Alcohol Abuse Advice

Why Teenage Suicide Occurs

As mentioned in our article entitled, “What is Suicide?” people attempt to take their lives for any number of reasons. In the Western part of the world, the reasons typically do not include patriotism or political motivations. Those motivations are prevalent in non-Western sections of the World. The motivations behind Western suicide attempts instead, usually address a seemingly inescapable emotional pain or mental anguish. And because a significant portion of the 20 million people who attempt it survive and get successful treatment, we interpret most suicide attempts are cries for help.  But that may be a wrong approach.

A better approach might be to ask, ‘What drives people to attempt suicide?” since the individual who’s decided on suicide no longer seeks help. Such a person in fact, seeks an end to a situation that appears helpless.

Suicide is an Irrational Reaction

It’s often thought that suicidal persons see no solutions to their problems, but we have to be honest here and acknowledge a few key aspects of the suicidal personality. Every problem has a solution and every person with a rational mind should be motivated to act on an available solution. Such motivation is normal – but that’s a normality afforded to rational thinking individuals. We can justifiably conclude that at some point, the suicidal person is irrational and incapable of demonstrating coherent behaviors.

The suicidal person for instance, will refuse to acknowledge viable solutions and will work hard to convince himself that his presence is no longer necessary. The suicidal person may even insist that his presence further complicates things when that’s clearly not the case. Instead of surrounding himself with caring individuals, he purposely secludes himself so there’s no one to dissuade him from his distorted views.

In any other circumstance, the same individual would not exhibit the same behaviors and would not even consider suicide.

Suicide is an Internal Reaction

Often the victims of suicide — that is, the people who are closest to the person who commits suicide or who attempts suicide — blame themselves for causing the death. But because of the reasons outlined above, and because the suicidal individual internalizes deep-rooted justifications of his behavior, the role that external persons play is fairly small. In other words, it’s isn’t anyone’s fault. If these justifications remain deep-rooted for a lengthy amount of time, they become part of the suicidal individual’s personality and they consequently get harder to remove… even when the environment changes.

Other internal processes that can contribute to suicidal desires include depression and mental illness. In fact, recent studies reveal more than ninety percent of suicidal individuals suffer from some sort of psychiatric disorder. The severity of that disorder of course predicates the risk of suicide. Mood disorders in the depressive phases for instance, appear to prompt more suicides than any other disorder.

This doesn’t mean to suggest external factors don’t play a role, however. Side effects of some medications, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, and even mental abuse play significant roles as well. But the actual impact of these factors strongly depends on the powerlessness a suicidal person may feel in the first place.