The Fruit of Our Current Culture is Death: Suicide Rates Rising at Alarming Rate
In 25 states, the suicide rate rose over 30%
The CDC released a heartbreaking and incredibly concerning report Thursday. The national suicide rate has climbed 25% since 1999. But that’s just an overall average.
North Dakota has witnessed the most tragic climb in suicides at 57.6%. Vermont has seen a 48.6% increase, Utah? 46.5%. Other states whose suicide rates have crept over 40%: South Dakota, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Kansas, and Idaho.
In 25 states, the suicide rate rose over 30%.
The fruit of our current culture is death.
There are numerous contributing factors. How we’ve stigmatized pain management, mental health, the confusion involved in individual identity and self-valuation, social isolation ushered in by rapid technological advances, a generation raised unable to regulate emotions, economic conditions, the petering out of long-standing industry, and the list goes on.
The CDC report clearly states that the suicide epidemic is “more than a mental health concern.”
Researchers found that more than half of people who died by suicide did not have a known diagnosed mental health condition at the time of death. Relationship problems or loss, substance misuse; physical health problems; and job, money, legal or housing stress often contributed to risk for suicide. Firearms were the most common method of suicide used by those with and without a known diagnosed mental health condition.
At the risk of sounding reductionistic on an issue that’s clearly complex, we’d be remiss to brush off how rapidly our sense of community has decayed and how quickly we’ve accepted social isolation as our new and preferable norm.
We were not designed to live in social isolation in front of glowing screens, we were designed to be part of a body, a family, and purpose much bigger than ourselves.
Our struggles and trials are amplified in the echo chambers of our thoughts where there’s no sounding board to hug us and remind us that this too will pass.
Don’t ever give into the lie that this world would be better off without you. You were wonderfully made for reasons you (and we) can’t possibly comprehend and probably won’t in this life.
Do not let your pride convince you to suffer in silence. It is both strong and courageous to take the risk of reaching out, especially from the throes of deep, throbbing pain.
If you are hurting, struggling, worried, concerned, anxious — you are not alone.
We’re all on this ride together for better or worse, and I know I speak for many when I say we’d much rather have you on this crazy journey with us.
We must undo this mess of a culture we’ve allowed before it is truly too late. Yelling, witty comebacks, snarky zings, and other keyboard warrioring tools won’t cut it. We have to get off the couch, shut the laptop, and enter society for this one. Combating suicide requires relationship and personal interaction.
We must be vigilant in doing our part to speak love, to speak life.
Learn the warning signs of suicide to identify and appropriately respond to people at risk. Find out how this can save a life by visiting: www.BeThe1to.com
If you need someone to talk to and are not comfortable or do not have someone to reach out to, Contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline for help: 1-800-273-TALK (8255). https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org
Every life is precious. Especially yours.
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Comments
Another celebrity suicide today, just to make the point.
Anthony Bourdain might have been a real jerk, but I never expected to hear he did such thing.
Tragic, really.
I liked Bourdain, I liked his shows. It was a shame he was such a prog, but he was based out of New York, iirc, and at times he could still be quite thoughtful.
I wonder if he woke a couple days ago, realized for the first time that Trump really *Was* right, and just could not face the world after that. I suspect that’s what most libs today would do if they ever had one single moment of clarity.
Bet its the Leftists behind the increase?????????
Oh don’t worry they will find some reason to blame it on us.
Guessing it’s leftist that couldn’t deal with Trump being president and got prescription anti-depressants which have the side effects of suicidal tendencies.
Probably had more to do with is divorce from his wife and mother of his kid last year, his history of depression and drug abuse than any unbearable lightness of being.
My thoughts and prayers to his family and especially his kid.
Wow! You get the award for the most convoluted spin.
If there is anyone waking up, noticing Trump is president and offing themselves because of that, the exhibit shows that the darkest states voted for Trump. (UT, ID, MT, WY, ND, SD KS, OK, SC) Yes, there is NH, VT (for the nit pickers).
Sad in the instances involving youth. Euthanasia by another name for liberals.
How was this story about liberals? I would dismissed you as a warped individual. But you helped put a warped man in the WH.
Why do you hate your childhood so much?
Now I understand why it is a story about liberals. You stopped taking your meds.
These numbers make me skeptical of the data and the data gathering techniques. Has something changed in the way they report on, categorize or manage this information? It’s too big and too consistent, and the anomaly in NV is glaring.
Same here, Paul. Almost anything uttered by the CDC should be suspect for ulterior motives and agenda servicing.
Great Points.
Remember how in the last years of Obama the Leftist MSM were reporting with jubilant “glee” on a supposed sharp increase of suicides in “white males.”
Nope, don’t remember that at all. Perhaps the ‘glee’ part is projection on your part.
Well turns out your full of crap….again….big surprise there.
http://www.patdollard.com/maine-democrats-caught-celebrating-rising-suicide-rates-among-white-males-great/
Yes, they celebrated the same way that Trump claimed that Muslims in Newark celebrated 9/11.
I had already Googled a bunch of articles that mentioned the statistics and didn’t have a gleeful paragraph.
But if it makes you feel better, I will cheer when the next right-wing nut offs himself. Probably today.
Opps full of shit again!
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2015/12/exclusive_jersey_city_cop_residents_say_some_musli.html
Do you ever get tired of being a cliche?
A culture that is determined to destroy itself will have in it many people who will destroy themselves. Coping skills are not taught but multi culture is taught and even forced upon people. Multi culture along with the ‘goodness’ of diversity training will rapidly devalue talent and ability in favor of appearance. Rampant single parent hood, absent fathers, ‘toxic’ masculinity and radical feminism ad fuel to the fire.
Re: Whitehall:
I personally find the multi-culti garbage personally disheartening. I have people calling me “racist” and “incredibly racist” all the time. It’s exhausting.
I can’t say what I think anymore, no one can joke around. It’s stifling.
Multi culturalism is deliberate dismemberment of a whole people. It ends in violence. There can be a successful multi ethnic society-the USA, but not a multi cultural society.
I’m skeptical as well. I’d also like to see the suicides broken out by race and sex to make sure it’s “fair.”
My bad.
A little deeper digging would have turned up the sex numbers, 31% women and 69% men. I’m sure feminist are outraged. I also notice there are no raw numbers which make this an easy way to make it look worse. I’d also note that this study covers the period from 1999 to 2016. In #1 North Dakota Native Americans make up a large part of the suicides. It turns out that white American men have the highest rate followed by Native American men. Blacks have the lowest rate in America.
Could that be because “blacks’ are engaged more in killing each other? http://www.jackass.com
Has anyone considered that as population density increases that the per capita suicide rate might increase as well?
That makes no sense from a statistical perspective since the ‘per capita’ part normalizes the data.
But if you are making a hypothesis that the denser states suffer more, you are not reading the map correctly. The least dense states have the highest rate of increase.
According to that map, the biggest increases seem to be mostly in red states.
Leftists will look at that and say “Hooray! The deplorables are killing themselves!”
Apparently, there is a suicide corridor from Montana to New Mexico and from CO to Missouri. That area, of course, includes most of the Native American population as well as a large number of retirees. Men over 75 make up the largest number of suicides. Overall the study is crap because they try to throw the blanket of guilt over the whole county rather than over the places where it’s really happening.
Is the data separately available in “absolute” numbers (i.e. numbers counted)? I know it’s usually reported as a percentage of the population in order to try to standardize the data, but there are external factors that can change the numbers.
Some of it might be oil-boom, oil-bust? cycling (individuals that were promised 6-figure jobs with no skills that dropped everything and rushed to the shale fields, and when the price dropped they were out of luck).
Yes. Percentages are almost meaningless if you don’t know the base values. Likewise are the numbers until they are converted to some kind of a “per capita” value.
As said elsewhere on this thread, we must be skeptical of CDC reports as somewhere down the line they will become the foundation for the creation of a new project or the expansion of an existing one. It kind of sad that we have to think like this, but experience does this to a person’s thought process.
Something to consider: at one time, our communities were stable. Houses passed from generation to generation; people worked for the same company or at least in the same town their entire working lives. Our neighbors remained the same. Virtually everything was local, from how our schools were run, to the administration of public assistance.
In many cases, government meddling destabilized communities. Some neighborhoods deteriorated, and so people moved away, and by doing so, moved from the stability and sense of community they knew their entire lives. We don’t know our neighbors anymore.
The number of tornadoes in the US has increased rapidly over the last few decades. Not. The number of Doppler radars used to detect tornadoes has increased.
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/climate-information/extreme-events/us-tornado-climatology/trends
I suspect that the rising rates are from different reporting procedures. It is fairly common for suicides to be classified as something else because of family sensibilities.
Good catch!
Well I would say it is on the increase. Might be more reporting, I don’t know. Kids are getting bombard by media stuff include a note that came home from school about 13 Reason Why that kids are watching. They make it a topic to read material on in high school. I think their attempt to save a few actually harms more.
We addressed bullies when we were kids by forming groups to protect us. I remember one kid I had a problem with and my best friend who could beat the crap out of anyone in his grade and two high took care of that problem. It was all part of growing up. We learned to deal with it.
Making headlines like Bourdain make it appear like it is only the liberals that are doing themselves in.
https://www.ranker.com/list/the-suicide-club-famous-suicide-victims/notable-famous-deaths
For almost 50 years I have never know anyone personally that had committed suicide. In the past 5 years I have lost two. One was a special ops vet that would go on special missions in to his 40’s disappearing for a few weeks then returning. He was trained a sharp shooter. I think his many fail marriages, body raked with pain and his special ops caught up with him. The other friend was an alcoholic who fail marriage left a teenage girl motherless. She was a great person and just lost her way. So many people where trying to help her, but she was a strong willed person and was determined to do her self in.
Normalizing assisted suicide and the media selling it though news, movies and books, just add to it.
The old movies were about hope. The new movies are about victim-hood and despair.
Maybe it is a sign that everyone wins and PC are taking the fun out of life. I really think having faith helps. Hey, new slogan, “Faith Saves Lives”
Glad you made the post. Don’t be afraid to help a friend out if you suspect. I missed my two and wonder if I had called a little more often might have made a difference. They both were good people.
I’ve run out of fingers and toes to count all the ones I’ve known who have offed themselves in my 60+ years.
Only a couple have used guns. A couple of self-hangings, but the majority of them chose closed garage doors.
My own Mother used Valium, Librium and Prozac. Dr. had her hooked on Mother’s Little Helpers starting in the 60’s.
These were all Hoosiers
Suicide is a long term solution to an often short term problem.
In ever increasing numbers, one can go to some states or nations and be assisted in one’s suicide. And killing the unborn is cheered across the globe as ‘choice.’
A culture of death indeed.
Good point, and with today’s desire for instant gratification for everything, it might have an effect on taking that final step.
Breakdown of the community and family, as well as social media can be impacting factors which might give the final push.
I see this increase, and yes, having a percentage based increase can be misleading, but suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the US, which means the numbers are significant, and the problem is growing at large rate.
We have devalued life, equated human life with animal life, or even in some cases described animal life more important than human life. We see abortion being touted by the left as something to have as a goal. Dr. Kevorkian had been seen by a decent number of people as being righteous in his assisting suicides. Social media is changing our views of other people’s lives, and like it or not, we do compare our life and activities to what others do.
@Paul
If Anything, the fact that it’s happening across the whole country indicates that the trend is real. You would have to dig well into the details to find out for sure if it is a change in methodology, but such a method change that would acvount for such a dramatic difference is very unlikely to be missed by halfway competent researchers.
Isolation is a real poison, you can kill monkeys with it. Family and community break down as an explanation fits pretty well.
“If Anything, the fact that it’s happening across the whole country indicates that the trend is real.”
Not necessarily. A policy change in how numbers are captured, reported or handled could just as easily explain such a change. And like I said, the numbers from Nevada stick out big time. Perhaps the Obama CDC mandated a change in procedure and only one state failed to adapt.
For me the big issue is that we have seen politics infest “science” in so many areas, and then of course there is the fact that this is actually “social science” which isn’t truly science at all.
Caveat Emptor when consuming stats, and especially stats coming from career government bureaucrats. You’re likely to be ingesting progressive propaganda.
This reminds me of the suicide of Nick Jagger’s girlfriend. She was gorgeous, rich, and running a successful business not just frittering around on somebody else’s money. That’s about the last person you would think would commit suicide. While it’s not worth wasting much time thinking about celebrities, I did feel bad for her.
Just the colors on the map are racist!
Suicide can be a chain phenomenon. Publicizing and making martyrs of the suicides does nothing but increase it.
That’s how I knew it was about promoting the gay agenda when they started idolizing the bullied gay suicides. Publicizing it increases it. If they really wanted to stop it that’s the opposite of what you do.
I do believe that the media has almost glamorized those who have taken their own life. Robin Williams was one whom they almost praised for the courage it took for him to commit suicide.
I know rates of suicides are high in the “Trans” community, and wonder if the pushes for making out that those who are transgender to be normal might be a contributing factor for some of rise in rates, as they discover that coming out as trans, or gay, or whatever sexual description they subscribe to, didn’t change their self views or the depressions felt over their belief that being “who they are” out in the open didn’t change the despair within.
A lot of Robin Williams fans and trans people in ND?
Leftist Loudmouth Anthony Bourdain is in the news today for death attributable by hanging, and it is being characterized as a suicide rather than an accident.
But it is ironic that he recently posted this on twitter…
https://twitter.com/bourdain/status/998954845146177536?lang=en
So, this is through 2016. What else ran through 2016? Oh, that’s right, “Hope ‘n Change.”
Maybe it’s what Obama had in mind when he announced he was going to transform the country.
He never did explain what he meant by that very well, so I think after eight years of Obamitis we’re no longer obligated to give him any benefit of the doubt.
People are always trying to find a single cause for anything. If global temperatures go up for a decade, it has to be increased man-made CO2. If a football team wins, it is all because of the quarterback. But things are rarely that simple.
Human beings, and the society which they inhabit, are complex. And, there are usually multiple reasons for any sociological effects. In the period under study [1996-2016] there have been profound societal changes in the US and worldwide. In the US we have seen increased voluntary isolation, by individuals. Electronic media has largely replaced face-to-face contact. We have seen the rise of herd identity taken to unimaginable heights, through social media. We have seen a shift in attitude from valuing anonymous personal success to public success. More and more people need validation from an ever increasing circle of acquaintances, most of whom the person does not even know. And, because of the increased polarization of society, personal paranoia has increased. Add to that the longest period of US warfare in history coupled with the second longest period of US economic depression/recession in history, which raises frustration levels, and a general weakening of faith based support systems and people feel that they have no chance at happiness. So, suicides increase. The problem is there is no easy fix. Society is in flux.