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from the 10-out-of-10-who-succeed-at-suicide-will-not-attempt-it-again dept.
Nine out of ten people who attempt suicide and survive will not go on to die by suicide at a later date. This has been well-established in the suicidology literature. A literature review summarized 90 studies that have followed over time people who have made suicide attempts that resulted in medical care. Approximately 7% (range: 5-11%) of attempters eventually died by suicide, approximately 23% reattempted nonfatally, and 70% had no further attempts.
Even studies that focused on medically serious attempts–such as people who jumped in front of a train–and studies that followed attempters for many decades found similarly low suicide completion rates. At least one study, published after the 90-study review, found a slightly higher completion rate. This was a 37-year follow-up of self-poisoners in Finland that found an eventual completion rate of 13%.
This relatively good long-term survival rate is consistent with the observation that suicidal crises are often short-lived, even if there may be underylying, more chronic risk factors present that give rise to these crises.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 29 2019, @08:02AM (6 children)
From personal experience, this it true. I have not died for a long time, but it seems that some of my companions have off themselves, like Seneca, and Heraclitus, maybe. But this is always considered to be a flaw in a philosophical system. Yes, we are going Godwin, and Hitler's cowardly suicide, but more, Jeffery the child-procuroer, but that is not our issue here.
Of course, Finns. Now while North Dakotans may be related to Finns, and while US laws says that life insurance does not allow payouts in case of suicide for two years, but only one year in North Dakota, I am left to wonder, is it because of frequency, or lack of reading ability?
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by aristarchus on Monday July 29 2019, @08:12AM (5 children)
As an AC, I have to let every Soylentil know that the parent post is by aristarchus.
And you boffins in the IRC, it is "aristarchus".
There is no "Aristarchus".
Unix case distinction, not Microsoft miscegenation. Get the name right.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 29 2019, @08:23AM (4 children)
You'll take whatever name we decide to give you, and like it, wanker.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by aristarchus on Monday July 29 2019, @10:49AM (3 children)
OK, but be mindful that you are addressing aristarchus, and not Aristarchus. Microsoft, and childhood practices, made you think that capitalization does not matter, and of course this RECURS WHEN YOU GET OLD, mostly because lower-case type is to small to read.
But I must insist, my username is not capitalized. Yes, my name is, where-else you may find it or search for it, but on SoylentNews, I am all-lowercase aristarchus. If you cannot handle this, I will have no choice but to start referring to you as anonymouscowardwithnotusernameandnocapitalization, you bastard!! Names are important. Just look at the Migratory Buzzard, who flies across boundaries with no one objecting, except his deceased meals. If we lost his capitalization, he would have nothing to be proud of.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by c0lo on Monday July 29 2019, @11:17AM (2 children)
I'm yet to see a deceased anything (meal or not) that objects. Or subjects... or even adjects for the matter. Noun whatsoever.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Funny) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday July 29 2019, @01:39PM (1 child)
Deceased people object all the time. Aunt Tilly objects to your marriage but doesn't say anything her entire life, because lots of old people seem to become more passive aggressive. You go to the reading of Aunt Tilly's will and she gives away huge chunks of her fortune to everyone in the family but you: "to Jim, who married that harlot, I bequeath only a scarlet A that I have spent my remaining years crocheting just for her."
Yes, Aunt Tilly clearly "objected" from beyond the grave.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by c0lo on Monday July 29 2019, @02:01PM
I guess I'm blessed Tilly wasn't my aunt and I didn't see her (in the context of ""I'm yet to see ..") - (large grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by shrewdsheep on Monday July 29 2019, @09:20AM (5 children)
... or you say this like it's a good thing. According to wikipedia there are roughly 15 Mio suicide attempts per year ~ 1 Mio being successful. Assuming most are first attempts (only 30% do re-attempt) this roughly means you have a life-time risk of attempting of < 10% and implying a death rate of < 1% for suicide. Comparing that to the 10% chance from suicide after attempting first, the risk increase is more than 10-fold. This seems to be contrary to the gist of TFS, I would argue prognosis is still relatively poor.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 29 2019, @09:25AM
Everyone who attempts suicide dies later, from one cause or another.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Magic Oddball on Monday July 29 2019, @09:59AM (1 child)
I think that the article's point is that there's evidence-based studies that completely contradict the common myth that anyone who attempts suicide will just keep trying repeatedly until they succeed, and that there's supposedly nothing that can be done to help them.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday July 29 2019, @01:40PM
I didn't realize that was a common myth. I seem to recall the common wisdom being that a failed suicide attempt gives people a renewed appreciation for life - much like any other close brush with death. Secondary emotional traumas may result, but a desire to die seems to usually be cured by a visit to death's doorstep.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday July 29 2019, @02:28PM (1 child)
You have cited no evidence that supports that claim, as I'm reasonably certain that the vast majority of people who attempt suicide the first time are already significantly "at risk" of dying from suicide before they attempt it. (Excepting the presumably rare case of someone who wakes up one morning and randomly says, "Hey, I'm bored today. What the heck, maybe let's try something different -- maybe attempt suicide!") Whereas the vast majority of people who never attempt suicide are much less "at risk" of dying from suicide.
What you'd really need to do is compare the pre-existing "risk" of those likely to attempt suicide with the "risk" of those same people after their first attempt. For example, maybe bored, depressed, loners who are out-of-work and suffer from some debilitating illness are much more likely than the average person to die of suicide. Then, if that same group of people attempts suicide once and only has a risk of having a subsequent successful attempt of less than 10%, their "risk increase" after the first attempt will likely not be "more than 10-fold." In fact, depending on the stats, it may have even decreased compared to the risk of that group before a first attempt.
(Score: 1) by shrewdsheep on Monday July 29 2019, @09:47PM
I do not have to cite evidence as I gave you the calculation. To simplify it a bit: compare the 10% chance of dying from suicide in a re-attempt with the marginal chance of dying from suicide which is ~1%.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 29 2019, @09:25AM (3 children)
The other 10% get a job working for the Clintons.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday July 29 2019, @03:03PM (2 children)
Are you sure they don't work for Comcast?
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 29 2019, @03:26PM (1 child)
No - the "survivors" were just doing it for ATTENTION and DISABILITY payments. We need to CUT this scourge of SUICIDE WELFARE CHEATS. Absolute worst. Some of the are probably rapists.
(Score: 1, Troll) by DannyB on Monday July 29 2019, @03:41PM
Even worse than rapists, (gasp!) some of them might have non white skin!!! (shudders in disbelief) And they probably chose that color just to get attention.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by RamiK on Monday July 29 2019, @11:06AM (5 children)
The vast majority of people who seriously attempt suicide likely get it done properly the first time around. I mean, it doesn't take a genius to figure out slowly bleeding to death or your response to poisons is too variable when you can just google map the nearest cliff or skyscraper and go curb diving headfirst without a parachute.
So, I won't be surprised if those 90% success rates for follow-up mental health-care and economic aid are completely skewed as they're mostly treating attention seekers, confused teens and psychotics (responding to different drugs they're taking).
Just saying, literally, survival bias is probably at work here.
compiling...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 29 2019, @01:24PM
Some of us chug poison in the hope it might do something
So
ahh
STILL ALIVE!
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday July 29 2019, @03:04PM
Don't some mental illness drugs warn of suicide as one of the possible side effects?
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 2) by mobydisk on Monday July 29 2019, @06:07PM (2 children)
As someone who has jumped off of a cliff and lives to tell the tale, let me assure you that even if you have "rationally" decided to do so, it takes a significant mental effort to force oneself to do it. In my case, I practiced many times both physically at the site and mentally at home - laying in bed late nights repeating it over in my mind, imagining what people would say afterwards. Would I suddenly find myself able to fly? What would I yell in mid-air? It was a cliff where this had happened before, so there was even precedent for it. But when the moment came I had to stand there for quite a while to gather the courage to make the leap. Having done so and looking back, I know of ways to make it easier (running start, holding a heavy weight) but I don't want to give anyone ideas. Basically, this is not something someone "just googles" and does.
Today, I still hold my pilot rating [ushpa.org] but I don't fly any more.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 29 2019, @11:16PM
I used to jump off bridges into water for fun. 10/10 will do again.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 30 2019, @02:34AM
I can't imagine being so angry/hurt/depressed/sad/?/ to try to take ones own life.
I hope things are going well for you now.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday July 29 2019, @03:00PM
Googling for whether it is legal to commit suicide gives interesting results.
Like this . . . [wikipedia.org]
A law against committing suicide would seem pointless.
1. If they succeed, the prosecution of this crime suddenly becomes more complex.
2. If they fail, there is a 90 % chance they will not attempt to re-offend. But this time they did not succeed, and thus have not broken the law. In the above quotation, the illegal act was the attempt at suicide rather than the successful accomplishment of it. So it could be prosecuted, thus providing incentive to get it right the first time.
Then there is the thorny question of assisting someone in this endeavor. When this happen, the odds of success would seem to go to nearly 100 %. But the assistant remains behind to be prosecuted. [wikipedia.org]
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 29 2019, @03:18PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOP6uMTYaM8 [youtube.com]
It is not a surprise that close encounter with death removes all romanticism of suicide and yearning for being a tragic figure from most wannabe tragic figures, but it doesn't work for the really depressed ones. OTOH, the really depressed ones rarely miss, make mistakes (after gaining a minimum of experience) or, for that matter, pause to gather courage. They are the one of the ten.
However, I believe that ten out of ten will learn that there is virtually no easy, painless death that will deliver them from suffering. As long as there is conscience, there is suffering, and conscience probably transgresses the time of death blackout by a wide margin. So you may as well breathe, it is at least marginally better, or else be prepared for patience until sufficient decomposition, desiccation, or cremation (fast, but ought to be hellish, excuse my pun). Ancient Egyptians basically blended and removed liquefied brains from skulls of the deceased, as part of the funeral preparations. Some historians believe that it was a sign that they didn't understand, or underestimated brain function in body, because otherwise their action would contradict the whole concept of posthumous life (you keep what you'd need in your life). My interpretation is that they very much did understand it, but where merciful to their passed ones.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 01 2019, @10:59AM
better than going half way