FRIDAY, June 11, 2021 — The suicide attempt rate has leapt by as much as half among teenage girls during the coronavirus pandemic, a new government study shows. Emergency room visits for suspected suicide attempts among girls between the ages of 12 and 17 increased by 26% during summer 2020 and by 50% during winter… Read More »
Poor treatment and aftercare for people who self-harm or attempt suicide is putting their lives at risk, the Royal College of Psychiatrists says. Many patients treated in A&E for self-harm do not receive a full psychosocial assessment from a mental health professional to assess suicide risk. Simon Rose, who has attempted suicide many times, told… Read More »
Perhaps it’s because we live in an age of competing epidemics and crises—opioids, impeachment, homelessness, insulin—that youth suicide trends don’t warrant a front-page headline every week. The numbing, knee-bending statistics say they should. Per the CDC, suicide rates among young people 10 to 24 years old rose 56 percent between 2007 and 2017. Suicide is… Read More »
Who remembers Jack Kevorkian, Doctor Death? He was found guilty in 1998 of second-degree murder. Still, it was because of his advocacy that the terminally ill patient’s right to die by physician-assisted suicide was propelled into the public arena. And who can forget Brittany Maynard? It was her advocacy for physician-assisted suicide that reignited the… Read More »
According to a 2017 study,1 1 in 6 Americans between the ages of 18 and 85 were on psychiatric drugs in 2013, most of them antidepressants. Of them, 84.3% reported long-term use, and having filled three or more prescriptions during the study year. Despite such pervasive antidepressant use, we’ve not seen any improvement in depression… Read More »
After studying thousands of people for over a decade, researchers have concluded that living with multiple chronic conditions can seriously affect a person’s brain health and mental well-being, hastening forms of memory loss and increasing the risk of dying by suicide. Having multiple chronic conditions can speed up cognitive decline. Recent research has shown that… Read More »
Anybody who says differently is perpetuating a very dangerous misunderstanding. June 26, 2019 by Al Levin Leave a Comment —Let me be crystal clear: Suicide is NOT a selfish act. It is not an attention-seeking act. Anybody who says differently is perpetuating a very dangerous misunderstanding. I have heard many stories in which someone stated… Read More »