I have experienced 1 suicide in my friendsgroup, 2 more remote ones in my larger peer group & witnessed a jumper (and heard his body hit the pavement) over the course of 30+ years
Am I the exception?
This is a bad graph.
There’s no way to see here which country has the most suicides. Depending on the prevailing gun-laws, there will obviously be more or less people using guns to commit suicide, but that says nothing about the issue “suicides” in general.
Even if specifically looking at gun-related suicides, this is almost useless. You can’t see whether a higher amount of gun-related suicides in country A compared to country B is just because there are more suicides in general in country A, or whether country A actually has relatively more gun-related suicides per total amount of suicides.
It should show total suicides in green instead of “not gun-related suicides”.
STATISTICS: as always with these graphs (we have like 10 suicide posts per month on this sub), Belgium is fairly open in reporting suicides, in other countries there is a strong bias towards suicide eg (south) Italy where there is still shame around suicide.
So look at the above in another way: Belgium is positive, because it can be discussed fairly openly
Other factor that can be at play – how euthanasia is reported, not always clear how foreign dats studies like these take our euthanasie into account (and we can all agree that Belgium is very progressive in this compared to other on this list).
Have had in my surroundings 3 suicides and 1 attempted suicide…
Numbers are really higher in belgium than I would find healthy…
My condolences for your lost.
What do you mean with being the exception? That you experienced less suicides around you than this statistic seems to indicate?
100000÷30÷18×4 = 740.
This means you can expect 4 suicides if you know 740 people over that 30 year. If you have known more people of which you would be informed if they committed suicide, your experience is low. But take into account that you likely are not informed about all the suicides among the people you have known. Sometimes, that remains private information except for the smaller circle.
Of course, there is the issue of chance. Your acquaintances and their 4 suicides are a small and probably biased sample. Research samples tend to be a better estimation than your personal anecdotes.
Tbf, if I owned a gun, I’d probably have killed myself years ago.
It woud be interesting to examine how much the cultural background contributes to the high rates. Is suicide more ‘accepted’ there compared to for example Christian culture where it is a sin? If so, if we try to make it less of a taboo, would this increase or decrease rates?
Note:
I know this is a heavy subject. With all respect just interested in the underlying reasons for these differences. Not an expert on any of this, just opening up conversation.
Maybe the USA is so high because murders with guns get classified as suicide instead?
10 comments
I have experienced 1 suicide in my friendsgroup, 2 more remote ones in my larger peer group & witnessed a jumper (and heard his body hit the pavement) over the course of 30+ years
Am I the exception?
This is a bad graph.
There’s no way to see here which country has the most suicides. Depending on the prevailing gun-laws, there will obviously be more or less people using guns to commit suicide, but that says nothing about the issue “suicides” in general.
Even if specifically looking at gun-related suicides, this is almost useless. You can’t see whether a higher amount of gun-related suicides in country A compared to country B is just because there are more suicides in general in country A, or whether country A actually has relatively more gun-related suicides per total amount of suicides.
It should show total suicides in green instead of “not gun-related suicides”.
STATISTICS: as always with these graphs (we have like 10 suicide posts per month on this sub), Belgium is fairly open in reporting suicides, in other countries there is a strong bias towards suicide eg (south) Italy where there is still shame around suicide.
So look at the above in another way: Belgium is positive, because it can be discussed fairly openly
Other factor that can be at play – how euthanasia is reported, not always clear how foreign dats studies like these take our euthanasie into account (and we can all agree that Belgium is very progressive in this compared to other on this list).
Have had in my surroundings 3 suicides and 1 attempted suicide…
Numbers are really higher in belgium than I would find healthy…
My condolences for your lost.
What do you mean with being the exception? That you experienced less suicides around you than this statistic seems to indicate?
100000÷30÷18×4 = 740.
This means you can expect 4 suicides if you know 740 people over that 30 year. If you have known more people of which you would be informed if they committed suicide, your experience is low. But take into account that you likely are not informed about all the suicides among the people you have known. Sometimes, that remains private information except for the smaller circle.
Of course, there is the issue of chance. Your acquaintances and their 4 suicides are a small and probably biased sample. Research samples tend to be a better estimation than your personal anecdotes.
Tbf, if I owned a gun, I’d probably have killed myself years ago.
For people wondering about Japan / S. Korea:
Japan does have a very strict gun policy:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/magazine-38365729.amp
Slightly related:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seppuku
It woud be interesting to examine how much the cultural background contributes to the high rates. Is suicide more ‘accepted’ there compared to for example Christian culture where it is a sin? If so, if we try to make it less of a taboo, would this increase or decrease rates?
Note:
I know this is a heavy subject. With all respect just interested in the underlying reasons for these differences. Not an expert on any of this, just opening up conversation.
Maybe the USA is so high because murders with guns get classified as suicide instead?
‘freedom’ and ‘constitution of thé usa’
Those statistics are changed to corona deaths now