Gilgamesh wrote:Only the mentally ill kill themselves. It's a nice and tidy conclusion, but it's overly simplistic and ignores the underlying causes of suicide. Unemployment, low income, marital status, family history of suicide, and of course mental illness are all strongly associated with suicide.
But not
everyone who is unemployed kills himself, not
everyone with low income kills himself, I'm not sure what you mean by "marital status" in this context, but again, it is only a small subset of any "marital status" group that commits suicide, not everyone with a family history of suicide commits suicide... really, the
strongest factor is a
subset of mental illnesses, and not even all of
those people commit suicide.
Suicide is also sometimes used as a form of protest. The most famous example being Thích Quảng Đức who had burned himself alive in protest of the South Vietnamese governments treatment of Buddhists.
Yes, a form of protest - not in reaction to losing a child. The fact some Buddhist monks lit themselves up during wartime does not change the fact that the vast, overwhelming majority of people who kill themselves are mentally ill.
Your own personal experiences, although important to you count for nothing here.
And, of course, the fact I have stated that I have
researched this just totally blew past you because it is so inconvenient to your argument. My personal anecdotes were what drove me to actually study the issue, however, it doesn't require strong goggle-fu to find solid information on suicide.
Do you not find it unusual that such diagnoses commonly occur after death? Psychiatry is a field that doesn't follow the scientific method. How many were simply assigned a mental illness in light of their death?
No, I do not find it unusual at all, as mental illness is still greatly stigmatized in our society which provide enormous disincentives to seek treatment. Diagnosis of mental illness post-suicide not simply a matter of saying "So-and-so killed himself, he must therefore have been crazy", nor is it always a matter of finding the same diagnosis, for example, "clinical depression". A post-mortem diagnosis might be bipolar disorder with death during the manic phase based upon a history of behavior patterns typical of bipolar disorders. Or it might be depression, again, based upon behavior patterns.
Diagnosis of disease after death is nothing unusual - asymptomatic cancer, for example, is not uncommon and almost certain in men past age 70 or 80 (that pesky prostate). If someone is found to have profound heart disease
after death that does not mean the disease was non-existent, even if they had refused to go to a doctor for chest pain, or even a checkup, for decades. People who die accidental deaths have been found with all manner of diseases and internal malformations that might have eventually killed them otherwise. Diagnosis is something a doctor does, a disease is something you have whether or not you are diagnosed.
There are other reasons a person might kill themselves besides mental illness - such as the protest you mentioned. Or auto-erotic asphyxiation. Martyrs of a political or religious cause. A soldier flinging himself on a grenade to save others. However, all of those are
atypical reasons for self-murder.
If a person kills him or herself after the death of a close relative it is so likely that mental illness was involved that it is reasonable to
assume that is the case until
proven otherwise - which you have not done.
As Zac Nelson reports, his wife has stated he had a history of depression, but he did not seek treatment for fear of losing custody of a child. Is that not a great incentive to avoid seeking treatment and diagnosis? But that doesn't mean the illness didn't exist, it just meant that he had ample reason to avoid a formal diagnosis. Thus, it did not take place until after death.
