Suicide causes
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Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]
Causes of Suicide
There are a variety of reasons posited or given for suicide:
- Mental disorders
- Suffering
- Unrequited love
- Stress
- Grief
- withdrawal or discontinuation of psychoactive substances.
- As philosophically or ideologically motivated move
- To escape punishment or an abusive environment
- Guilt or shame
- Catastrophic injury
- Financial loss
- Self sacrifice
- As part of a military or social strategy (e.g. suicide attacks)
- Belief that life has no inherent value (e.g. absurdism, pessimism, nihilism)
- As part of a religious cult
- Loneliness
- To restore honor (e.g. seppuku)
- Curiosity for post-life occurrences.
Other Causes
Suicide as a form of defiance and protest
Heroic suicide, for the greater good of others, is often celebrated. For instance, Mahatma Gandhi went on a hunger strike to prevent fighting between Hindus and Muslims, and, although he was stopped before dying, it appeared he would have willingly succumbed to starvation. This attracted attention to Gandhi's cause, and generated a great deal of respect for him as a spiritual leader. In the 1960s, Buddhist monks, most notably Thích Quảng Đức, in South Vietnam drew Western attention to their protests against President Ngô Đình Diệm by burning themselves to death. Also in the 1960s, Quaker Norman Morrison committed suicide by self-immolation to protest the United States involvement in the Vietnam War.
Similar events were reported during the Cold War in eastern Europe, such as the deaths of Ryszard Siwiec and later of Jan Palach and Jan Zajíc following the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, or Romas Kalanta's self-immolation in the main street of Kaunas, Lithuania in 1972. More recently, in 2006, an American anti-war activist, Malachi Ritscher, died by suicide by self-immolation as a protest against the 2003 Iraq war. In Ireland there exists a long tradition of hunger strike to the death against British rule, predominantly in Northern Ireland during the infamous 1981 hunger strikes, led by Bobby Sands, which resulted in 10 deaths. The period caused international outrage as shown, for example, by the Indian parliament standing for two minutes of silence or, more bemusingly, the Iranian government renaming the street in Tehran on which the British Embassy stands to "Bobby Sands Street", named after the first hunger-striker to die in 1981.
Before the Republic of Ireland got its independence there were also examples of hunger striking, such as Terence McSwiney in Cork. Critics may see such suicides as counter-productive, arguing that these people would probably achieve a comparable or greater result by spending the rest of their lives in active struggle. This is a contentious issue, especially when one considers that the Northern Ireland hunger strikers who died trying to obtain certain prisoners rights (e.g. POW status, right to wear own clothes, right not to have to work, etc.) actually had nearly all their requests eventually granted in the years after the spate of 1981 hunger strikes happened.
People who commit suicide may not always be suffering from depression or despair. Some people may kill themselves for the purpose of experiencing life after death, or have a different existential, religious or philosophical motive. This points out that views of suicide are individually and culturally subjective.
Judicial suicide
A person who has committed a crime will often commit suicide to avoid prosecution and disgrace:
- Colonel Alfred Redl was presented with the evidence of his espionage and shot himself to avoid a trial.
- In The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, Lord Peter Wimsey presents Dr. Penberthy with evidence proving that he is a murderer, then leaves him in a room with a loaded gun. A shot rings out, and the club members rush in to find the dead doctor, along with a signed confession.
- Budd Dwyer, a Pennsylvanian politician, killed himself on live television after being convicted (wrongly, he claimed) of financial crimes, in order to draw attention to his case, and to enable his widow to draw survivor benefits (since he died before being removed from office).
- More recently, Deborah Jeane Palfrey, dubbed the DC Madam by the media, was convicted on April 15, 2008 of racketeering, using the mail for illegal purposes, and money laundering. On May 1, 2008 she was found dead by hanging and apparent suicide.