It happens every year — you pick up the paper to see the face of a fellow student who has committed suicide. The stories are always sad, shocking and conspicuously devoid of answers: friends and family express their shock at a loved one’s suicide, saying that they did not know that the victim was so depressed. The stories give few details of what was really happening in the student’s life, or clues as to why the student may have resorted to suicide. Killing oneself remains one of the most difficult behaviors to explain, making its prevention a complex and difficult task.
According to Reina Juarez, the director of Psychological and Counseling Services at UCSD, there are an estimated 1,100 student suicides each year in the United States, about two of which are at UCSD. While not a large number, it’s consistency leaves many wondering what the university’s role should be in dealing with suicides — and if the university system has a particular effect on them.
For example, many suspect that school stress contributes to student suicide. However, there is little evidence to support this idea. Suicide among students is conspicuously lower than the rest of the population in that age group. Secondly, Juarez reports that Psychological Services rarely finds school stress to be a significant factor in a student’s depression, although occasionally it can be an agitator. In general, it seems unlikely that any individual could be driven to take his or her life merely — or mostly — on account of academic pressure.
However, one characteristic that Juarez says almost all suicide victims do share is low levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin, which seems to cause or contribute to impulsivity and serious depression. Moreover, 90 percent of suicide victims suffer from a treatable disorder, and the vast majority of students who seek psychological services through their university — 80 to 90 percent, according to Juarez — improve and eventually recover from their depression. It seems depression cannot be easily isolated to a single cause — such as social ostracism or school stress — but is a complicated psychological, physical and personal ordeal that nevertheless, according to Juarez, has high rates of recession when sufferers seek help.
Although many students either attend therapy or know people who do, admitting to depression and seeking help does not have the same stigma it used to. In understanding suicide as the last, horrible consequence of depression or other disorders, it is important that no aspect of the treatment process becomes stigmatized or taboo — including medication. Many individuals are ashamed to admit they are on anti-depressants and consider their prescription as a kind of failure. Our society is far from understanding depression as a largely physical illness, comparable with many other diseases. The longer this stereotype persists, the more people will deny themselves help because of embarrassment or a sense of shame connected with medications that are intended to solve a problem not fully under their control. Many view medication as “unnatural” or a cheap fix to a problem, and cracks about Prozac and stereotyping individuals on such medications as “crazy” are still common. These attitudes drive sufferers to continue on without medication, leaving what is often a very physical problem unchecked and untreated.
However, emotional support and a caring environment are equally crucial. According to Juarez, most suicide victims did not have many close and loving relationships. Psychological counseling can be crucial in such cases.
Ultimately, there seems to be some individuals whom even campus psychological services have difficulty saving. According to Juarez, about 15 percent of suicide victims were in treatment at the time of their suicide. Even with the benefits of modern understanding and science, suicidal tendencies remain something that cannot necessarily be easily treated. Openness and understanding are going to be a lot more helpful than blame. Psychological counselors try their best to reach people before tragedy — the recent awareness drive of last week is such an example — and they are making a difference. Student suicide rates have been decreasing in the past decade, largely due to such services growing more accessible.
Suicide is one of the most poignant tragedies possible, even more so than homicide, as it seems even more unnecessary. For a society to truly grapple with the problems that lead to depression, we have to start by not being afraid of its symptoms. With any luck, through education and openness, many potential suicide victims may realize they are not alone, and feel free to seek help and hope.
