{"id":64900,"date":"2016-04-25T15:52:31","date_gmt":"2016-04-25T19:52:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=64900"},"modified":"2016-04-25T16:39:19","modified_gmt":"2016-04-25T20:39:19","slug":"whats-missing-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2016\/04\/25\/whats-missing-2\/","title":{"rendered":"what’s missing…"},"content":{"rendered":"
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U.S. Suicide Rate Surges to a 30-Year High<\/a><\/div>\n
New York Times<\/font><\/strong><\/div>\n
By SABRINA TAVERISE<\/div>\n
APRIL 22, 2016<\/div>\n

Suicide in the United States has surged to the highest levels in nearly 30 years, a federal data analysis has found, with increases in every age group except older adults. The rise was particularly steep for women. It was also substantial among middle-aged Americans, sending a signal of deep anguish from a group whose suicide rates had been stable or falling since the 1950s.<\/p>\n

The suicide rate for middle-aged women, ages 45 to 64, jumped by 63 percent over the period of the study, while it rose by 43 percent for men in that age range, the sharpest increase for males of any age. The overall suicide rate rose by 24 percent from 1999 to 2014, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, which released the study<\/a> on Friday.<\/p>\n

The increases were so widespread that they lifted the nation’s suicide rate to 13 per 100,000 people, the highest since 1986. The rate rose by 2 percent a year starting in 2006, double the annual rise in the earlier period of the study. In all, 42,773 people died from suicide in 2014, compared with 29,199 in 1999…<\/div>\n
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This slow steady rise across the board looks like a real change to me. Of course when you see something like this, the race is on to explain it, and there are plenty of possible suspects: the rise in prescription drug abuse; wealth inequity; modern society; an epidemic of Major Depressive Disorder [requiring more antidepressant use]; the suicidality associated with antidepressant use; too many guns; the high divorce rate; PTSD ridden soldiers; etc. You probably thought of a few yourself while you were reading that last sentence. There’s plenty to decry these days.<\/div>\n

But you know what? A lot of those are psychosocial explanations [throwing in MDD was facetious anyway]. I’m not a bit surprised that the suicide rate has crept up in almost every domain during that time period. I’d say that it’s because it represents an era when we’ve turned our backs on the patients we’re charged to take care of. If a patient shows up in a psychiatris’ts office suicidal – they’re going to get medications. If a patient shows up in a psychologist’s or social worker’s office suicidal – they’re going to be referred for medications. If they go to or are taken to an ER, they’re going to get medication. And my point is not anti-medication here. They may indeed need medication. It’s that medication is all they’re going to get. The same is true if they get admitted somewhere. It will be to a stabilization unit which they’ll leave in several days on medications [a lot of medications] and that will be that.<\/p>\n

The one thing we know for sure is that interpersonal isolation is a part of suicidality. Another thing we know is that suicidality is as ominous sign. And if you’re a mental health practitioner and reading this, you know that the thing a suicidal person needs is engagement, having a desperate need to be heard, even when they don’t want to talk. We don’t much offer any of those things these days. It’s something we used to call treatment<\/font><\/em>. So I’d propose that those graphs might have something to do with the things listed above, but they’re also about what’s missing…<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

U.S. Suicide Rate Surges to a 30-Year High New York Times By SABRINA TAVERISE APRIL 22, 2016 Suicide in the United States has surged to the highest levels in nearly 30 years, a federal data analysis has found, with increases in every age group except older adults. The rise was particularly steep for women. It […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64900"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64914,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64900\/revisions\/64914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}