Suicide Epidemic
Suicide is an epidemic that affects all people whether it is knowing someone that has taken their own life or has taken their own life. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “Suicide is a leading cause of death in the United States (“Suicide Prevention” 1). Not only is it already one of the leading causes of death in the United States but it is also expected to increase in the next couple of years. The common reasons for suicide come from depression, bullying, and stress. As we are continuing to increase our technology, cell phones, and social medias is growing increasingly daily and is the leading cause of depression and bullying. To help slow the increase of this epidemic we must help the people with suicidal thoughts and grant them with the treatment that they are needing and know what to do if encountered with a suicidal individual.
One big issue that the world struggles with is mental and emotional health and social media plays a big role in our mental health. According to the Pew Research Center “69% of U.S. adults are social media users. Social media is especially popular among younger adults, as 86% of 18- to 29- year olds are social media users” (smith 1). Knowing that mental health is a leading cause of suicide it is important to know what to do to keep a good mental health. According to helpguid.org “Being socially connected to others can ease stress, anxiety, and depression, boost self-worth, provide comfort and joy, prevent loneliness, and even add years to your life” (Robinson). Having physical connection with people in the real world would help with people’s mental health and with good mental health the less suicide are to occur. According to Johns Hopkins Medicine “Most people who commit suicide have mental disorder, most commonly a depressive disorder” (“Depression and Suicide” 1). Therefore, if social media causes people to get depression, stress, and anxiety creating time limits for the amount of time someone can use their phones would help decrease mental health issues and would help in the decrease of the suicide epidemic.
Another solution to the help of decreasing the suicide epidemic is the bullying problem. Whether it is cyberbullying or physical bullying. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “In the past decade, headlines reporting the tragic stories of a young person’s death linked in some way to bullying (physical, verbal, or online) have become regrettably common” (“Preventing Bullying” 1). Bullying is known to take a big toll on people’s mental health and knowing that it is becoming common in the youth world it is important to take knowledge of this issue to help prevent suicide to occur. Finding the solution of bullying would be one of the solutions in helping this epidemic to decrease. Many youths bullying occurs in school whereas cyberbullying occurs online but both bullying types have the same effect on people. The solution to this is search for help. According to Stopbullying.org “parents, school staff, and other adults in the community can help kids prevent bullying by talking about it, building a safe school environment, and creating a community-wide bullying prevention strategy” (“Health Resources and Services” 1).
To go an extra step into helping people with suicide or suicidal thoughts people need to know how to identify and manage a individual with suicide risks. According to the article “Identifying and Managing Suicide risk” mental ill health plays a big factor in suicide “90% of people who die by suicide have a psychiatric disorder (Nash 3)”. Certain signs that people show that are at high risk of suicide are emotional pain, negative thoughts, feeling of being trapped, hallucination, and showing suicidal ideas. Knowing the signs you should know what to do after. According to the same article question to ask an individual that is thought to have suicide intents is “Begin by asking how their mood is. Pick up on elements of response to lead into asking about suicide (Nash 7)” One big emotional problem that people have is shame. Shame can cause the person to fold up and hide their true emotions when answering the question. According to the same article one approach to help the people open “is to embed the questions in the context of ‘people’ as a whole, for instance ‘Some people find…’ or ‘People have told me before that…’” (Nash 8). This will help the person open by knowing they are not the only person with the same emotional problems. If these things were taught in the education system and having a lot of more people knowing what to do when signs are shown would have a great impact on lowering the suicide rate in the world.
To further lower the suicides rates practicing and doing things to achieve having a good and healthy mental health will cause a lot of these cases to lower. To the people who have tried or have committed suicide nearly always have mental health problems and according to the article “Identifying and Managing Suicide risk” 90 percent of suicide is caused due to mental health issues (Nash). So, knowing that mental health plays a big problem in the suicide epidemic practicing and doing things to better mental health will create a great impact in eliminating the suicide epidemic. Giving more information about things to do to have an healthy mental health would help the prevention of suicide cases for example making sure having enough sleep, having physical connection with other to help not feel alone, having a healthy diet and exercising, and allowing cheaper access to therapy.
As the suicide epidemic continues to grow and is expected to drastically grow in the future and knowing that “Suicide is a leading cause of death in the United States (“Suicide Prevention” 1). A lot more ways to help people that are suffering from this epidemic is being created. Some of these solutions that were brought up are examples of ways to help lower the rate of this epidemic. That is helping people with bullying, knowing signs of suicide, practicing good mental health exercise, and knowing who to reach out to. As we are the future it is our duty to teach and know what to do to help others with suicide. Know what treatment they need and what to do.
Work Cited
“Depression and Suicide.” Depression and Suicide | Johns Hopkins Medicine, 31 Jan. 2023, https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/depression-and-suicide.
Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). (2022, October 12). Stop bullying home page. StopBullying.gov. Retrieved March 20, 2023, from https://www.stopbullying.gov/
Nash, Emma. “Identifying and Managing Suicide Risk.” Pulse, Feb. 2023, pp. 24–26. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost, comlib.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=161778903&site=ehost-live&scope=site. Accessed 10 Mar. 2023.
“Preventing Bullying - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.” The Relationship Between Bullying and Suicide, https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/yv/bullying-factsheet508.pdf.
Robinson, Lawrence. “Social Media and Mental Health.” HelpGuide.org, 2 Mar. 2023, https://www.helpguide.org/articles/mental-health/social-media-and-mental-health.htm#:~:text=However%2C%20multiple%20studies%20have%20found,about%20your%20life%20or%20appearance.
Smith, Aaron. “Record Shares of Americans Now Own Smartphones, Have Home Broadband.” Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 25 Aug. 2020, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/01/12/evolution-of-technology/.
“Suicide Prevention.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 19 Oct. 2022, https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/index.html.
