinnett’s fee for writing this article will be donated to the Survivors of a Loved One’s Suicide group, which meets from 7 to 9 p.m. on the first and third Wednesdays of each month at the American Red Cross, 315 W. Nora. Visitors are welcome. For more information, call 838-4428. xxxx COMMUNITY RESOURCES In Spokane 24-Hour Crisis Hotline: 838-4428 TDD Crisis Hotline: 624-0004 Spokane Community Mental Health Center: 838-4651 Greentree Behavioral Health: 458-7471 Youth Help Association Crisis Residential Center: 624-2868 Spokane Sexual Assault Center: 624-7273
In Coeur d’Alene Kootenai Psychiatric and Counseling Center: (208) 666-2960 Region 1 Mental Health Services (for people ages 18 and over): (208) 769-1406 Youth Help Line: (208) 765-8336 Crisis Line: (208) 664-1443 Rape Crisis: (208) 661-2522 Jamie Tobias Neely