I recently read that only about 60-70 percent of people who either commit or attempt to commit suicide are clinically depressed at the time.
I understand some people suffer from unremitting and severe chronic pain, or have terminal cancer, etc., which arguably rationally guides their decision. But these cases must comprise a very small percentage of the aggregate. I also understand that some people attempt suicide as the proverbial “cry for help.”
I suppose I had always believed that the remainder who commit suicide are, by definition, clinically depressed. Can someone explain this statistic? I will look for a cite, but will be tied up all day today in meetings.
There is a distinction between clinical depression (arising out of chemical imbalance in the brain) and situation depression (arising out of circumstances in which life sucks). Presumably, severe cases of the latter can lead to suicide.
Wouldn’t knowing whether or not someone was clinically depressed before they committed suicide require that they had been diagnosed as clinically depressed? Without a pre-existing diagnosis, how would anyone know?
My guess is that a lot of people who do commit suicide are clinically depressed, but were undiagnosed as such.
Anecdotal only, but the first person I knew who committed suicide was revealed only in hindsight to have been depressed for years. He was also, obviously, incredibly good at disguising this fact. The act was carefully planned over a substantial period of time, and the unanimous reaction by friends and family was, “We never knew.” The truth was revealed in letters he left behind.
I learned that that 90% were clinically depressed at the time of suicide in an abnormal psyche class. I always wondered about that remaining 10%. Let me list some reasons that I have figured out.
I am bipolar. I tried to commit suicide when I was manic once. I thought that it would be the ultimate thrill. I tried to use my little brother’s police revolver to blow my head off and was foiled by a trigger lock. A large number of people in mania kill themselves or manage to get themselves killed.
Fear of punishments - everyone from public officials to mafia members to drug dealers has committed suicide because they did something that they knew that they would be severely punished for (maybe even murdered) and wishes to escape that pain.
People that are high. People can kill themselves in ways that are classified as suicides when they are not in their normal mental state.
As you listed, people in physical pain. Can be completely rational and simply decided that there future is something they don’t want to live to see.
You’ve already mentioned situational and clinical depression, chronic pain (more common than you’d think) and terminal disease.
Schizophrenics are much more likely than average to commit suicide, sometimes after “being told” to do so. Many suicide attempts are impulsive actions, sometimes under the influence of something, rather than planned attempts as such (whoa, a bridge, let’s try jumpring off it). Some elderly people are “tired of life” without being depressed as such – these people may have some pain and several inconvenient illnesses but are not palliative patients. Some suicidal patients have borderline or anxious traits. Sometimes doctors and dentists kill themselves after being sued for malpractice. While some of these examples may also have “depression”, this can be a complicated diagnosis to make and certainly does not have to be there in any of the aforementioned cases.