It’s well documented that Belgium’s suicide rate is exceptionally high for western europe. (For example: [1](https://www.thebulletin.be/belgian-suicide-rate-dismally-high-according-who)).
Being from Belgium, I obviously have friends that killed themselves, and secondhand know of more, and I understand their personal motivations.
But I wonder: have there been attempts to study as to why Belgium is exceptional in terms of suicide, on a larger than anecdotal level?
As a side quest: write down the number of people you’ve known that killed themselves.
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People usually don’t commit suicide for broad, societal reasons. They have more personal issues, which makes studying the phenomenon & determining reasons for it very difficult. The statistics are also slow. Your picture is a visual from 10y ago, and current available data is from 2019 I think. We don’t have “actual” data on suicides because that only gets released a few years later. No one knows the impact of corona & the measures yet.
Compared to other countries Belgians are don’t tend to talk about their problems because it’s more of a taboo. And if they talk about it, they mostly do it with the wrong people: friends instead of professionals.
On top of that Belgian culture/society puts more pressure on people to get a good job, a nice car, your own house, etc. In other countries the pressure to ‘succeed in life’ is lower.
The upside is that things are improving. There is more awareness for mental problems and it is becoming less of a taboo to talk about it. Hopefully we can see a decline in a couple of years.
>As a side quest: write down the number of people you’ve known that killed themselves.
1 afaik + one attempt.
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Statistics people!
Belgium counts and reports suicides differently vs eg Italy (still shame in the family ref suicides).
Talk to any professional and they will confirm there is no significant difference with our neighbouring countries.
0. I dont have a lot of friends
The absurdity of this country and lack of a decent and generally/broad unifying identity and values tend to cause some problems.. Sure, we’re a rich country with countless possibilities (for some people it might even be too much possibilities), but there is something very distressing and very uncaring about Belgium/Belgians too.. + we’re not the most open people in the world.. (many people will bottle up their pain and anguish past the point of no return, before even considering getting any help, or believing that help is even possible..)
also, that side-quest is a bit grim, but the answers could perhaps help to shock/awaken a bit more reddit-national awareness, i guess.. I myself know about 3 cases, and indirectly about 3 more..
2 reasonable close friends, 1 person I knew (only saw him once a year).
Those are the people I know. A friend of mine had his grandfather in-law commit suicide.
All are male
>As a side quest: write down the number of people you’ve known that killed themselves.
I spent a minute thinking about it, and could come up with 5 people. None of them I was particularly close to though.
But yes, we Belgians are notoriously bad at talking about our feelings. Take the universal stereotype for men (i.e. people who think that expressing emotions is a sign of weakness), apply it twofold, and you get the average Belgian.
Shit’s fucking depressing. Mental health issues are a real pandemic and we need to fix it ASAP.
>Being from Belgium, I obviously have friends that killed themselves
There’s nothing obvious about that really. Unless you know thousands and thousands of people it’s far more likely for someone to not know anyone who’s killed themselves.
Also, many variables affect suicide rate, e.g. education, socio-economic state, even just the region (places like Charleroi and Ypres are notorious). If I were to speculate, I’d guess that one of the core reasons why our suicide rate is worse than that of our neighbours is due to our more closed-off disposition. Freely talking about your concerns and mental health etc. is one of the best things one could do… but culturally that’s just not really our thing.
3 in belgium:
-one got black out drunk, blew his brains out in an argument with his gf(i don’t think he would have if he was sober)
-another also very drunk, shot himself with a pellet gun which surprisingly was enough to kill him, people thought he was sleeping. This guy was actually talking about suicide for years.
-third guy cut his own wrists, he had been talking about suicide for years too, but having an abusive girlfriend pushed him over the edge.
I know another two in ireland, but I guess that’s out of scope. Anyway FYI:
-One hung himself, the other idk how he killed himself but he loaned money off his friends because he had lost his money gambling but he gambled that away too so he killed himself before they found out.
One question I have on this – are the numbers in other countries reliable? Ever since COVID, where we were like the deadliest country which never made any sense to me… and in the end also was proven completely wrong I’ve been very careful with stats like these.
So – not saying the numbers are wrong – but I do think it’s important to question numbers from other countries. I can imagine that in more religious countries they would hide many of these suicides – if only so the person can actually be beried or to avoid shame to the family. It’s like euthanasia, religious people don’t want it, but then they just increase morphine which has the sane effect and never becomes part of the statistics.
2 family members & 2 friends all in their early 20s
I know of 3 people personally but of many more outside of my social circle.
I could elaborate if you want on the cases I know about but the main themes that I see:
People facing a forced change in lifestyle (eg flunking out of their studies, not making the cut or promotion)
People facing financial ruin/diminished lifestyle (eg losing the business, villa, car, ..)
People facing love/family troubles (divorce, losing child custody, ..)
ITT a lot of people that know people who committed suicide.
I literally know no one either directly or indirectly who left this earth. Well, I’m not counting my grandmother who had an aggressive form of cancer and asked for euthanasia.
Also, why has nobody mentioned this? At Mods, please for the love of god pin a comment with this message in every post related to this:
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>**EN:There is always someone available for a talk. Please reach out for help. It’s not too late. Every call is anonymous and free.**
>
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>[**https://www.zelfmoord1813.be/**](https://www.zelfmoord1813.be/)
Those numbers don’t really surprise me. I feel like Belgian people are very non-confrontational. We would rather die with a grudge than to confront someone who has wronged us. It’s a cultural thing. Oh, and it also takes an eternity before you can see a psychologist or a psychiatrist. I have my own experiences with the waitlists and it’s truly absurd how long it takes before you can see someone.
I remember reading something about rural Wallonia being a significant contributer.
Lack of social mobility was mentioned as one of the reasons.
I lost the source tough.
I saw someone jump of a building as a kid right in front of me, a kid in from team hung himself, a guy i grew up with jumped off a bridge, a man i barely knew in my street hung himself also. So i’m pretty sure thats “bad luck” , but its still a lot. I dont know…
You can tell a real taboo by the number pf downvotes