Suicide Essays (2257 words) - Abnormal Psychology, Depression

Suicide Julien Rouleau Suicide: A Self-Destruction Suicide is the act or an instance of intentionally killing oneself. According to Emile Durkheim, suicide is applied to all cases of death resulting directly or indirectly from a positive or negative act of the victim himself, which he knows will produce this result (44). Suicide is a rarely ever a spur of the moment thing. Th Susceptibility to suicide is lowest among those who have strong community ties. Involvement in church, synagogue or temple may help the disquieted person feel that he is part of a religious fellowship bound together by ties of sympathy, love, and mutual concern. House of worship often substitute for a missing family. ?We this reach the conclusion that the superiority of Protestantism with respect to suicide results from its being a less strongly integrated church than a catholic church? (Durkheim 159). Grollamn noe ?Augustine (354-430) denounced suicide as a sin, there was no official church against it (23). Today people continue to commit suicide for a variety of reasons: Love, insanity and chronic depression. There is usually a series of events and warning sign before an attempt is made. Suicide is not spoken much and is a topic that needed to be explored. Statistics on suicide attempts changes so rapidly, that none can be stated with accuracy. Grollman write that ?Almost everybody at one time or another contemplates suicide. Self-destruction is one of many choices open to human beings?(5). If one is alert and observant, there is a chance that the suicide victim can be saved. Imagine the thought of being dead. Would the world be better off without that one life? Probably not, but some people may think so. That life will be greatly issued by someone. It may even cause a person to want to commit suicide in order to join the friend that died. Imagine how it would feel if the pressures of everyday life increased greatly. Perhaps a parent, brother or sister was lost. What if an adolescent person was arrested? How would his family and friends react to this little misfortune? Say there is a test in math or science class, and when the test came back the same person had failed it. It would seem to him to be just another failure in a series of botched attempts to further himself. It seems that the last month or two has been nothing but hardship. There is no place to go. So, he feels, there is only one thing that can help, suicide. ?Man prefers to abandon life when it is least difficult (Durkheim 107). The child may think: ?If I where to die now, my parents would feel sorry for their meanness? (Grollman 6). For days, even weeks, a plan is formulated. How does he leave the loved ones and his problems behind respectably? Finally he thinks of a plan, sleeping pills, in hopes that a final slumber will take all the nightmares of reality away for good. Klerman note that ?An act like this is prepared within the silence of the heart, as is a great work of art? (55). The pills are taken, after a while sleep sets in. At last, the final rest that has been so long awaited for. A blurred vision appears and slowly focuses. A white room appears, the vision gets clearer. He focuses in on details, such as an IV stand with several bags hanging on it. The hospital room was not the expected place to awake. This attempt was just one more failure in his life. The next time he will think of a more lethal way to seek eternal peace. After the attempt. He will go to a hospital where all his actions will be monitored. In the end, a counselor is usually called in. hopefully its will help him in the struggle to deal with life's problems, all this done in hopes that another attempt is made. ?12 % of those who attempt suicide will make a second try and succeed within two years (Grollman 73). To think all of this could have been prevented if he sought help in the beginning. To further understand suicide, we must take a look at the different reasons behind the