Perhaps I'm biased because I've met and spoken with patients that attempted suicide. There was one woman who was diagnosed with HIV a long time ago. The day it happenned, she left the doctor's office in tears and took it as a death sentence. On her way home she waited at a train station. There was no barrier at that station. She didn't plan to kill herself that day, but when she saw the trains coming and going she seriously considered it. Luckily for her, another man saw her and noticed something was wrong. The simple act of asking ''Are you ok?'' stopped her and she honestly doesn't know what would have happenned otherwise that day.
Of course, the next few years were very difficult for her as you can imagine but she's alive. Now she's living a full life with a family and her own children.
Yeah, I'm biased too. A friend of mine snorted heroin.
A physical wall can't stop a mental missile.
Wrong. Walls are extremely effective at deterring suicide attempts. If people are forced to spend the time getting around the wall, they are also forced to think. A 10-second pause is huge considering how impulsive the majority of suicides are. Reading this blog has really frustrated me since you all clearly know very little on how suicide prevention actually works. Personally I don't think you can put a price-tag on someone's life either.
I know it's hard to put a price tag on someone's life, but if the state goes bankrupt on construction projects, then a lot of people are going to suffer for it.
I am aware of two main types of suicidal tendencies that come from: 1) people who have hit rock-bottom emotionally, and 2) people with clinical depression. I think we're stepping all over each other's toes because some of us learn towards one over the other when we think about "suicide." This is complicated by the fact that those in the first category are not considered as those who really want to die because it includes people who may declare that they want to kill themselves but not do it. It includes people who have just gone through a traumatic event, and not knowing how to deal with it, may behave irrationally. If they were on a bridge at the moment, they may throw themselves off of it out of impulse. It's like "temporary insanity," a moment of extreme anger or sadness. But if they hold out for a few moments longer, they'll most likely reconsider, and maybe they'll never do it again. This group is more easily deterred than the second.
The second group suffers from a neurological condition. That is what people mean when they talk about physical barriers vs. mental drive.
The two groups get lumped together, and it makes any discussion on suicide difficult because both groups have different root causes for their behavior, yet we try to discuss them in one breath, under one label. When the word "suicide" enters the conversation, I think of the second group. That's my personal bias. And I think it's because, for the first group, the suicide attempt is not the main issue. The events leading up to it are, though preventing the suicide remains of obvious interest to the patient.
For the second group, there are very few events to analyze. The problem is rooted in the neurology leading to the suicidal tendencies themselves.
Regardless of my bias, I would guess that physical barriers are somewhat effective on the first group. I'm just discouraged that more can't be done for the second group, that's all.
