but women make three times as many suicide attempts as men. It’s diffi-
cult to say how many suicide threatshappen in a year, a threat being
defined as an immanent plan for self-destruction with the means readily
available. If the one in ten factor holds, it would be about 3 million threats.
There’s no way to tell how many people experience suicidal ideation,
which means considering the possibility and, usually, talking about it. The
National Institute of Mental Health estimates that there are almost 40 mil-
lion cases of depression and PTSD, the disorders most closely associated
with suicidal thinking. You do the math.
The people most likely to kill themselves are, in rough order, those
who have made previous attempts, people who have been hospitalized for
major depression, men—the older, the more likely—substance abusers, and
those who have experienced a recent loss. The suicide rates for teenagers
have increased over the past 50 years, but despite the publicity, they are no
more likely to kill themselves than anybody else. The percentage of suicides
is about equal to the percentage of teenagers in the entire population.
There are two important points to be made from these statistics.
First, that very few of the people who talk about suicide, perhaps one in
1000, actually do it. The second is that aside from very general statistical
trends, we have no way of telling which ones will commit suicide.
Talk of suicide has to be taken seriously. In my opinion, the more seri-
ously, the better. Suicidal people should be in active treatment with a men-
tal health professional, and should probably be taking medication. These are
the goals to shoot for when people in your life talk about exploding into death.
No matter how much you care about them, you cannot keep them alive by
your own efforts, nor figure out how much effort it would take if you could.
“I almost did it last night,” Alonzo says.
“Did what?” you say, feeling a prickle at the back of your
neck.
“You know, man. I sat there for two hours with that .357 in
my hand, just sipping beer and staring at it. Finally, I fell asleep.”What next? Fueled by fear for your friend’s life, everything you’ve
heard about suicide comes scrolling through your head. A suicide threat
is a cry for help; you should listen, but not too much, because it might just
be a device for getting attention. The people who talk about it don’t do it;
The Psychology of Depression ❧ 193