The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (www.afsp.org) reports these national statistics regarding suicide:- Over 36,000 people in the United States die by suicide every year.
- In 2008 (latest available data), there were 36,035 reported suicide deaths.
- Suicide is the fourth leading cause of death for adults between the ages of 18 and 65 years in the United States (29,668 suicides).
- Currently, suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States.
- A person dies by suicide about every 15 minutes in the United States.
- Every day, approximately 99 Americans take their own life.
- Ninety percent of all people who die by suicide have a diagnosable
psychiatric disorder at the time of their death. - There are four male suicides for every female suicide, but three times as many females as males attempt suicide.
- There are an estimated 8-25 attempted suicides for every suicide death.
- Ninety-six percent of alcoholics who die by suicide continue their
substance abuse up to the end of their lives. - Alcoholism is a factor in about 30 percent of all completed suicides.
- Approximately 7 percent of those with
alcohol dependence will die by suicide.
It was a Sunday evening, August 21, and my son had been drinking most of the day. I remember expressing my disappointment once again about his drinking. It was around 9pm and I was in the living room when I heard the bath water running in his bathroom. I thought it was very strange for him to be taking a bath or shower so late at night. Then I heard him go into the kitchen and heard him open the silverware drawer. I got up to investigate and caught him in the hallway with my largest kitchen knife. He was running a tub of water and planned to slit his wrists in the tub. I convinced him to give me the knife and to let me take him to our local hospital that has a behavioral health unit. They admitted him that night and discharged him on August 24. He was given a prescription for Trazadone to help him sleep.
Three days later I caught him locked in the bathroom again. Thankfully, he opened the door for me before actually cutting himself. Back he went to the hospital. This time they prescribed Prozac. When he was discharged 2 days later, he seemed like a changed man. He was happier and his depression seemed to be lifted. This lasted about 2 weeks. He was taking his Prozac regularly and wasn’t drinking. I thought the crisis was over, but I was wrong. One evening I came home from work to find him locked in the bathroom once again. I asked if he was OK and he replied, “Unfortunately, yes.” He got out of the tub and unlocked the door. He had several cut marks on both wrists where he had tried to slit them. Thankfully he wasn’t successful because he had used the wrong type of knife and it wasn’t sharp enough. This time I didn’t make him return to the hospital, but instead sent him to stay with his grandparents until the weekend so that he would be supervised. He promised to never try suicide again because he wasn’t successful and I convinced him that God wasn’t ready for him to die yet. This all happened in August-September 2011.
He went to our local mental health facility a few times and stayed off alcohol for a while. But over time he stopped taking his Prozac regularly and started drinking again. He met an older woman online and began a relationship with her. He has since moved out of my apartment and moved in with her. They plan to wed in May 2012.
It has taken me so long to write this post because it is painful for me to think about his suicide attempts. I thank God every day for not allowing my son to take his own life. As long as he is still alive, there is always hope that one day he will embrace sobriety and learn to enjoy the life that God intended him to live. But for now, he has been unable to find a job and his drinking has increased again. I don’t know how long his fiance will put up with it. I believe she is a codependent like me and will take care of him and enable him as I did. While I enjoy having my apartment to myself, it has been kind of hard not knowing what he is doing and having no say in his life. I have really tried to not meddle in their lives and to let him live his own life for a change. I realize that he has to make his own choices and mistakes and suffer his own consequences.
What I have learned is that anyone can get depressed enough to try to take their own lives. Some are successful, some are not. I do believe that my son was just crying out for help and did not really want to die. But take depression seriously and don’t take suicide threats lightly. Get help for them if at all possible.