Suicide

The Stages of Suicide

Suicide is the third leading cause of death for teenagers between the ages of fifteen and nineteen. Teenagers with a family history of suicide are two and a half times more likely to take their own lives than a teen with no family history (Healthy Place, 2000-2006). Suicide is defined as “the intentional taking of one’s own life” (dictionary.com, n.d.). The person willingly takes ones life. In many of these cases, what really occurs is clinical depression takes over the person, which then leaves the victim what they feel with, no other solution but suicide. There are many different signs in detecting a suicidal person. It is important to be able to identify suicide in order to aid in the prevention of it. The Cleveland Clinic identifies twelve different symptoms of suicidal victims. These symptoms have no set time span. In the process of understanding suicide it is important to understand their psychological, physical and behavioral effects.

The first stage of identifying suicide is identifying a person’s psychological aspect on life changes. The first signs involve paying attention to a person’s comments. Saying things like “It would be better if I were not here” or “I want out”, trouble eating and sleeping, visiting or calling people to say goodbye, and putting affairs in order by tying up loose ends (The Cleveland Clinic, 2000-2005). This is the victim’s cry for help, where one hopes that someone will soon notice one’s change in attitude about one’s everyday aspect of life. There is no specific time span for these signals. They last as long as the person is able to tolerate the ignorance.

The second stage is physical changes. Depression, talking about suicide, always mentioning death, and making comments about being hopeless, helpless or worthless are some of the psychological affects (The Cleveland Clinic, 2000-2005). Depression is very crucial because when it is clear that the person is depressed on the outside, it has been eating away at one on the inside. There is nothing one person is able

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