Explain Why People Committed Suicide Essay

Using material from Item A and elsewhere, assess different sociological explanations of suicide. (21 marks)

Many view America as the best country in the world. There are so many different perspectives of life in America. This country is developed from the roots of many different cultures. This country is a place of freedom, opportunity, and hope. America is a place where everyone from different backgrounds unite as one, and help this land of freedom thrive. We are not White, Mexican, Native American, Asian, Black or whatever other race; we are Americans. Sadly, many Americans do not appreciate this country as much as they should. My vision for America is for every citizen in the United States to be more civilized by reducing the crime rate to numbers that won’t affect the country anymore. Racial issues need to stop because that intensifies crime. We

Suicide rate is a grow problem in the United States according to the American foundation for suicide prevention more than 41,149 suicides were reported in 2013. The highest rate of suicides is committed by adults between age 45-64 and this is especially true amongst the elderly. Older adults are inflected with a terminal disease, loneness and depression and because of this they are committing suicide at a higher rate. Suicide amongst the men is steadily higher than women, in 2013, 77.9% were male and 22.1% were female. Men success rate for suicide is much higher, because their attempt is more lethal, for example, men are more than likely to shot themselves, whereas women are more likely to use poisons to end their life. Suicide Rate committed race/ethnicity was higher among Whites 14.2%, American Indians and Alaska Natives 11.7%, Asians and Pacific Islanders 5.8%, Blacks 5.4% and Hispanics 5.7%. According to the mean method used to commit suicide is a firearm, then suffocation and poisoning. The main cause of suicide is due to mental health condition and depression is at the foremost leading factor.

7. Chapter 7: Case Study: Suicide, Smoking, and the Search For the Unsticky Cigarette In the case of tipping points, there can be positive and negative social epidemics. In chapter four, Gladwell touches on one kind of negative social epidemic: crime in New York in the 1980’s. In chapter seven, he elaborates on negative epidemics by bringing up the teen suicide epidemic in Micronesia and the teen smoking epidemic occurring presently in the U.S.

Over 90% of people who commit suicide have a mental illness in America. Don’t you believe if people gave mental disorders/illness more attention, those suicide rates would decrease? Mental illness is a serious issue in America. To understand Mental Illness, you need to know what it means. Based on Merriam Webster dictionary Mental Illness is “ Any illness with significant psychological or behavioral manifestations that is associated with either a painful or distressing symptom or an impairment in one or more important areas of functioning.” If America gave more attention to mental health, suicide rates would decrease, crime rates decrease, and death rates could decrease.

Why do people commit suicide and how is it a social problem? There are countless individuals affected by suicide, family, friends, doctors and other relationships that are one way connected to a person who has committed this act. Not only has it affected people at a micro-level, but it became one of America’s biggest social and public health problems. Several social factors trouble individuals in the United States, although, people who lack social integration in society are the primary factor why people commit suicide. We will look at how people based their identities from established social relationships and defined integration. When there’s disparity in the integration of any of the relationships in the social system, then it can cause a person to feel imbalanced in life.

Suicide is an epidemic that has always plagued society. The option to take your own life rather than face the reality of living and the world is an option that many people take each year. 38,364 suicides were reported in 2010 alone (Facts and Figures, 2014). That number made suicide the 10th leading cause of death in the United States (Facts and Figures, 2014). The staggering number of people committing suicide made me wonder what kind of genetic predisposition some people may have to carry out such an act.

Durkheim believed that the suicide rate was a social fact; he found that social forces such as social integration, which refers to “an attachment to social groups” and social regulation, which refers to the “control of individual desires by group norms” (Fulcher and Scott, 2007, p.37) are factors external to the individual and determine levels of suicide in society. Durkheim found that suicide resulted from an imbalance of these two forces and developed a classification system. It was observed (Giddens, 2006, p.15) that egotistic suicides are common in social groups that lack sufficient integration, resulting in weaker social ties. For example lower suicide rates in times of social crisis such as war are attributed to higher social integration

Specialists say that the concern is misplaced (Laucius, Joanne). They say that the more we report the situation, the more support our students will help one another and we will come together with unity and solve this ongoing problem. “Suicide should never be an option” says AFSP chief medical officer. Suicides can cause a chain reaction. "We're creating an environment where people realize that talking about it is a good thing," said Dori Zaleznik, Newton's health commissioner. "We don't want to glorify what happened, but we want to get people talking and make sure everyone knows that help is available." (Dori Zaleznik) If we excessively show how sad these types of tragedies are then students might join support groups and get the help they need before its too late. On the other hand if students get too caught up in the sad types of activities they could be wasting there time. If they would do more activities that are more positive than they might never even have the depression in the first

“Have you thought about physician assistance with suicide, Mrs. Ramsey? It is legal here in California,” Doctor Oobleck asked. “You’re husband has injuries that are far too severe for modern surgeries and natural recovery.”

Teen suicide is a major problem in our society today. The adolescent suicide rate has tripled since 1960, while being the largest cause of death between the ages of 15 and 24. This is the one single age group that has seen an increase in suicides over the past thirty years. There are about 10,000 reported suicides reported annually. It is estimated however, that the true number of teen suicides is actually three to four times that number when unreported deaths are factored in.

If you bring up the subject of suicide in a room of people, it is likely that the individuals will become quite, begin to become uncomfortable. Why is this? Is it because of the aspect of death? Is it the ways it is done? Society may say it is a wrong and selfish act, or that a person is not considering others and therefore it is erroneous. We live in a society where mental health problems are rampant, societal issues take over our daily lives and out everyday stresses impact our health, yet our understanding of the subject that is to be avoided and carries a stigma with it that affects the way people see those who have attempted or completed suicide. When deciding if suicide is an ethical or morally accepted action, we must take many factors into consideration. Some of these factors may include the culture and society in which we live and our knowledge of psychological and biological causes. With these factors in mind, we can then adopt our own personal philosophies on whether suicide is an ethical or moral act. While not all individuals are going to agree on a consensus, it is important to consider others opinions and be aware of them while discussing the subject, even if it is uncomfortable.

“Other times, I look at my scars and see something else: a girl who was trying to cope with something horrible that she should never have had to live through at all. My scars show pain and suffering, but they also show my will to survive. They’re part of my history that’ll always be there.”-Cheryl Rainfield. Although suicide and self injury appears to be similar, self harm acts actually and is used as a way to cope for emotional pain. Self injury is most often misunderstood as a person being suicidal or wanting attention.

Suicide has been around forever. People do not believe that suicides affect others around them. In fact that is not true at all. When one commits such an act everyone is affected. Family members, friends, teammates, even neighbors suffer. It is always a scary topic to think about and teen suicide is even scarier. Teenage suicide is such an issue now because it is becoming so frequent. Seeing someone who has just began their life, take it away in just seconds seems to always be harder to deal with (“Webster”).

I vaguely remember this one story growing up about a lady name Terri Schiavo and her family battle while she was in a vegetative state. Terri Schiavo a young lady from Florida who had a horrible heart attack which resulted in brain damage due to the fact that for over 5 minutes her brain had not receive any oxygen. only thing she was now able to do was breathe on her own. She had no living will so there was no details of what she would have wanted her family to do had she become brain damage and could not do anything on her own. after 15 years of living on a feeding tube her husband said enough was enough his wife’s wishes were to never be hooked up to a machine to save her life. He succeeded in getting her feeding tube removed. Even with this known fact Terri’s parents still fought against their son in law in a legal battle in court to try to keep their daughter alive and make the doctors put the tube back in again but lost. Two weeks later she passed away. Later autopsy revealed that the brain damage was irreversible ad she would ever have woken up.