Current suicidal tendencies in Russia originate from gloomy Soviet years

Every self-murderer chooses his own suicide method: some cut their veins, swallow murderous doses of medicines, hang themselves or throw themselves under a train. These suicides are afraid of death but they think their everyday life is more terrible for them.

Photo: Current suicidal tendencies in Russia originate from gloomy Soviet years

The statistics says that only one of twenty suicide raids results in death. In other words, about one million of Russians make suicide raids every year. Experts say that the most terrible thing about suicides is that people commit them irrespective of their social status, gender and age. None of us is secured against suicide.

Before the 1917 Revolution, Russia’s suicide rate was one of the lowest in the world. But the country approached the European suicide rate over the years of the Soviet regime. This is terrible but within the past 15 years Russia has become the world’s leader regarding the number of suicides committed here. In 2003, the registered suicide rate made up 39 suicides per 100,000 people. In 2004, Russia fixed the second position after Lithuania. There is no official statistics concerning Russia’s suicide rate over 2005 but experts’ forecasts are not comforting in this respect. The suicide rate in Russia is speedily increasing.

Professor Vladimir Voitsekh from the Suicide Center at the Moscow Psychiatry Research Institute says that the drastic growth in the suicide rate in Russia (12.5 times within the past century) is basically connected with the political and economic changes Russia has been experiencing. The years of war, devastation, repressions and the 70-year-long Soviet experiment turned out to be really hard for Russians. At that, the more people become alcohol addicted the higher number of suicides they commit. The official statistics says that only 1.5 percent of suicides are committed in the condition of alcohol intoxication. But in fact, almost half of suicides are connected with alcohol addiction. Notwithstanding the high resentment that Gorbachev’s anti-alcoholic campaign caused it was the period when the suicide rate considerably dropped in Russia.

Experts state that any human may become a suicide under rather unfavorable conditions. Even those who seldom give way to depression may find themselves in a situation that upsets their routine and may result in suicide. For some people, slight problems in the office are as distressing and shocking as death of close people for others. In this case it is important that a man must not stay alone with his problems and receive sympathy and compassion of friends. Majority of people scheming suicide first of all seek company of other people with whom they will be able to share burning problems.

There are just ten percent of mentally sick people among suicides, the rest are absolutely healthy mentally.

Winter is the season when suicides are more frequent. Many of us are subject to depressions because of lack of vitamins and little sunshine. At that, depressed people feel particularly bad in the morning when they are reluctant to get out of bed. In the early morning hours, people’s inferiority complex and the loss of interest in living become more acute. It is known that morning suicide raids oftener end in death than suicides committed in the evening.

Among many suicide methods, Russians choose hanging themselves and poisoning. At that, the second method is more popular among women. But experts say that the female suicide rate is several times lower than that of men because women as a rule have more stable psyche.

Depression is the disease typical of self-murderers. Seventy percent of depressed patients reveal suicidal tendencies and fifteen percent actually commit suicide. The highest suicide rate is registered among mentally diseased patients, alcohol addicts, drug addicts and disabled people. Military men and doctors are the professions where the suicide rate is also high. The World Health Organization names about 800 causes of suicide, the fear of punishment, mental diseases, unhappy love, and money problems are among them.

Men at the critical age of 35-45 make up the first category of suicides. At this period, people feel they are no longer young but still have lots of responsibilities such as maintaining the family and professional career. By the age of 35-45, men sometimes find out that they suffer from some disease. Intensive psychological burden results in depressions that may be fatal for those who reveal suicidal tendencies.

In Russia, elderly also often commit suicide because of loneliness, poverty, diseases and the loss of the leading role in the family. Those who plan suicide treat death as rest and liberation from problems. There are just few people among suicides who care about their life after death. Majority of them take death as parting with body and soul; they are not afraid of dying and death pains. This is strange but many of unlucky suicides who survive cannot recollect their dying moment. A woman quarreled with her husband and threw herself out of a window on the 12^th floor. She was lucky to get off lightly just with severe fractures. When the woman came to her senses she could not recollect how she had jumped out of the window at all.

Unfortunately, people are not offered to undergo treatment in a mental hospital if they are found mentally healthy after a suicide raid. Only mentally diseased patients are given compulsory treatment at a mental hospital after a suicide raid. But experts say this is not right because those who attempted to commit suicide need medical help. Otherwise, they will make more suicide raids in the future. Fifty percent of unlucky self-murderers commit another suicide.

The statistics says that single or divorced people commit suicide more often than married. The suicide rate among those who break up with their partners is three times higher than among married people. People with the high education level are less suicidally inclined.

Doctors are sure that a teenager who witnessed some of his adult relative commit suicide may some day wish to make a suicide raid as well. They insist that teenagers who witnessed suicides must be given psychiatric aid within at least three years and not one year as it is traditionally done. It is known that children are more inclined to suicide pacts than adults. They may agree to commit suicide just to keep somebody’s company or to demonstrate their power to others. For teenagers, it is important to feel their significance among others of the same age category. There may be a psychopath among children who boasts he does not fear death, cuts his veins and urges others to follow his example. Many children may follow the terrible example not to look chickens. Today, many of websites also urge people to commit suicides. Teenagers usually have unstable psyche, and a movie with suicide scenes may turn out to be fatal for them.

Suicides are not typical of little children. Majority of self-murderers aged between 5 and 10 suffered from mental diseases. This is the age when healthy people never think of suicides. The age of 14-17 is critical from the point of view of suicide impulses. Teenagers as a rule do not appreciate their life. Somewhere inside of their minds they hope they will live forever. They think death is like falling asleep and then waking up. So, parents should be particularly considerate towards their children and try to go deeply into their problems otherwise children may feel lonely and helpless. Very often, children decide to commit suicides with the hope that their death will make other people and relatives particularly miserable. They believe suicide is some kind of punishment for some offences that other people probably caused them some time ago.

Parents must know that some changes in children’s behavior distinctly indicate suicidal impulses. A child may start giving away his favorite toys and things as presents to other children. Or may start saying that he wants to fall asleep and never wake up because feeling terribly tired. And then one day it may seem that everything is OK and the child behaves as before. But experts state that this new quiet behavior just means that the child has definitely decided to commit suicide.

There must be a psychological contact between children and parents in a harmonious family. Teenagers need to know that they can share their problems with parents and hope to find good support from them. In Russia, about 70 percent of parents are absolutely ignorant of what is going on in their children’s minds and souls. All troubles often arise from the fact that majority of parents are concerned only about good progress of their children in studies and nothing else.

About 15 percent of suicides are committed by teenagers, and six percent of them had at least one suicide parent.

Often, people may resort to suicidal threats as intimidation to get what they want or to make other people do what they want them to do. Sometimes this method works but often suicides actually die as a result of their reckless attempts to draw other people’s attention to their problems by feigning suicide. It is clear that people loving to stage suicides and resorting to the method to pursue their own ends need long and professional care of doctors. Once being a success with staging suicide, these people will always use this favorite method in the future. Such pseudo-suicides cut their veins or hang themselves only when they are absolutely sure that someone will soon come back home and save them. But it happens that such blackmailers are not always lucky. Real suicides know exactly how much medicine of some particular sort they need to swallow to die.

Those who like to simulate suicides certainly need psychiatric aid. It is generally believed that usually women simulate suicides but men also can stage self-murders. This may happen when a man one day realizes his wife or partner no longer loves him and wants to break up. However, it is typical of women only to plan dying young and arranging nice gorgeous funeral. Many of them have no notion that death is never beautiful at all. Even famous beauties who committed suicides looked terrible at their funeral. Experts say that every method of committing suicide has its horrible consequences and awfully disfigures bodies.

In Russia, one man commits suicide every ten minutes, and suicides could have made up the population of a small town in a year. Seventy percent of these people desperately cling to life before death and seek other people’s help but seldom find any support at all.

Moskovsky Komsomolets