Reflective Essay About Suicide

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

“According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), suicide is the tenth leading cause of death among Americans, accounting for 41,000 deaths in 2013. More than half of all suicides are related to firearms.” Many people have bad thoughts, thoughts so horrific in terms that they want to end their own lives. It’s not just the thoughts that they have, it’s also the different situations they have going on in their lives. In the book: It’s kind of a Funny Story; it expresses the thoughts of one of the characters “I didn't want to wake up. I was having a much better time asleep. And that's really sad. It was almost like a reverse nightmare, like when you wake up from a nightmare you're so relieved. I woke up into a nightmare.” This character is expressing, the intensity of even being awake. They would rather kill themselves than to go on living the horrible life that they may lead. Suicide is always controversial, many people believe that suicide should never be an option. Although for some of us it is, for me it was at one point. Earlier this year, I was on the brink of taking my life. I was so fed up with everything, I was a mess, and i couldn’t take it anymore. The drama with my dad, and his new girlfriend, then all the stress from school and my two jobs. One day, I had enough, I couldn’t take it anymore it was too much. I got out of work, and I had a bad day at work, the customers were so rude, and I felt helpless. I went to the kitchen, and I grabbed a knife,

“My ex-girlfriend was taken away by the cop and taken to the local jail. My ex-girlfriend’s Dad showed up and I rode back with him to their house. Finally my parents came and picked me up. I went home and maybe got two hours of sleep, if you even call that sleep. The next morning, I went back to my ex-girlfriend’s house and she was later released from jail that day. For the longest time, we would just sit there in silence, because, what do you say? It was time to comfort one another. I not only felt bad about the whole situation, but I knew no one was going to believe me, us. Believe that a girl purposively jumped into the moving vehicle. I later learned that the girl who died had been suicidal. Earlier that day, before the accident,

The suicidal signs are easy to identify, and if you identify them early enough you could save a person’s live that could be in danger.

 Thesis: While Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem, I believe That Suicide is wrong.

Joseph Connelly Gazzola used to be a Northeastern University football star. He has since taken his own life, and it has hit everyone he knew very hard.

When I arrived at the event there was no expectation on the subject of hospice and palliative care. Really I did not think there was a difference between the two when the doctor first started to talk about it in his presentation. Actually my grandmother was in hospice care and I would see the nurses come to my house every morning. That is what I took from the experience was personally I knew a little about hospice care but nothing about palliative care. Also, all of the statistics he showed about how hospice care patients were predominantly white from 2000-2010 and still is from 2014. The racial disparity is so, shocking to me because I had no idea that there is an entitlement under Medicare for hospice care.

Teenage suicide is a major issue in today’s society; suicide is the intentional taking of one’s own life and is a momentous issue that should be addressed as quickly as possible. Teen suicide has been the topic of numerous news headlines; yet, it still continues to have a detrimental effect on today’s youth. In the United States, suicide is currently the eighth leading cause of death for Americans, and for young adults between the ages of 15 and 24, suicide is the third leading cause of death. This is extremely startling due to the fact that teen suicide is one of the most preventable forms of death. There are quite a number of

Suicide is growing as one of the most common causes of death. Suicide is “a self-inflicted death in which the person acts intentionally, directly, and consciously” (Comer, 2009, p.209). There are many theories to what contributes to suicide and each model has its own view. The psychodynamic theorists believe that suicide stems from depression and self-loathing. They believe that victims will take their anger for others and place it on themselves. When a person is absorbed in that much anger and sadness then they will redirect their death instinct by placing it upon themselves. “Emile Durkheim’s sociocultural theory defines three categories of suicide based on the person’s relationship with society: egoistic, altruistic, and anomic suicides” (Comer, 2009, p.221). Egoistic suicides occur by people who are isolated and are not concerned with the norms of society. Altruistic suicides are committed by people who believe that are sacrificing themselves for a greater causes. This could be a person that lays on a grenade to save everyone, to a suicide bomber that kills others on the belief that they are preserving their honor. Anomic suicides are down by people that are let down by their society or religious group. The biological theory is that the activity of the

Day to day, teens suffer from peer pressure, problem from home, and stress from academics. Despise their status in the environment, majority of high school students refrain from acknowledging the presence of their reality. The problem in most situations in that students feel shut in, trapped in a never ending misery. How do they cope? What are their ways of dealing? Most students live in denial. Others have friends to confide in. For the devastating part, most students are not as open to these ideas and it leaves them with this alternative: suicide. Suicide is the third leading cause in teens the ages 14 to 19 within rural underserved areas. Suicidal ideation (SI), suicidal thoughts, were surveyed in over 12 high schools and it was found that in the past year, thoughts of (SI) were not shared with peers or even adults in the pursuit of receiving help or support (Pisani, 2012). Because a student spends most of their day at school, it is ideal for schools to provide realistic opportunities and school-based programs to assist with the suicide among the youth. The Surviving the Teens Suicide Prevention and Depression Awareness Program designed four 50 minute session or each high school student. This presented information in regards to factual information about depression, suicidal warning signs, suicidal risk factors and myths associated with suicide (King, 2010). The program provide coping strategies for everyday life, referral sources if feeling suicidal, and how to recognize

Have you ever known someone who’s committed or tried to commit suicide and thought, “I wish I would’ve done something, said something, to stop it from happening?” I know I would ask myself that question everyday if I hadn’t. A few years ago, a good friend of mine thought her life was so bad she wanted to end it. I did the only thing I could think, and told the nearest teacher. It may sound so childish or stupid, but it worked. Luckily, she’s still alive and well. I’m here to make sure you can make the difference and help a person who might be, or is suicidal. Just think of what would happen if you didn’t try to help.

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.

Someone, somewhere, commits suicide every 18 minutes. You might never be able to tell who it will be, it could be the person sitting right next . Statistics reveal that approximately three million youths, between 12-18, have either thought about or attempted suicide in the past year. More than 1/3, actually succeeded.

Depression affects everyone's life at sometime or another. Depression comes in a wide variety of forms, from mild unhappiness to a chemical imbalance in the mind. There are many different symptoms that reveal a person's problem with depression. If left untreated, depression may continue to develop into a serious illness or even death.

Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. "(The Myth of Sisyphus). This is a philosophical statement to some others as with Camus see this a true and evident problem. So many will turn this into a argument for which no side could win. The argument cannot be won by many because they simply will not take their own selves out of the equation. One of the top reasons a person is said to want to die is that the individual has a philosophical desire to die. This desire can be broke down into different patterns or traits the person holds deep inside themselves, also there could be outside factors influencing this. Doctor Alex Lickerman of the University of Chicago states, "These people aren’t depressed, psychotic, maudlin, or crying out for help. They’re trying to take control of their destiny and alleviate their own suffering, which usually can only be done in death."( reasons why people comment suicide). These people are not clinically depressed, they are making the choice to take control of their own destiny. Taking control of one's own destiny or life is not something that is looked down upon in the normal everyday society. In today's world it is extremely important that people be themselves and with so many sub-cultures for the people of this world to fall into people do not want to conform to everyday society. Suicide is considered wrong to some