In Britain, suicide is the most common form of death for men between the ages of twenty and forty-nine. In 2018, The Office For National Statistics recorded 6,507 suicides. Scotland has the highest rate of suicide in Britain: 16.1 deaths per 100,000 people. Wales has 12.8 deaths per 100,000 people and England has 10.3 deaths per 100,000 people.

Suicide is much more common for men than women because males are far less likely to seek help, such as going to a counselor. Many men feel it signifies weakness and failure to ask for help. Also, men are far less likely to talk about their emotions and this eventually leads to a crisis which is not resolved. Women are socialised to express their emotions. Also, they have flexible, coping strategies and can manage complex emotions more effectively than men.

When men experience unemployment, this causes them to develop a feeling of hopelessness and low self-esteem. Unemployment instigates poverty as there is little money to pay the rent/mortgage and bills. Life without a job, money and being unable to provide for the family make men feel they have no role in society and therefore no need to remain alive. This was exacerbated by the decimation of male dominated work, such as coal mining, when Thatcher was Prime Minister.

From the 1980s, there emerged many service industry jobs suited for women such as in customer services and hospitality; men felt undermined by this. Also, some women earned more than men so males felt that financially, they were defunct.

In child custody cases, children automatically reside with the mother unless she is incapable of raising them owing to physical or mental ill health. When this occurs, many fathers lose access to see their children; this instigates sorrow and a wish to commit suicide. Also, the disintegration of relationships, especially a long-term one which led to the birth of children, causes men to commit suicide because that strong bond with a partner no longer exists. Men can develop a feeling of loneliness when this occurs so this reinforces their wish to end their life.

Men need to be educated to ask for help and to not feel a failure for doing so. Also, boys need to be told by their parents that it is fine for them to show their emotions; when they become men, they will not let their feelings overwhelm them to the point that they want to commit suicide. Such changes will prevent men from feeling that the only solution to a dilemma is the termination of their life.

L'articolo The High Rate Of Male Suicide In Britain proviene da InsideOver.

The first unforgettable thing about Aokigahara is the silence. The quiet is that of the desert. In some places, hidden within 3,000 hectares of conifers, not even a wisp of wind can get into them. Every breath, even the faintest, sounds like a roar. Under the fallen branches and the decaying leaves, the floor is made of volcanic rock, deposited by a massive eruption of Mount Fuji (in the year 864). The stone is hard and porous, full of small holes that dampen any noise. This is also the reason why roots cannot penetrate deeply and so curl up on the lava. The trees have grown so close to each other that the light is dim most of the time. Aokigahara is a forest that swallows things up. Sounds, lights, colours. Lives, even. Jukai (the “sea of ​​trees”) is notorious both for the complete serenity of nature on the slopes of the sacred mountain, and also because it is widely known as “the forest of suicides”. No other place in the world, apart from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, boasts a higher number of people who select it as the location to end their life. The statistics vary from year to year, but on average, from 1950 onwards, 30 suicides have taken place each year.

That the forest has become the last resting place of many, therefore, is no longer a secret to anyone. On the contrary. The authorities have placed signs at the entrance to the main paths with advice to “reconsider” their choice and “think carefully” about the fate of their children and their family. The problem is that they are not always successful in their persuasion. Thus, in an attempt at least to avoid copycats, in recent years they have stopped publishing the official number of bodies recovered from the forest (the biggest shock occurred in 2004 when there was a peak of 108). These numbers will, in any case, never be confirmed as accurate. This is because, even though hanging is the most common cause of death and also the most “visible” to the small army of police officers and volunteers who have been scouring every corner of the forest to recover bodies since the 1970s, many others choose methods like drug overdose, which exposes them to the risk of getting lost forever among the foliage or becoming prey to some animal. In Aokigahara, no one, if they wanted, would surely find it hard to disappear into thin air.

The origin of the legend

But why do so many souls in pain choose Jukai as their preferred place to end their life? Despite its somewhat bleak side, it is paradise for fans of trekking and hiking and it is also chosen by teachers as a destination for school trips. It is within the Fuji Five Lakes region, a tourist attraction with few equals in the whole of Japan, known not only for views of Mount Fuji but also for its ice caves and stunning cherry blossoms in spring. Yet, it has slowly turned into an open-air cemetery, a perfect stage set for Halloween photoshoots (which in the Land of the Rising Sun is a craze second only to that of the Anglo-Saxon world) and for horror films. And even for moments of desecration, such as that of December 31, 2017, when the vlogger Logan Paul ventured into the forest with some friends and posted a video online depicting their reaction to the sight of a hanging corpse, resulting in an avalanche of criticism. In general, the exact reason to choose this forest to leave this world remains a mystery, even though several hypotheses circulate.

The most ancient legends refer to an historic practice widespread in the feudal era, the ubasute, the act of deliberately leaving an elderly person to die. In specific situations of economic hardship, it was not rare to find cases of families in which, by mutual agreement, the eldest relative was accompanied to some remote place where they were abandoned to certain death, to avoid burdening the rest of the family. From these episodes of senicide, many of which referred precisely to Aokigahara, the stories became legendary, and over the decades visitors claimed to have seen with their own eyes the yūrei, the spirits of the elderly abandoned to starvation. In the 1960s, Seichō Matsumoto’s novel Kuroi Jukai was published, often translated as The Black Sea of ​​Trees. The book tells of a troubled love story that ends with the two lovers committing suicide in Aokigahara, this time a reference to another practice of voluntary death in Japan: shinjū. It is a very similar concept to the western one of murder-suicide. This is relevant both to love stories (of which the tragic epilogue of the great Japanese writer Osamu Dazai’s life is an example) and also to family situations, even including cases of infanticide (in Japanese culture a suicidal mother who does not end the life of her offspring beforehand is considered abominable). More recently, “consensual” shinjū has become more common, even between strangers, who come into contact via the internet. Then, a very popular book even verges on instigation: The Complete Manual of Suicide, by Wataru Tsurumi, which, for all the reasons given above, defines Aokigahara as the perfect place to die.

Extreme solitude

All this background contributes to removing magic and increasing pathos while venturing into the trees. Getting lost is very easy, especially in the days following Typhoon Hagibis, which has kindly scattered leaves and branches here and there, disguising even the most beaten tracks. The mobile phone signal is the first thing to go, and in an hour of walking at a brisk pace, you see just a couple of living beings. At most. Some views are truly unforgettable, but the stories, myths, legends and objective data would make even the most daring of hikers paranoid. It will be psychological, but in total solitude, every faint noise sounds just like a whisper. Even having had the good fortune of not finding any dead body, in Aokigahara it is easy to come across vestiges. Those attempting suicide choose to get as far away as possible from the paths, but something is always left behind them. A ticket, a noose, a boot, a doll, a map. Much more frequently, a few strips of adhesive tape placed on the ground, to find the way out in case, at the decisive moment, they don’t have the courage to go through with it.

A social plague

The suicide rate in Japan remains among the highest in the developed world. In 2016, there were 17.3 cases per 100 thousand people, second only to neighbouring South Korea. As in almost all countries, most of the victims are men. Although suicide culture is still today an integral part of Japanese social life, compared to the harakiri of the samurai warriors and the ubasute of the feudal era, in recent times it has been young people who are most affected. Suicide is the leading cause of death among people between the ages of 15 and 39 throughout Japan, higher than the victims of cancer and road accidents put together. In 2018, the worst ever suicide rate among those under the age of 20 was registered, probably linked to pressures deriving from academic performance, a primary source of social inclusion and family satisfaction.

Aokigahara, however, offers a second chance to everyone – to look around, look for the light between the thick foliage, see the majestic profile of Mount Fuji or the clearness of the waters of Lake Sai and to try to think, one step away from oblivion, that in the end the world is not so bad.

L'articolo Jukai: The Forest of Suicides and The Sea of Trees proviene da InsideOver.

Thelma lives with her mother and younger brother, both of whom are HIV positive. Like many kids in Zambia, it is rare that she eats breakfast since food is scarce. She wakes up before 5 am to begin her arduous journey to school; it is a one hour and twenty-minute trek in the scorching heat – on an empty stomach. Being hungry means that she finds it difficult to concentrate on her studies. But being at school also means that she, at least, gets to eat once for that day.

Back home, life does not get easier. A product of rape, Thelma does not know who her father is. She believes it is the reason why her mother does not treat her well. Thelma says that the sadness, worry, and anxiety she feels has led her to think that she does not want to live anymore. She is 16-years-old.

“If you ask me if there is anything that makes me happy, I’ll tell you nothing makes me happy,” Thelma said.

“There are a lot of things that make me sad. Firstly, my mother and her abusive language, her character, and knowing that she is HIV positive. I don’t know how to say this, but at times she buys food for my young brother but not for me. She’ll buy basic necessities for him but not me. I just watch. I buy my own clothes using the money I get from plaiting hair during the holidays.”

Thelma is just one of the children who have worked with Zambia Orphans Aid-UK, a charity that was founded for children who were orphaned and lack the money for food, shelter, and school, following the HIV/AIDS crisis,

The effects of trauma at a young age

In recent research, the organisation discovered that 49% of orphans or vulnerable children had thought of suicide at some point, and at least 80% experienced symptoms of poor mental health. Of those who took part in the study, 70% reported that they had lost family members in the past two-year period, linking bereavement to poor mental health.

The sub-Saharan African country has over 1 million children who have been orphaned. The AIDS pandemic has claimed the lives of generations of parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, and other family members. Whilst the mortality rate in Zambia has decreased in recent years as antiretroviral medication is now widely available to combat the effects of HIV/AIDS, two-thirds of its population is under the age of 25.

Katy Dore, Executive Director of Zambia Orphans Aid UK explained, “The Zambian welfare system is totally insufficient to meet the needs of the 1.2 million orphaned and vulnerable children in the country – half of whom have lost a parent to AIDS. With a total population of 17 million, this is a huge challenge for the country.”

Traumatic events are harmful to children’s developing brains and lead to changes in how they respond to stress. Brain development in the earlier stages of a child’s life is crucial since it is the basis of all future development. As a child grows, what they experience will teach their brains how to respond in various situations. The long-term effects of trauma from a young age sometimes do not show up until years later.

“When we experience trauma most of us have people we can turn to for support, such as family or friends,” Dore continued.

“Developed countries have well-resourced social welfare structures that can step in to protect vulnerable people. But, there are no community-based counselling services available for ordinary people in Zambia. Orphaned and vulnerable children we work with lack effective family structures, so they are often left with nowhere to turn to when life gets tough and they are finding it hard to cope.”

Lack of options in education

Stress coupled with the lack of support, leads to low self-esteem and aspirations, contributing to absenteeism and poor performance that cause many children to leave education prematurely in Zambia. Furthermore, children who unable to access education are at increased risk of sexual, economic, physical or emotional abuse. Education in Zambia is not free, which means that not only are fees levied and there are also not enough schools, so class sizes of over 70 students are not unusual.

Fridah Nakaonga, a Project Officer in the Education Department at Kasama Christian Community Care in the northern part of Zambia said that these children face a lot of challenges at such young ages. As a result, mental health issues become more prevalent. This also leads to some of them failing to concentrate in school and performing badly.

“They do not have anyone to turn to for emotional support and guidance, they have so much pain held within themselves and have not been able to share it with anyone,” she explained.

“A conducive environment – be it at school or home – needs to be created for them to have a sense of belonging so that they can feel secure and interact with other people freely. In so doing, they will live a normal and happy life.”

L'articolo Zambia: Almost 50% Of Vulnerable Children Consider Suicide proviene da InsideOver.

It is dangerous being a police officer, and in more ways than one. This is a fact that France is painfully waking up to at the moment, with the country facing a very disconcerting rise in police suicides. 64 French gendarmes have taken their own lives so far in 2019. What’s particularly alarming about this figure is that it surpasses the number of officers who have died in the line of duty.

Not only that, but the current suicide rate among the gendarmerie is 36% higher than that of the general population. Denis Jacob, the head of the Alternative Police CFDT union, predicts that this difference is likely to become more pronounced in the coming months: “given the situation today, 2019 could be the worst [for officer suicides] in the last 30 years.”

The picture is looking bleak for France, yet French authorities are at a loss to explain exactly why stress levels are mounting among police. A parliamentary inquiry published in July highlighted a range of reasons, ranging from outdated resources to the precipitous rise of unpaid overtime. Still, it didn’t pinpoint anything especially conclusive or penetrating, with report author and En Marche parliamentarian, Jean-Michel Fauvergue, writing: “Many of the women and men serving in the police or gendarmerie work in deplorable conditions, stemming notably from the dilapidation of police buildings.”

Aside from focusing on poor equipment, poor lodgings, poor working hours, poor pay, poor support, and all the other mundane yet insidious reasons why police officers become stressed, French authorities should also look to situations in other countries. Because rising levels of police stress and suicide aren’t restricted only to France.

In the United States, police deaths by suicide have outnumbered deaths in the line of duty for three consecutive years, with the toll for 2018 being 167. In the United Kingdom, the number of police officers taking sick days off work as a result of stress and anxiety has doubled in five years, while 21 officers died by suicide in England and Wales in 2017 (the latest year for which there’s data).

And it’s not just the UK or the US: Russia, Canada, and India are all confronting their own issues of rising or already high police suicides. Once again, the same factors of overwork, under-support and trauma are at play in these cases, but in attempting to understand the marked rise happening in nations such as France, it’s worth pointing to one other significant factor.

This is the vital yet neglected issue of legitimacy and public perception. In France, the police have long been the subject of derision or outright hostility, and things have only been exacerbated since the beginning of Yellow Vest protests last November. In April, such protestors reportedly urged officers to commit suicide during heated confrontations, and while it’s unlikely that most Gilet Jaunes take their rhetoric this far when dealing with the police, this episode is indicative of how the public perception of French authorities has soured significantly in recent months.

Because of the brutal tactics and “excessive force” that French police have sometimes used in dealing with the Yellow Vest protests, they have increasingly come to be viewed as tools of the political and economic system protesters are railing against. In contrast to the 2015 Paris terror attacks (which briefly strengthened the view of police as ‘heroes’), they are being perceived as villains, which, in conjunction with the multitude of stresses already attached to policing, has made some police officers feel dangerously undervalued and overwhelmed.

The role of public legitimacy becomes more evident when examples outside of France are also examined. In the UK, a parliamentary report found that public trust in the police has been “severely dented” in recent years as a result of cuts to forces, while in the US there have been significant issues with trust in police in recent years, especially with levels of trust among young people, African Americans, Latinos, and other minorities. In America’s case, public confidence in police sank to a record-equalling low of 52% in June 2015, against the backdrop of the Black Lives Matter movement and the police shootings of unarmed black men in Ferguson, New York City, and North Charleston.

That trust dropped at this time is significant, and given that such questions of legitimacy haven’t really been resolved (the latest Gallup poll still puts trust at only 57%), it’s perhaps not surprising that suicide rates were higher than on-call deaths in 2016, 2017 and 2018. Of course, being a police officer is already stressful enough as it is, but when a palpable sense of public distrust or animosity is added to the mix, it can increase the burdens that policemen and women have to carry.

That’s why, aside from simply improving working conditions, increasing budgets and offering more personal support, any nation with a police suicide problem should take a long hard look at itself, and ask why the public bears so much ill will towards the force tasked with defending it and its social order. It just may be that this order needs fundamental overhaul, and that rather than getting the police to put down society’s discontents, society should be changed instead.

L'articolo The Rise in Police Suicides from France to the US proviene da InsideOver.

The first was on January 3rd. She was fifteen, and died in her hometown in Queensland. Less than a week later, three more girls had passed away, each in a different corner of the giant landmass. January 11th saw a fifth death recorded, again a schoolgirl, this time only 12-years-old. She was followed quickly by three others. No more than a fortnight into the year, 2019 had witnessed the deaths of at least eight Australian children. Each of them was of Indigenous heritage, and all had committed suicide.

It’s a spiralling problem that’s been brewing for decades. Indigenous children make up less than 5% of Australia’s youth population, but account for a quarter of all child suicides. In some states, that number is as high as 60%. And while coverage of the issue often links it to remote communities – especially in the sparsely populated northwestern region of Kimberley – self inflicted juvenile deaths are increasing nationwide.

In response to the particularly troubling spate of suicides, Australia’s Federal Government earlier this year injected funds into community prevention schemes. The financial boost was well received, noted Adele Cox, who leads the Indigenous charity Thirrili, but “no amount of money […] will take away the pain that the families of these young people will be experiencing,” she said.

Experts agree that funding alone will not solve this incredibly complex phenomenon. Such is the size, diversity and convoluted history of Australia, it is impossible to point to one single factor. The past decade has seen numerous major inquiries hand down hundreds of recommendations – the most recent in February of this year – but the trend of Indigenous child suicides continues to accelerate unhindered.

A lack of equality is often identified as a key driver in the crisis. The Government’s ‘Closing the Gap’ initiative has for ten years aimed to improve the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people – the two groups which constitute Australia’s Indigenous community – but critics say progress is slow. The current situation is “unforgivable” a very candid Prime Minister Scott Morrison said as the report’s 2019 edition was released, adding that he didn’t know when Indigenous kids would have equal health, education and employment outcomes as their non-Indigenous counterparts.

The disparity in access to appropriate mental health services has been singled out as a critical factor in the suicide crisis. This imbalance is particularly evident in remote communities – which account for 20% of the Indigenous population – where psychological treatment is both difficult to obtain and culturally inappropriate, an Australian Senate inquiry recently concluded. So lacking in cultural competency are rural mental health services that at times they “traumatise and re-traumatise the very people for whom they are supposed to provide therapeutic treatment,” the report said.

But mental illness is not always the cause of Indigenous suicide, the inquiry found. Housing, for instance, was identified as a decisive factor in the downward spiral. Waiting lists for public housing often reach eight years in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, said Cheryle Kaesler, who runs an emotional wellbeing unit. Psychological unrest in family units can be difficult to escape for young people, who everyday are subjected to a cycle of stress, frustration and hopelessness.

These psychological burdens are often passed from one generation to the next. Poverty is endemic among Indigenous people, with 50% of the community in Australia’s bottom quartile of prosperity. From this disadvantage flows alcoholism, domestic violence and sexual abuse. Difficult to escape in a tight knit society, these social affiliations are passed from parent to child. The “crushing effects” of this so-called ‘intergenerational trauma’ are shaping the suicide epidemic, said Western Australia’s State Coroner Ros Fogliani after the most recent cluster of deaths.

This anguish has plagued Indigenous families for centuries, extending back to the colonial era. The native people of Australia – like their counterparts elsewhere – were subjected to brutal displacement, rape and murder at the hands of white imperialists. This disempowerment has become institutionalized within Indigenous communities, experts warn – and continues to manifest itself in the inequality and racism experienced by modern day members of Indigenous society.

And so it is this, the most primordial factor in the suicide epidemic, that must be tackled first. That’s according to Professor Pat Dudgeon, Project Director of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Suicide Prevention Evaluation Project (ATSISPEP), whose team is leading the fight against Indigenous suicides. In practice, that means “dedicated and community-specific and led responses,” the group said. To this end, it is important that Indigenous and non-Indigenous people alike acknowledge and understand the devastating and enduring impact of the colonial legacy. With greater insight comes greater empowerment and a sense of self-determination.

But such is the precipitous spiral of the crisis, short-term more immediate remedies are required too. ‘Postvention’ – intervening in a child’s life after a community death – is key to this, experts say, particularly in the case of suicide clusters. Psychological therapy and material support should be made available to any vulnerable youngsters touched by death as a matter of urgency.

In the medium-term, progress can be made too. The culture of sensational suicide coverage – especially on social media – must be tackled to prevent children building an association with self-harm. And lessons from past Indigenous suicide reduction programs must be learnt. This means establishing peer-to-peer mentoring networks, engaging children in sport and the arts, and connecting youngsters with community elders and their culture.

While these changes need to be enacted with the support of Australia’s federal authorities, to do so with non-Indigenous ideals would be futile. Historical grievances must be redressed, racial inequalities confronted and community-led support championed – all the while imbuing the cultural wisdom of the Indigenous people. Whether or not the Australian government – and those like it around the post-colonial world – can commit itself to a ‘follow rather than lead’ agenda remains to be seen. If it can’t, the seemingly incessant cycle of death and despair looks set to plague yet another generation.

L'articolo The Suicide Crisis in Australia’s Indigenous Community proviene da InsideOver.

Turbulence in US agriculture, the world’s leading exporter, leaves a mark on its economy and social structure. One cannot help but wonder about the broader public’s near indifference to such a decades-long crisis. Economic hardship compounded with farming-associated risks are among the main causes leading farmers to an ultimate act – taking their own lives. Looking at the US today, fields in Iowa and Nebraska are left unplanted. The Missouri River, through its broken levees, has repeatedly submerged its surrounding communities since March. Last year’s loans are left unpaid as those waiting for federal disaster relief or crop insurance witness a spoiled season. Parallel, dairy farms in New York are selling off their cows. Milk prices have been so low for so long that farmers cannot hold on. As farms foreclose, milk production swells with consolidation. Industrial holdings benefit year after year, ripping out small farmer’s economic and social fabric.

Wider public interest in US farmer suicide sparked following a 2017 Guardian article shedding light on the fact that farmers are killing themselves at severe rates. Suicides among Farmers, Ranchers, and Managers in a 17-state survey ranked more than three times as high as the national average in 2012, and almost twice as high as the national average in 2015. Awareness eventually supported existing grassroots efforts to provide behavioral health services for agricultural populations and their rural communities. Last year, bipartisan Congressional interest led to passing the Facilitating Accessible Resources for Mental Health and Encouraging Rural Solutions For Immediate Response to Stressful Times (FARMERS FIRST) Act in the 2018 Farm Bill. The Act provides seed funding through the United States Department of Agriculture, reauthorizing the Farm & Ranch Stress Assistance Network (FRSAN) and providing helplines, suicide prevention, and support groups.

Nevertheless, an aversion to agricultural life and their rural populations has deepened to the point that farm stress is met by those who revel in it. Even farmer suicide – a transnational phenomenon unconfined to the US – has encountered a new kind of denier. Some view farmer disappearance as a form of progress that in the end, aligns with the “get big or get out” ideology.

In Iowa, fourth-generation farmer and clinical psychologist Dr. Michael R. Rosmann faces the most recent wave of farmer suicides. Developing the field of agricultural behavioral health for over 40 years, Rosmann explains this phenomenon through his theory, the agrarian imperative. According to Rosmann, the agrarian imperative is a basic human drive to produce life’s essentials – food, fiber, and renewable energy while leaving the land better than when the farmer began working it.

Perseverance, self-reliance, and risk-taking are all qualities inherent to this work.

Yet as Rosmann has observed, these same personal qualities can turn against if the farm is threatened or if one’s purpose is left unmet. Farm crisis lessons have demonstrated to him that perhaps only the death of a child brings more strain than a jeopardized family farm. This stress may lead to suicide.

Farmer suicide is in fact a universal reality with rates higher than nonfarmers in almost every agricultural country. One only needs to look at France, India, Australia, or Japan. Rosmann’s agrarian imperative conflicts with a liquidity and finance-based system. Tracing farmer suicide back, one might find a basic feature of modernity, that is, rural eradication in all its nuances – from Italy’s mass mid-20th century urbanization as described by Pasolini and De Martino, the Maya genocide of Guatemala, or the burning of Kurdish villages in Southeast Turkey. A common anthropological war threads the divergent socioeconomic transformation. The agrarian imperative becomes an endangered human quality – if not a declared target. Without this drive, without the world’s cafoni, campesinos, Kurds, and farmers, we may face the end of our own survival.

L'articolo New US Tragedy: Farmer Suicides proviene da InsideOver.