Suicide prevention starts with knowledge

Sunday’s front-page article on suicide was daunting and disappointing. Daunting because of the sheer numbers here in North Idaho. Disappointing because the causes are not discussed, while a larger government presence in our lives is touted as the answer.

The initial five paragraphs gave the daunting statistics, but the causes of suicide were ignored. The article continued on page 3, taking up about half a page, but nothing about why people commit suicide. Apparently, suicide is merely the marquee headliner to get your attention for other programs.

The rest of the article talks about the Community Health Improvement Plan (C.H.I.P.). This plan is apparently about access to health care, i.e., Medicaid expansion, substance abuse prevention, whatever that is supposed to be, and finally mental health and suicide. The goals of the mental health section are to improve resources for mental health (however defined), promote an understanding that mental health is part of total wellness, and to reduce the number of suicides.

I still don’t know why so many people around here commit suicide.

The fact is that all this purported government-based responsiveness is a response to conditions present in homes that lead to suicide. What are those conditions? There’s a picture of a guy on page 3 with his head in his hands. What is that picture meant to portray? Has he lost his job? Are state licensing requirements for his trade difficult to understand or meet? Is he sick and tired of trying to understand 300 pages of land-use plan telling him how he may or may not use his private property? Did he just have a bad experience in a family court matter where his family was ripped apart and his children sent to live with strangers? Does he simply miss going to church? Does he go to church and people pretend they care, but don’t? Does his employer yell at him and tear him down, instead of finding ways to stimulate his human potential into blossoming into higher productivity and happiness at work? Maybe his tattoo didn’t turn out the way he wanted it? Maybe his washing machine broke down?

We still don’t know.

I don’t think the people that are contemplating suicide are going to be impressed by a “Break the Silence 5K Walk” at Riverstone Park. After reading the article, I don’t know how individuals are identified as being at-risk, nor do I know what any of the families who have suffered suicide say about why their loved ones did it. What is going on in these households? What is going on in your house?

There is one thing I do know. People are going to continue to commit suicide in North Idaho until we change the conditions of their lives such that they have hope in the future, and not a lack of it. Further, like the high school principal recently, there can be hundreds of people around a potential suicide every day, and for some reason nobody has any idea of the future self-inflicted death. How can that be? Are there really no signs? Are people all so separated now by social media that there are no more social cues?

If I was really depressed, or had no hope, or had no one to turn to, I don’t think I would go out of my way to go find a mental health professional. If I could barely get up in the morning, if I could barely force myself to eat, if I could barely make it to my job, what are the odds that I am going to be happily bouncing into a mental health office? The answer is that that will never happen. People get tunnel vision when they are depressed, they stop reaching out to others, and expecting them to seek out a health care professional is wishful thinking. “Access to health care” sounds good, but suicide rates continue to skyrocket, because people’s lives feel empty and not worth living. So, they kill themselves.

In the end, the article was not helpful at all. I still don’t have any idea why people commit suicide, or even any of the signs to watch out for in people around me. My gut tells me that suicide prevention begins at home. I don’t think there’s much the community can really do. I don’t think it’s depressing to contemplate that community efforts may not be the answer.

You could probably hire a government worker to track every single person in North Idaho, that is, half of us could watch the other half, and the suicide rate would not go down, because the newspaper articles that most of us read don’t give us any information about the problem. It seems like just a justification to spend more money on government health care systems that have not been successful to date.

I hope this is not read as a depressing column. Idaho can find solutions, if individuals know what to do. The article gave no information about why people commit suicide. What is going on with them before they pull the trigger? This is what we need to know. Write that article.

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Art Macomber is a Coeur d’Alene attorney.