The Blue issue.

 

 

Suicide as a last escape route
Sophie Engstrom

 

 

-Some people say that suicide is just a cry out for help. Well, that is what it is, a cry for help, a last escape route when all other routes are closed. Is that something we shouldn't care for? Think about it, if you hear a drowning person shouting for help, would you then say "Never mind, that is just an other crying for help", would you? It is really absurd to say that suicide is "just" a cry for help, because in all other cases we would help those that are in a desperate situation. Why do we treat suicide victims in any other way?

The words are expressed by Ingvor Blom, a vital woman with eyes glowing of passion and engagement. Ingvor has huge experience and knowledge about suicides, both on a personal and on a professional level. One day, more then 10 years ago, she came home and found her dead boyfriend. He had committed suicide. They were both a couple in the middle of their lifes, with promising careers and economical situation. They had just bought a new house close to the sea. But as a flash from a clear blue sky her boyfriend committed suicide.

- I just couldn't understand why and the situation felt unreal! Ingvor explains and shakes her head to underline how puzzled she still feels. I thought we were happy together, and for me the years with my boyfriend was the best in my life, so i just couldn't understand why. Of course I started to ponder about it, even thus I understood that I never would be able to get an real answer on the question "why?". The situation escalated because he left me in a very tough situation. The house, that we had bought together, needed to be renovated and needed to be taken cared of.

Ingvor denotes that it was because of the tough situation her own depression started. She was, and still is, a strong and creative woman and is used to deal with problems by her own. She doesn't ask anybody else for help and instead tries to solve problems by her own. She also means that there exists a mentality in Sweden that implies that you should not ask other for help, but try to solve all problems by yourself. The situation Ingvor was not like any other problem. Ingvor started to get more and more depressed and lost appetite for life. She went to her doctor and told him that she just couldn't take it anymore and that she had enough.

- He told me "Come now, I will give you something that will make you feel much better", and gave me anti-depressive medicine. It was not a very responsible thing to do. He should at least have told me to come back in a week or two to see if the medicine had helped me. This was one of my last escape routes that closed just in front of my nose.

During her growing depression she tried to sell her house. When one buyer turned the deal off, she had enough of the situation and saw no other way out then committing suicide. She wrote a suicide letter, which only 30% of the people that attempt to commit suicide actually writes. She took her sleeping-pills, a bottle of wine and gave the dog water and food, locked the door to her bedroom and prepared to die. This was one and a half year after her boyfriend committed suicide.

- I am not sure that I was really aware what I was doing. My feelings were cut of. I couldn't connect to my emotional life and I didn't really feel anything. Lack of possibility to connect to your feelings distinguish depression. This is why you sometimes can hear people implying that depressed people are egocentric. Well, that is very true. Depressed people are very egocentric! It is part of the disease.

One of her close friends started to get worried when Ingvor didn't answer the phone that afternoon and she decided to drive to Ingvor's place. Ingvor's friend had previous experience from suicide by a relative and could see all the alarming signs on Ingvor. When her friend came to Ingvor's house she could hear the dog barking when she rang the bell, and immediately understood that there was something wrong. When she had called for help they force the door and managing to take Ingvor to the hospital. It took 48 hours until Ingvor woke up.

- Actually I didn't feel anything when I opened my eyes at the hospital. I saw my daughters standing around my bed, and I just closed my eyes again.

After been helped with her physical needs, the long road back to an appetite for life started. Ingvor was lucky. After some time she found a personal goal in life. She started to connect to the Network for support for friends and family of those who committed suicide (shortened SPES in Swedish). The network needed to be improved with education and to spread information and Ingvor got involved in this work. This was her new goal in life, and she finially decided to leave her old work, as an estate agent, behind. The psychological treatment and the hospital were also very helpful, but the main thing was that she found a new passion in life and that she had friends and family that really wanted to help her to come back.

According to a tenacious apprehension Sweden is a country with extremely high rate of suicides. This is however only a myth. In 1960 Dwight D Eisenhower, then president of USA, claimed that Sweden is a country with "sin, nudity, drunkenness and suicide", all created by the Swedish welfare state. In this way Eisenhower wanted to prevent that a welfare state would arise also in USA.

- Sweden has pretty average rate of suicide compared to neighbour countries. The rate has been stable, apart from some years during then 1970s when they were higher, says Helena Radbo, doctoral candidate at the Department for Public Health at Karlstad University, Sweden.

Sweden has today about 1500 suicides per year (13.2 per 100.000 inhabitants). Norway and Denmark have a bit lower rate but Finland has higher such as all the Baltic states. Lithuania, for instance, have 51.6 per 100.000 inhabitants, which Radbo claims to be alarmingly high. Helena believes that religion and believes about suicide is one important reason why the rate differs much between countries. Countries as Panama and Uruguay have considerably low rates, under 10 per 100.000 inhabitant).

The Swedish researcher Professor Jan Beskow denotes that the greatest trigger for commiting suicide is the tabus that is connected to sucides and it has nothing or little to do with modernization or spear times. It is very hard to talk about suicadal thoughts and it can still create shame and denial by realtives and friends. Helena Radbo claims that focus on methods for suicide is a very important perspective. Her research consern suicides that have been committed on the railways in Sweden. Until now the board that is responsible for Swedish railway (Banverket) has claimed that suicides is a concern only for the mental care. But recently their attitude has changed and they have employed Helena to research on how to prevent suicides on the railways, around embankments and stations. Radbo denotes that one likely explanation to why Banverket since recently is showing more interest for this kind of research, could be that they have understood that every suicide at the railway costs tremendous amount of money, and, not to forget, suffering for their employees. There is one suicide on Swedish railway every week.

Radbo is studying the reports from succeeded suicides at the railway, interviewing the affected engine-drivers or other witness to the succeeded suicides and visiting about 20 different places where suicides have been committed and to try to find common denominators for the different settings.

The main idea was to see if there existed something that trigger the situation. In southern part of Sweden the railway put up camera's to prevent vandalization. One unexpected result of this was that suicides at and around the railway in this part of Sweden got increased. Partly this could be explain with the personnel, at the railway, which spots the individuals and could prevent them harming themselves. Radbo denotes that one way of reaching lower rate would be to focus on methods that are used to commit suicide. If a person is prevented to complete a suicide it is not likely that he or she tries again. Ingvor Bloom agree with Radbo:

- 90% of those that are rescued from committing suicide dies from other courses. Which implies that the treatment after suicide attempts often are very successful. The problem is that there is very little is done to prevent suicides before they occur. The most common cause of death among men between 15 and 44, in Sweden, is suicide. Despite this, very little is done to find this men before they go that far.