Understanding Suicide

We always enjoy hearing from our readers here at SevenPonds, as one of the website’s principal goals is to create a comfortable space for a dialogue on death and dying. And so it was a pleasure to receive an e-mail from a reader named Frida, who informed us of her infographic “Notes on Suicide: Current Rates and History.”

Photo credit: bestmastersincounseling.com

The infographic serves a very important purpose, as it informs the public on one of life’s most sensitive subjects within the larger discussion of end-of-life: suicide. Talking about suicide on an individual basis is already a very complicated, and emotionally exacting task. So an attempt to understand the changes in suicide rates in relation to race, age, sex, and culture is a very necessary and commendable endeavor.

Photo credit: bestmastersincounseling.com

Among the information presented by the infographic is the fact that there are over 1,000,000 suicides a year. And in a study of suicides per 100,000 people, we learn that Greenland is “the suicide capital of the world” followed by South Korea, Lithuania, Guyana, Kazakhstan, Belarus, China, Slovenia, Hungary, and finally Japan at number ten (the U.S. comes in at thirty-three).There also appears to be a significant disparity between men and women on the subject, with far more men committing suicide per 100,000 people across cultures. We also learn of the perspectives ancient cultures had on taking one’s own life. In the religious throes of the colonial era, suicide was not only interpreted as a sinful tragedy but was also considered a crime under the common law of England. Contrastingly, the ancient Egyptians and Greeks associated suicide with human autonomy, seeing it as a drastic but de-stigmatized act that could be committed by an individual.

Photo credit: bestmastersincounseling.com

Suicide is one of the most difficult topics to bring into the open, and for this reason it is crucial to discuss it and understand its countless motivations, as well as its relationship to current and past cultures. For in this way, we can better learn how to help others overcome the desire to commit suicide.

Read the entire infographic here. And if you or someone you know needs help, call the ever-available National Suicide Prevention Lifeline as 1-800-273-TALK (8255).