Discussing suicide can be hurtful and even harmful but problem must be addressed, writes DAVID ADAMS
LAST YEAR, 260 deaths were registered as suicides in Northern Ireland. More disturbing still, there was nothing exceptional about the figures. Between 1999 and 2009, suicide accounted for the deaths of 2,258 people in the North. If this rate continues, and there is no reason to suppose that it won’t, over a comparable time span, the death toll from suicide will easily outstrip that of the Troubles.
Suicide is enormously difficult to discuss publicly. Speculating upon possible common themes (and plumping for easy answers, such as drug dependence, alcohol abuse or difficult family circumstances) can inadvertently heap extra pain upon already distraught relatives and friends.
What might well have been true in some cases will have had no bearing in many others.
Moreover, it appears the more public discussion there is around the issue, the more likely it is that people already struggling to cope with life will be attracted to suicide. There is strong evidence to suggest that it can indeed be self-perpetuating. A single incident can lead to a cluster within the same area, without the victims necessarily having had any connection with one another.
Yet, discuss suicide we must, albeit with the utmost sensitivity, for to tackle it we must first identify the underlying causes.
Contrary to some popular myths, suicide cuts across every social, economic and religious group in Northern Ireland. It is not, as is sometimes imagined, a problem confined almost solely to teenagers from dysfunctional families, living in run-down, urban areas. Indeed, home circumstances are often the precise opposite of what is commonly assumed.
Most victims in the North are aged between 25-30 years, and though the rate is higher in urban areas it is far from uncommon in rural parts. Nor are the elderly immune: about one victim in eight is aged over 60 years.
Suicide is increasingly prevalent among the male population, where the rate has risen steadily over recent years, but this does not mean that female numbers have declined. Rather, they have remained steady – of the 260 deaths in the North last year, 55 were female.
Extra financial pressures may be a recent contributing factor, but these cannot on their own be blamed; during 2005 in Northern Ireland, for instance, there were 213 suicides (a worrying 50 per cent increase on the previous year, which in itself may hold a clue), and this was long before the economic downturn took hold.
It is tempting to speculate that the high incidence of suicide in the North may have something to do with a society emerging from a prolonged period of civil strife, except the problem is not confined to Northern Ireland.
The Republic has no such recent history, but has the fifth highest suicide rate in the EU, with 424 registered deaths in 2008 - men below 35 years accounted for 40 per cent of the total. Between 1990 and 2004, the number of young women taking their own lives trebled in the Republic.
Is the decline in religious adherence across the island of Ireland a possible factor? It would seem not, for neither is the problem just confined to Ireland. In Scotland, suicide accounted for 843 deaths in 2008, and is now the main cause of death there in men under 38 years. In Wales, 300 people took their own lives in 2006 (223 male and 77 female). In England, there were 4,191 suicides in 2006 – on average, one every two hours.
What is it about the West (or at least this part of it) that is driving so many people to take their own lives? Undoubtedly, alcohol abuse, drug dependence, financial pressures and underlying mental health problems can be factors, but in many cases they have played no part.
Is modern culture to blame? Have we created a society where happiness and a sense of fulfilment are expected to come as naturally as breathing? When they don’t, are some of us left feeling so fundamentally deficient as human beings that we choose to opt out of life altogether?
Have we, for generations, been so overprotective of our children that increasing numbers of people are finding it impossible to cope with the harsh realities of life? Has our disposable society reached the point where an unsatisfactory or boring existence is now more readily discarded?
I am groping in the dark for answers, as are countless coroners’ courts, bereavement counsellors, self-help groups, and deeply traumatised families and friends throughout Ireland and Britain.
Surely, the time has come for a team of British and Irish psychological and sociological experts (and whoever else is needed) to be drawn together, given the necessary resources and asked to investigate thoroughly the rising incidence of suicide right across the two islands. This could easily be done under the auspices of the British-Irish Council, to whom the team would report and make recommendations.
Things cannot be allowed continue as they are.
Much of the data for this column came from the excellent website – www.stampoutsuicide.org.uk