Overview of Suicide

What is suicide?

Definition:

1. A permanent solution to a temporary problem (Suicide Lector)
2. The act of intentionally taking one's own life (Vorvick)
3. A desperate attempt to get away from huge amounts of grief, suffering, pain, and loss (Smith)

Statistics:

• In the whole world, over 1 million suicides are completed (Suicide Lector).
• There are more than 29,000 people in America that end up taking their own lives each year (Goode).
• There are 80 suicides that occur everyday in the United States.
• The number of suicides to homicides is two to one (Suicide Lector).
• One in ten high school students try to commit suicide.
• The elderly have the highest rate of completed suicides (Roes).

Sometimes people feel as if they are drowning in grief, pain, and difficulty. The only way they see to escape from it is to kill themselves. They can no longer see clearly all the other options that are available to help them cope with their situations (Muench-Miller). Many people are affected by these deaths and most of them can be prevented if the warning signs get recognized and treated properly.