{"id":2004,"date":"2013-06-05T09:27:55","date_gmt":"2013-06-05T15:27:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/?p=2004"},"modified":"2013-06-05T09:27:55","modified_gmt":"2013-06-05T15:27:55","slug":"why-suicide-has-become-an-epidemic-and-what-we-can-do-to-stop-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/2013\/06\/why-suicide-has-become-an-epidemic-and-what-we-can-do-to-stop-it.html","title":{"rendered":"Why Suicide Has Become an Epidemic and What We Can Do to Stop It"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

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\u201cSelf-harm now takes more lives than war, murder, and natural disasters combined. Why are we killing ourselves, and how can we stop it?\u201d That\u2019s the tag line to a\u00a0haunting article<\/a>\u00a0on the subject of suicide by Tony Dokoupil at The Daily Beast<\/em>. It\u2019s a stunning look at why suicide rates have reached unprecedented levels worldwide. The article is based upon the ground-breaking research by Thomas Joiner, a psychologist and researcher who has poked and prodded suicide for decades, and just might be the world leading expert on the subject. Dokoupil writes:<\/p>\n

\u201cSuicide is not an economic problem or a generational tic. It\u2019s not a secondary concern, a sideline that will solve itself with new jobs, less access to guns, or a more tolerant society, although all would be welcome. It\u2019s a problem with a broad base and terrible momentum, a result of seismic changes in the way we live and a corresponding shift in the way we die\u2014not only in America but around the world.<\/p>\n

We know, thanks to a growing body of research on suicide and the conditions that accompany it, that more and more of us are living through a time of seamless black: a period of mounting clinical depression, blossoming thoughts of oblivion and an abiding wish to get there by the non-scenic route. Every year since 1999, more Americans have killed themselves than the year before, making suicide the nation\u2019s greatest untamed cause of death. In much of the world, it\u2019s among the only major threats to get significantly worse in this century than in the last.<\/p>\n

The result is an accelerating paradox. Over the last five decades, millions of lives have been remade for the better. Yet within this brighter tomorrow, we suffer unprecedented despair. In a time defined by ever more social progress and astounding innovations, we have never been more burdened by sadness or more consumed by self-harm. And this may be only the beginning. If Joiner and others are right\u2014and a landmark collection of studies suggests they are\u2014we\u2019ve reached the end of one order of human history and are at the beginning of a new order entirely, one beset by a whole lot of self-inflicted bloodshed, and a whole lot more to come.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Joiner says that suicide happens at the convergence of three distinct categories:<\/p>\n