Try Suicide

3/27/06

I had an uncle who committed suicide. Not recently, mind you; I never even met the fellow and this happened before I was even born. I can't remember if I was told how he died when I was a kid, but I might have simply assumed he was killed in some war or another because the only picture I ever saw was him decked out in military garb. I do, however, remember the first time my Dad ever actually informed me that Uncle Dave had killed himself.

I was either sixteen or seventeen and had been getting queer looks from my father and step-mother for some time. All things being equal I could have just as easily been imagining the whole affair because, as anyone who has been through that most disgusting of transformations called "adolescence" knows, the world revolves around you and people's motivations and reactions independent of being about you simply do not exist. But it turns out this time I was right; it was about me. I have never been accused of being a particularly normal human being, and with my body virtually dripping with all manner of horrendous hormones, I was doubly weird.

Most teenage males are pretty annoyed at the world pretty much of the time, especially in matters of other people telling you what to do. They have a tendency to spend the lion's share of time in their room either being petulant or learning the most proficient way to wack-off. Sometimes the two overlap and you get this freakish variety of angry masturbating that's best left to someone with a degree to explain. But I digress.

I spent a lot of time jerking off and wondering why none of the females in my school were goodly enough to open their legs for me and was pretty depressed pretty much of the time. It did not occur to me at the time that probably the reason girls weren't interested was that nobody really wants to date someone who has no self-confidence, wears long sleeve shirts tucked within an inch of their lives into tapered-leg jeans and thinks it's really funny to videotape themselves lip-syncing to "Jitterbug" by WHAM.

According to the CDC, suicide is the third most common death for people 15-24, 86% of those deaths being males. That's about 13% of 15-24 year olds offing themselves a year. So I guess I can understand why my father thought it best to have a talk with me before he found me swinging from a rope in the closet, given all the sulking and moping and drawing really rather morbid pictures I was doing.

I give the man credit for actually coming and talking to me about something that must have been ridiculously difficult to bring up, but I'm not sure if his opener was the best choice. Dad told me that his brother Dave had committed suicide, and that I remind him an awful lot of his brother Dave. Subtle. I was so shocked that we were actually having the conversation I didn't think to ask how Uncle Dave had chosen to buy the farm, and that pisses me off because now I'm curious and can't think of a casual way to bring it up. Maybe:

"Hey, Dad, remember your brother who bumped himself off? Yeah, that one. So I was just wondering, was it a gun or a razor or like, off a building, or what? What do you mean 'why do I want to know'? No I'm not looking for ideas!"

Maybe not. I honestly don't remember much more of the conversation, other than him asking if I had considered that I might be gay because of all the not-girl-dating I was busy doing, and me assuring him that, no, I was not gay, I had merely narrowed my female selection to girls who said yes, and up to that point it was a crowd of zero. (Which was a pity; I was watching a lot of porn and had picked up some pretty neat moves. Way to drop the ball, Melissa!)

I finally managed to convince Dad that I wasn't going to open up my wrists at the dinner table or anything and that was the last time either of us brought it up. Had my father actually known the thoughts rattling around in my testosterone-soaked brain he probably would have locked me into a padded room. Most teenagers consider suicide, hell, most people consider it at one point or another, and I was no exception. I simply lacked the determination to do so. Can you dig that? Too ambivalent to kill myself. Sounds like a Country song.

I don't think about suicide as much as I used to, and thank the gods I've stopped all the half-hearted "attempts" that I never really committed to in my youth. The most openly hilarious of them being the time I left the gas on in the oven, but didn't have the guts to actually lay next to it so I just woke up on the couch several hours later with a headache and a smelly house. Oh, and there was the time I turned a hairdryer on and plunged it into the toilet. It made a sound like a boat motor with the flu and shut off. Damn safety features. If I'd really wanted to kick the bucket I would have done so. I haven't and don't have any plans to in the near future, though it is comforting to know that most life insurance will still pay out for suicide if you have the policy for more than two years.


Here are some fun suicide facts*, ladies and gentlemen! Enjoy!

Suicide is the 11th leading cause of death in the US.

It is the 8th leading cause of death for males; 19th for females.

Despite the fact that 4 times more males commit suicide, 3 times more females attempt it.

73% of all suicides are white males.

Suicides are actually at their highest rate in the Spring, not the Winter as is commonly thought.

Suicides are highest in the Western states, lowest in the Eastern, and the Midwest splits the difference.

In 2001 there were 30,622 suicides, outdoing homicides (20,308) by 3 to 2.

55% of all suicides involve firearms.

The risk of suicide actually increases with age, and is highest in those 65 and older; 85% of suicides in this age group are male.

Suicides are higher in religious faiths in which it is strictly forbidden, such as Islam and Christianity, as opposed to religions with more accepting toward it such as Buddhism.

There are an estimated 8-25 attempts for every suicide.



*all statistics are from 2001 data.