It is unjustified to say that suicides are to blame for parents or pressures at school

Recently, more information has emerged in various media about suicidal behavior and deaths due to suicide among adolescents. In recent cases unfortunately also reported a way suicideabout a location and a school that the dead attended, which should be avoided. Perhaps such reporting was meant as a public interest in terms of public awareness of the problem. However, not all that is interested in readers or viewers, it is also a public interest.

The news is in the public interest when it has such meaning for society that the public right to inform the human right to privacy (eg the existence of crime, corruption, threats to public health, etc.). In reporting on specific cases of suicide, it was also emphasized that at the level of the state or state institutions, care for people in need would be improved. We certainly welcome such an appeal, as it indicates that society is more sensitized to the problem and that suicide is no longer taboo than it used to be. This is actually a step forward towards preventing suicidal behavior, which is a major public health problem in Slovenia.

This is where the problem comes. Something that is a public health and social problem that should be prevented and bounded at all levels of society – education, health, social, politics and others – is too often and too easily portrayed as individual responsibility or responsibility of the family and direct environment. The media play an extremely important role in raising awareness of the problem of suicidal behavior.

At the time of recent events, some articles were presented in some articles, which further burdened loved ones and other people who were affected by suicide. We were very directly read and heard that for all the « responsible » family, that parents are the ones who can or not to give the child shelter and safety, as well as that they are « guilty » pressure and high expectations at school. The family of a child, adolescent or adult, who is already imbued with endless questions, ‘what we did wrong’ and or ‘we did enough’, is thus publicly confronted with the fact that she is responsible. The same happens to the school.

The intertwining of the factors

And yet things are all but so simple. Suicide can happen no matter how much security and warmth there is among members of a community, as it is never the result of just one factor, but is a mix of several factors. As with filling the container with drops of water. How will we know which drops made the water flow over the edge? Each contributed something to it. The risk of suicide is increased when several risk factors occur at one time. The latter can be combined into several categories – individual factors, interpersonal, environmental factors – but really only the person who decided to leave, knows why.

And what was in the end that made her life too difficult. Therefore, in the case of suicide, we refrain from looking for the culprit and pointing a finger at anyone. It may seem like we know why, we do not know. We just assume. The assumptions, however, can make it difficult for the grievers to have such a difficult situation. It will be helped by the loved ones and the unpainted attitude, which will tell them that they are understood in their distress.

Let’s try to imagine the situation described below.

A five -year -old man left home one morning and left his wife a message that he « left forever because life became overburdened for him. » The woman immediately thought that something bad was going to happen, so she informed the police, who after a few hours found her husband dead in a remote parking lot. The criminal investigation confirmed that the reason for the death was suicide.

The wife said that her husband had been in a bad mood for some time, irritable and restless. She tried to talk to him about what was weighting him, but he always rejected her that everything was fine. She noticed that a drink has come home recently. He did not understand himself well with his parents; He was accused of helping them from working on the farm. His grandfather died of suicide, but they didn’t talk much about it in the family.

The woman accuses her that she was not a husband as soon as she noticed his mood, convinced that he would seek the help of an expert. He all the time thinks what she should do to prevent suicide. It is especially difficult for her since she heard the rumors that they hadn’t understood each other well.

The husband’s colleagues said they began to dismiss workers in their company and that he also feared that he would be fired. Now their leader is on sick leave; They think he was affected by the death of the subordinate. Information published in a local newspaper that someone in their company has committed suicide has further burdened it.

In a case that is not true, but consists of a variety of falls from suicide, we tried to present how many factors contribute to the decision to end life: depressed mood, problems with expressing emotions, fear of losing a job, abuse of alcohol, suicide in the family, subjective experience that a person is unsuccessful and no one understands. They are intertwined and it is impossible to determine how many of them contributed to suicide as a final decision.

Therefore, it is also difficult to determine which of these factors should be taken away to protect it from suicide. In the nearby deceased, all these thoughts arouse strong feelings of guilt and intense thinking how to prevent suicide. Although many times they did everything and more, which was in their power.

Always concerns all of us

That is why it is so important that when talking about suicide, we are not only limited to finding one reason. We also cannot expect to be one of the preventative measures, e.g. Several access experts, limitation of accessibility to assets, responsible media reporting, etc., reduced the number of suicides in the population. It is important that we talk about the possibility of preventing suicide before we are so great in our loved ones or in our loved ones that we think of suicide. In Slovenia, we have many publications that understand the emergence and development of suicidal thoughts and behavior, signs that indicate suicide threat, and forms of assistance that people in emotional distress can offer.

Suicide is an extremely complicated phenomenon, so it is accompanied by different understandings. Photo: Labor Archive

Knowledge will help us to easily react reasonably in a crisis. Although the number of suicides in Slovenia has declined by more than 30 percent in the last three decades, we still list about 400 such deaths each year. Research shows that at least 2400 people are grieving each year after suicide of their neighbor, as each death affects at least six nearby people on average due to suicide. This is also conditioned by different views on suicide, which are always strongly emotionally colored. That is why many families often hide or at least mention past suicide – such as in the case we have described earlier.

Suicide is an extremely complicated phenomenon, so it is accompanied by different understandings: some may seem possible to exit from a difficult life situation, while others may be a selfish act that condemns it. Different other explanations are also possible. We may be afraid that any of our loved ones would choose to suicide, so we are looking for « culprits » or various unverified explanations as to why suicide occurred.

Often such thinking in different forms, such as. Interview, letter from readers, other posts, penetrate the media. They attract attention to the general public, the rumors begin to spread, the search for causes, « culprits » and responsible persons. The consequences of such discussions are not useful for the company, much less for the nearby deceased. In people who are not involved in the situation, they increase prejudice, and to the loved ones, they make it difficult for mourning with feelings of guilt, escalated dilemmas, doubts about the life of the deceased, stigma and other painful feelings.

Therefore: Nostra really agitur! It always concerns all of us.

There is no quick solution to prevent suicide, and it is essential to participate in the whole society if we are successful in preventing suicide. We will probably never be able to prevent all suicide, and many can. Even with greater familiarity and new findings in this sensitive field.

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Prim. Nuša Konec Juricicdr. med., spec. Public Health, National Institute of Public Health, OE Celje, Asst. dr. Saska Roškaruniv. B.Sc. dog., National Institute of Public Health, prof. dr. Onja Tekavčič Graduniv. B.Sc. dog., wedge. dogs. spec., Center for Psychological Counseling Consultation, Anamaria Zavasnikuniv. B.Sc. dog., wedge. dogs. spec., Vice -President of the Slovenian Association for Suicide Prevention