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Essay On Suicide Among African Americans

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Suicide Among African Americans Today

I ask myself, “What is something that has an effect on African Americans today?” After days of much thought and coming up with nothing I said, “Well, I’m an African American… What’s something that has been effecting my life?” SUICIDE… Whether it be committed or attempted, suicide is something that I see to be a growing issue among the African American culture. I believe this to be brought on by either 1. Depression 2. Fear or 3. Mental Illness Suicide a hidden crisis that is taking the lives of more African Americans today than ever. Nearly a million people worldwide commit suicide each year, with anywhere from 10 to 20 million suicide attempts annually. About 30,000 people reportedly
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The effects of suicidal behavior or completed suicide on friends and family members are often devastating. Individuals who lose a loved one from suicide (suicide survivors) are more at risk for becoming preoccupied with the reason for the suicide while wanting to deny or hide the cause of death, wondering if they could have prevented it, feeling blamed for the problems that preceded the suicide, feeling rejected by their loved one, and stigmatized by others. Survivors may experience a great range of conflicting emotions about the deceased, feeling everything from intense sadness about the loss, helpless to prevent it, longing for the person they lost, anger at the deceased for taking their own life to relief if the suicide took place after years of physical or mental illness in their loved one. This is quite understandable given that the person they are grieving is at the same time the victim and the perpetrator of the fatal act.
Individuals left behind by the suicide of a loved one tend to experience complicated grief in reaction to that loss. Symptoms of grief that may be experienced by suicide survivors include intense emotion and longings for the deceased, severely intrusive thoughts about the lost loved one, extreme feelings of isolation and emptiness, avoiding doing things that bring back memories of the departed, new or worsened sleeping problems, and having no interest in activities that the
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