Should We Prevent Suicide?
Posted: Saturday, January 03, 2009
by Casey Starkweather
Author's Note- This is an old paper on suicide that I wrote for a college course.Not as easy to read as most of what I write, and may have a few typos, but I think it gets the point drawn out.Oh and it is a cited paper, citations are at the end. On a bright note, I did pass the class.
Eng-112-05
May 2, 2008
Should We Prevent Suicide?
Suicide could be considerate positive, but why should we kill ourselves? Well really, there are many reasons people, including college students, would choose to end their lives. For one life is stressful. Some people can not handle that stress and want a way out. Or they could be depressed, angry, suffering from abuse. There are numerous reasons why someone would chose suicide, but that does not make it either good or bad. It is a permeant solution to a more than likely temporary problem. Many people commit suicide each year, yet not all colleges have prevention programs against suicide. Of course they may not believe that suicide is a slight problem.
There is the question that suicide might not be a problem. Reality check. Suicide is a problem in our current society. It is also a major problem among college students. Suicide is the second leading cause of death among college students, with traffic accidents barely coming in first (Bost).Many college students think about suicide, especially right around mid-terms and finals. Statistics show that 11% of college students seriously consider suicide, while 8% have made a plan, and almost 2% have attempted suicide (Haas). But there is a problem with these numbers. There is no real tracking of suicide rates among college students, not on a national level anyway. Some universities do their own research, but it is not widely diverse. Also statistics are just that. They are numbers, so they do not always seem real. So schools may not see this as a problem. They just do not realize how wide spread suicide really is. Some people will keep suicide quiet, because they are ashamed of that person, or if someone failed they will also keep their attempt quiet, because they are ashamed that they failed and they are afraid of what others might think of them .
But why should you care? Well because, believe it or not, 1 out of 10,000 college students commit suicide ever year. My school should have at least 4 suicides this year alone. College students are twice as likely to kill themselves than other young adults. Of course college puts a major stress on young adults. But why is there no prevention programs? Well it could be the cost. It would take a good sum of money to impalement such a program among colleges. Giving suicide a positive view is also a problem, as it shows it in a lighter view so that it seems more appeasing to young adults. Television does not help at all. Shows like Futurama, with its suicide machine, do little to prevent suicide. They actually encourage suicide. Life is stressful? Kill yourself. Thats what these shows and movies are putting out there. Maybe that is not the message they are trying to deliver, but it comes across very strongly. But not all videos are saying that. Mitchell stated in his video that we should try to prevent suicide and get help if we are suicidal.
So you still do not know why you should care? Well, lets put it simply. College students are very likely to kill themselves. They need help; they need guidance. But they have neither, or if they do it is negative in its content. Take veterans from the Iraqi war for example. According to Les Blumenthals article 12,000 veterans have attempted suicide. If you think about that sheer number, and then remember just for a second that numerous veterans are under the age of 30 and are attending colleges, imagine if we had a prevention program, that number might decrease, even by half. Veterans go through a lot, in war and afterwards when they come back here. They have to deal with their emotional traumas from the war and with trying to get an education so that they can support themselves. But they have inadequate support and help. So they consider suicide. They do not have a prevention program in place or an adequate counseling center to help them out. They are in desperate need for someone to help them get through this. They become hopeless. So they kill themselves; because, although they need help, they can not get it.
Still not sure why you should care? Well fine. Maybe college students, including veterans, should be able to help themselves. They are mostly adults after all. Let them kill themselves if they want. But what if they decide they want to take other people with them? Then does that change your mind? Adequate programs would help not only with suicide prevention but they might even help with the prevention of school violence . Take the Virginia Tech Massacre, a mournful event, for instance. It could have been prevented. The shooter wanted to die, he even left a twisted version of a suicide note, but he wanted to drag people down with him. Does the words Columbine High School shooting sound familiar? These two shooters also wanted to kill themselves, but they had to destroy their classmates first .They were in desperate need of help, but for what ever reason, they took it out on their peers. The point is school shootings and suicide are closely related. Some people want to go out in style, to be remembered. Some people just have dark, sorrow-filled souls. But if they have had an adequate prevention program, well then maybe these incidents would not have happened, or maybe even on a lesser scale at least. Preventing future reoccurrences of these massacres should be a priority. Sadly, they are not nor is suicide. If the teachers have had a say in the Virginia Tech situation, the shooter would had been at least investigated, but the school did not want to deal with the legalities. Some of the shooters class mates and teachers were concerned, they even encouraged him to get help, but he would not. Instead he went on a killing rampage and then killed himself. We will never forget the Virginia Tech Massacre; however the only thing we can do now is prevent future massacres, and reduce the number of college students who commit, and attempted, suicide.
Are you still not convinced? Or would you rather not think about it? Alright then. If a college all-star football player killed himself tomorrow, you would probably care. But what about, lets say a sociology major. If he killed himself would you even bat an eye? Are you that cold hearted, or do you really not see the problem? Lets spell it out for you then. Suicide is a problem. It affects everyone, everywhere. According to Zeinert anyone can commit suicide, although white males are more likely to kill themselves than any other group(26). Suicide happens, all the time, everyday. Every two hours someone between the ages of 15 and 24 kills themself (Caruso.) That is very close to twelve highschool and college students a day.
Sure, you could argue that a person belongs to themself and has the right to dispose of their life if they see fit. Williams stated that I am the property of myself. I have the right to take my life but not others (19). You could say that Williams has it right and that it is your life. That would be a strong argument. You can kill yourself, if you hurt no one else in te process. But of course why would be the question. Why kill yourself? Well, you could argue that your life sucks and that you can not handle it, you just want a way out. Alright, but suicide is a permeant solution to a temporary problem. You can not come back if you kill yourself, and it could be argued that you are hurting those around you.
You could even argue that even if suicide is a problem, there is nothing we can do about. But that is where you are wrong. We can do numerous things to prevent suicide, we just have to have the time and the energy to do such things. It is not that complex to prevent suicide, it just takes a little bit of work.
So what can you do about suicide? Well, numerous things actually. A prevention program in colleges would help reduce the number of college student suicides. Currently my school does not have such a program. But we need one, it might even save some lives.
A prevention program will do more than just look good for the school, and it will do that, but it will also cut down on the risk of suicide among college students. The program could be as simple as the yellow ribbon project, which is in memory of a teen who committed suicide. His parents started the program, which takes these cards and gives them out at schools, along with talking about suicide and suicide prevention. The cards are very simple. All they say is I need to use my yellow ribbon. If you give it to someone, and it has information on suicide and what that person should do, then that person can help you (Emme). But that is just one proven prevention program.
There are many types of prevention programs, including no-suicide contracts(Caruso). No suicide contracts are just basically an agreement not to kill yourself and to get help if you start feeling suicidal. However there are other types of programs. How about pamphlets? My school has pamphlets on everything but suicide. Ironic, isnt it? We have a pamphlet, even a workshop and a screening day, for depression. But nothing for suicide that I am aware of. We also could use a work shop on suicide. Lets see, how about one for preventing suicide and helping suicidal friends or students? That might actually work. Talk to students about suicide and the problems associated with it, and do not be negative. Do not threaten them or call them names, and then we may have an effective program.
However, we will also need a more proactive efficient counseling center. Students do not need counselors who are going to downplay their problems or write them off as attention seeking or trouble making. Our students do not need any more stress added to them. Plus some of them are even unaware that we have a counseling center at all. So if we perhaps advertized the counseling center and made the students feel safer, that might be a start.
We could also retrain our counselors, to deal with these problems and to be of some help to their students. We could make the counseling center staff knowledgeable about suicide and suicide prevention. We could even offer workshops for our counseling center and teachers, and even other schools counseling staff.
There is a lot we can do to prevent suicide. Even if we declare a school-wide suicide prevention day, or if we add a table about suicide at our cultural fling, that would be something. A suicide prevention/awareness day would actually be a good idea. Get the students together and have discussions about suicide and how to help friends who are suicidal. Pass out pamphlets, and tell these students that someone care about them. It might actually work. It would be better than what we have now; ignorance. This is a very important topic that we can no longer ignore. What if we have a Virginia Tech incident? What are we going to do, just say that we should have seen it coming? Well we have. We know this can happen. We know the risk of suicide among college students is the highest for that age rage. We know that we can prevent this. So why do we not?
Well for starters, you could argue the cost. It will cost money to pay for these programs, even if we use free ones like yellow ribbon or suicide.org.. Everything we do will cost some bit of money. Retraining our counseling center staff will cost money. But the better trained and prepared they are, the more we can help our students. We could take some money from the bond referendum and put it toward a suicide prevention program instead of a new campus. We could put information about suicide and suicide prevention on the schools web site. We could even put information on how to contact the counseling center, and add that it is free to see a school counselor.
You could also argue about the effectiveness of any such prevention program. Yes, there will be some people who do not want help or care to know how to save their lives or their friends. But there will always be people who do want help. Some people the programs might not help. But even one life saved is worth it, and also if we really work hard on these programs, we will save more lives than we lose. Our four suicides might be reduced to one, or maybe even none. There will always be the people so desperate that they just give up and give in, but we should not let that stop us from trying as hard as we can to prevent suicide. One suicide among college students is one too many, but it will happen. All we can hope to do is help all we can, but we need a prevention program to do that.
You might argue that it is impossible to get such a program in place. But it is not. It is quite simple. We train the counseling staff, maybe even let the teachers go to a few workshops so that they can help a suicidal student. Then we simply start spreading the news about the prevention programs. We let people know that they are not alone. That suicide is not the answer.
You could try to argue that a prevention program will make the school look bad, like it has a problem with suicide. News flash. There is a growing problem with suicide in schools. Suicide is becoming very common and well known among college students, almost like their new best friend. Yes, you would have a point. It would make the school look like it was trying to control a problem, or maybe even stop one from starting. There is a thought. Let us stop suicide before it even starts. Let us reach out to these students and prevent suicide before they turn to it as their only option. It would make the school seem proactive, might even make the news if the college had a very effective suicide program. So, a prevention program would look good on the school, not bad.
So, although suicide is a personal choice and is growing rapidly, we should put in place programs to help prevent suicide from happening. Suicide can happen anywhere, at anytime. It happens to be the second leading cause of deaths in college students. It is important that we prevent suicide among college students, because why let them die? What a waste of a young life. Veterans are among those at-risk college students to commit suicide. We also know that school violence and suicide can go hand in hand. We know that over a 1,000 college students will kill themselves this year, not counting all of those who will attempt suicide. We know that we will lose a friend or even just know someone who has committed suicide this year. We know we can prevent suicide, or at least decrease it since there will always be people who want to kill themselves. We know how to prevent suicide. We can prevent suicide with better counseling services, information on suicide, a suicide awareness day, among other things.
Now you know why you should care about suicide, but do you? Have you taken a stance on the issue of suicide? You should; now is the time to decide whether you will support suicide prevention programs for college students. We need to support prevention programs, because why would we want our students to kill themselves. But it is your choice whether or not you will support the efforts to prevent college student suicide. Maybe this paper has opened you mind at the least; I can only hope so.
Works cited
Blumenthal, Les. Lawmaker Says VA Lying About Suicide Attempts. Chron. 23 April, 2008. 30 April, 2008.
Bost, Jane. For All Our Sakes. SMHIA. 1 July, 2004. 29 April, 2008.
Caruso, Kevin. No-Suicide Contracts. 30 April, 2008.
Emme, Dale and Dar Emme. Yellow Ribbon Project. 20 April, 2008. 30 April, 2008.
Haas, Ann Pollinger, Bethany Koestner, and Morton Silverman. College Students. 14 Nov, 2005. 30 April, 2008.
Medterms. 16 Sept, 2003.28 April, 2008.
Mitchell, Greg dir. Teen Suicide. 2007. 30 April, 2008
Williams, Walter.People Have the Right to Commit Suicide. Suicide. Ed. Miller, Leslie and Paul Rose. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2000.19-20.
Zeinert, Karen. Suicide: Tragic Choice. New Jersey: Enslow, 1999.
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