In reflecting on the guest speaker, I must say that most of the information presented was information that I remember being taught before in school. The one thing that I did not know was that 80% of people will think about suicide at least once in their life. I don’t know how accurate this is, but I know I don’t personally believe that many people have thoughts of committing suicide. I think the speaker had a lot of statistics and made me feel like I was back in middle school health class, which kind of turned me off and bored me, but I suppose it was beneficial to hear new things and new information about suicide. I know it is also beneficial to have tools to assist a friend or if I knew someone that was contemplating suicide. Overall I think we need to stop trying to inform people of how to identify if someone they know is suicidal but focus on making people self reliant and able to understand if they see characteristic in themselves. Thinking about suicide in general, it seems to have become an epidemic in today’s society. It has become so normalized that people will begin to believe that it is okay. I really think that we should begin to look at people in the college age group to try to identify what is causing people to believe suicide is the only option they have and work to encourage life and success without making them feel babied and talked down to. This will be difficult to accomplish because we won’t be able to generalize because all people are different, but I think focusing on people as individuals and not just as a collective group will be beneficial.
I love how you came up with your own solutions to not just recognizing suicide but making the individual more able to combat the tempation and escape of suicide. Like you, I was struck by the statistics, especially the 80% one, but I can see where it would seem like a middle school lecture all over again.
ReplyDeleteI also found it really appalling that a 80% of people thought about suicide. And I agree that perhaps this could be a minrepresentation. Because, like she said, it could just be a thought that's in and out. I don't think that researchers should count that if they're reporting on suicide. But, I guess it'd be hard to determine how long was a thought that counts. I also think it's important that we look at how we can make life better for a person so they don't even get to the point of thinking about suicide.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to compare the number of Americans who think about suicide to other countries and cultures, especially unindustrialized cultures who have a completely different lifestyle than us. Good thought on seeing suicide as a systemic problem rather than isolated individual events.
ReplyDeleteWow Destine. I also found the statistic that 80% of people think about suicide at least once in their lives, to be disturbing. After thinking about the stat for a bit, I came to realize that it would be quite common for people to think about suicide during times when they are going through pain, hurt, or a sense that they dont belong. Also, people may have thoughts about suicide when they are wondering how life would be like if they weren't on Earth anymore. I myself can confess that I have had some thoughts of suicide in the past but I am long over that now. I went through periods in my life where work, schoolwork and family problems were overwhelming. I also agree with you that suicide is becoming an moderate epidemic in today's society. In order to stop this, we need to find better ways to go about helping suicidal persons, possibly through more research and intervention
ReplyDeleteGood point TJ. I study self immolation (suicide by fire) among women in other cultures. It's intriguing because the methods alone are very harsh.
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