Emily OConnell English 1102

A Last Resort Suicide is now the number one cause of injury related death in America. It has recently (in 2009) surpassed car accidents, which had been the leading cause for so many years (Fox News). Over 38,000 people in the United States commit suicide every year (NFSP). I believe that this information alone should be enough to convince people of just how big of an issue suicide is in our country, but it is not. People constantly put down suicide victims and those who have attempted suicide because they think that suicide is a selfish act and a sin. They criticize these people to no end and push them further towards suicide by doing so. Suicides reputation as a sin prevents people from seeking help because they are afraid of being looked down upon. Mental Health professionals are struggling every day trying to find a way to convince these people of the harm they are doing by expressing their negative opinions. America needs to inform its people that suicide is in fact NOT a selfish act to be ashamed of, but that it is a result of mental health issues and is something that needs to be prevented through kindness, support and understanding. Many people are unaware that aApproximately 90% of people who commit suicide were suffering from a mental illness at the time of their death. This statistic proves that the victims were genuinely very sick at the time of their death. Their mental illness took over and caused them so much distress that they were unable to think clearly and even imagine the effect that their suicide would have on the people close to them. Mental illness is something that should be taken very seriously because it is an illness just like any other illness. There was a study done by Indian doctors that compared the attitudes of mental health professionals and non-mental health professionals towards suicide, and it proves the importance of knowing ones facts about suicide.
Comment [A1]: I know that I need to make it more clear that my target audience is the US government (and the American people to push to convince them of the importance of the program) but I cant really think of a good way/place to include this and what exactly to say.

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In the study, they looked at how regular doctors treated suicidal patients compared to how mental health doctors treated the patients, and coincidentally enough, the mental health professionals showed a much more positive approach than the non-mental health doctors. The mental health doctors did a better job working with the suicidal patients because they were better trained and informed. The article discussed how big of a difference it would make if just minor changes were made towards preventing suicide, like educating the regular doctors about suicide and how to work with suicidal patients positively (Srivastava and Tiwari). This article is a wonderful example of how suicide awareness is the most important step that needs to be made towards suicide prevention. I believe that in my attempt to highlight the reasons why people should stop looking at suicide so negatively, I need to give some examples of situations where a negative opinion on suicide has done more harm than good. There was one particular article that stood out to me in my research where a Military General spoke out about his opinion on suicide and how he thought that it was an absolutely selfish act (Pittard). I think that this is important to look at because suicide tends to be more common in the military. The General seemed to be speaking out about his beliefs on suicide because he had just left a funeral of a soldier who had killed himself and had heard news of the suspicion that another soldier at base had taken his own life as well. He was frustrated with suicide and stated that "I have now come to the conclusion that suicide is an absolutely selfish act. Soldiers who commit suicide leave their families, their buddies and their units to literally clean up their mess. There is nothing noble about suicide and "I am personally fed up with Soldiers who are choosing to take their own lives so that others can clean up their mess. Be an adult, act like an adult, and deal with your real-life problems like the rest of us" (Pittard). General Pittard thought that he was preventing suicide by voicing his opinion on the

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matter and letting soldiers know that suicide iswas wrong. This is an assumption that many people incorrectly make when they are criticizing suicide. They think that if people know how selfish and terrible suicide is then they would never dare to commit it. In reality though, these comments just make people who are contemplating suicide feel even more alone and embarrassed to seek help. They are personally offended and upset which deepens their depression. The military knows this, which is why they eventually advised General Pittard to retract his statement (which he did). He learned that his comments were hurtful and counterproductive; something that he probably never would have realized on his own if the military and other people had not stepped in and made him aware of it (Shaughnessy). I have been looking into many different suicide prevention and suicide awareness studies across the world. There was a study done on community volunteers in Taiwan that was looking at the change in the amount of suicide warning signs that were recognized by the volunteers before and after they participated in a suicide awareness program. Some of the warning signs of suicide are anxiety, withdrawal, sleep problems, hopelessness, increased alcohol/drug use, unnecessary risk taking, unexpected rage, and suicidal thoughts/threats (AFSP). The study showed that the percentage of suicide warning signs perceived by the volunteers increased from 46.88% to 84.38% after the program (Chang, Chang, Chou, Lin and Tsai). This gives interesting insight on how much one 90 minute program can affect a persons ability to recognize suicidal signs. I think that if If people better understood the warning signs of suicide, then they might be able to realize that a victim had been showing signs for months before they finally resorted to taking their life, and that they did not just do it because they were feeling sad one day. This would give people a better sense of what was going through a suicidal persons head before they ended their life.

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Another article that I researched discussed the effect of national suicide prevention programs in 21 different nations. The study looks at all types of suicide prevention programs and its main focus was to determine whether the programs have an overall positive impact. The result was that there was a statistically significant overall decrease in suicide after the government in a country implemented a suicide prevention program. It was shown that the programs were most effective in young people and elderly people, the two age groups that suicide is most prominent in (Matsubayashi and Ueda). I think that this is fantastic news and it shows a lot of promise for our future if we can put more suicide prevention/awareness programs in place. It shows that once people are more educated about suicide, the rates decrease. To inquire further into the topic of suicide, I interviewed the brother of a 17 year old teenage boy who had committed suicide. The man I interviewed was named Mark, and his brothers name was Andrew. Mark specifically said that his brother was bullied and that he felt like he had nobody to talk to. He said that he thinks that one of the main reasons that Andrew committed suicide is because he could not handle keeping his feelings bottled up anymore. Mark understands why his brother felt that way, and he said if you started telling people you were having suicidal thoughts, most of them would just think you belong in a nut house or something. He agreed with me that things would be better if people felt that they could discuss suicide more openly, and that was the reason why he was sharing his brothers story with me. The story of Andrews suicide has greatly flourished my opinion and knowledge on the subject of suicide. Seeing the look on Marks face as he told the story and knowing how strongly he believes that his brother would still be alive today if he felt like he was able to talk about his feelings makes me feel obligated to fight for a change in America.

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I am proposing that the United States government gets more involved in promoting suicide awareness/prevention. The fact that suicide is now the leading cause of injury related death should be the motivating factor for this. I think that t The government should put programs that speak about suicide into place in middle schools and high schools throughout the country. Although we have a few programs in our country dedicated to suicide awareness, we do not have any that visit all of the schools around the United States. Putting programs like this in schools would be incredibly beneficial because adolescents are so impressionable. Young people are also the second highest age group affected by suicide (elderly adults being the first) (NIMH). It would be great if the bullying and criticism that surrounds suicide could be nipped in the bud at an early age, and I think middle school would be a perfect place to start because elementary school children are a little bit young to understand the intensity of suicide. The program that I am proposing will help students learn and recognize the mental health issues behind suicide and hopefully teach them to look out for the warning signs. Mental health professionals will travel to the schools to speak about why suicidal people need help and support and explain some of the negative results that come from people looking down on suicide. I believe that if we work to educate the young people in our country then the suicide rate will decrease year after year. These middle school and high school students will eventually become the general doctors that work with suicidal patients and the military officials that work with mentally ill soldiers. One day, we will live in a world where people will feel that they are able to talk about the issues that may lead them to suicide instead of bottling them up inside in fear of being judged. Many more people will solve their problems with the help of others instead of having to resort to something as devastating as suicide. Nobody should feel like they have no other option but to take their own

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life because they are too embarrassed to talk about their depression. With the right amount of work and dedication, suicide can be preventable. I am hoping that the United States Government will see the magnitude of the issue of suicide like those in the Mental Health community of practice do. One of the largest problems that suicidal/mentally ill people face is the fear of how society will view and treat them. I have personally worked on spreading awareness to young people and it is amazing to see how much their opinions on suicide change after they have been told all of the facts. It will take a lot of time, money and commitment to spread awareness, change opinions, and promote suicide prevention, but if we can save the lives of American citizens then it is surely worth the effort. Track changes

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Works Cited Matsubayashi, Tetsuya. Ueda, Mishiko. The effect of national suicide prevention programs on suicide rates in 21 OECD nations. Volume 73, Issue 9, November 2011, pg.1395-1400.
http://ehis.ebscohost.com.librarylink.uncc.edu/eds/detail?sid=eb51f074-535e-4437-8c00612a9c6d66d4%40sessionmgr112&vid=2&hid=101

Chang, Hui-Chin. Chang, Wen-Li. Chou, Ming-Chih. Lin, Long-Yau. Tsai, Wen-Pei. The Effects of the Suicide Awareness Program in Enhancing Community Volunteers Awareness of Suicide Warnings. Volume 24, Issue 1, February 2010, Pages 63-68.
http://ehis.ebscohost.com.librarylink.uncc.edu/eds/detail?sid=aa96bbb1-cc08-416d-bc3a6b181ff7135b%40sessionmgr4&vid=2&hid=5

Srivastava, Mona. Tiwari, Ranjana. A Comparative Study of Attitude of Mental Health Versus Nonmental Professionals toward Suicide.
http://ehis.ebscohost.com.librarylink.uncc.edu/eds/detail?vid=13&hid=5&sid=469a008c-4930-4ebfbfcb989dd495a6c3%40sessionmgr15&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmUmc2NvcGU9c2l0ZQ%3d%3d#db=a9 h&AN=75356893

Shaughnessy, Larry. CNN.

http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/25/generals-remarks-about-suicide-upsetting/ Suicide the No.1 cause of injury-related death in US. Live Science. September 26, 2012.

Emily OConnell English 1102 http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/09/26/suicide-no-1-cause-injury-related-death-in-us/ AFSP http://www.afsp.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.viewpage&page_id=050fea9f-b064-4092b1135c3a70de1fda NIMH http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/suicide-in-the-us-statistics-and-prevention/index.shtml