Learn to embrace life

The suicide of a person is an avalanche that destroys everything in its path. It is a tsunami of pain, guilt, confusion and silence. It’s anything but a number. However, to analyze the phenomenon in a global way, it is necessary to use statistics. According to data from the Ministry of Health, during the year 2022 there were 607 people who decided take your life (an average of 50 per month). A figure that has increased by 20% in the last decade and that, for example, quadruples deaths from traffic accidents.

In light of these data, suicide has become a priority issue on the agendas of public administrations, health services and other agents that ensure mental health and emotional well-being. And the key to treating the problem is to make it stop being taboo.

For this reason, on December 20, EL PERIÓDICO organized a round table to address the issue and reflect on possible avenues for improvement. He participated in it Manel BalcellsHealth advisor; Montse Dolzdirector of Child and Youth Mental Health at the Sant Joan de Déu Hospital; Diego Palao, director of Mental Health of the Parc Taulí Health Corporation and coordinator of the Suïcide Prevention Plan of Catalonia (PLAPRESC); and finally, Cecilia Borráspresident of Després del Suïcidi-Associació de Survivents (DSAS).

The dialogue was opened by the minister, who expressed his concern about the aforementioned data: “When someone voluntarily causes death to themselves, it is because many things have failed before. In fact, everything has failed. We are facing a serious problem, which we are taking care of. And to do this, it is necessary to know the causes well to find solutions.”

Among these factors, Montse Dolz cited “severe mental illnesses; emotional discomfort, which can lead us to a crisis; and a specific social and cultural context.” Without wanting to mislead the matter, Ella Dolz specified that suicidal behavior has not remained stable over time: The statistics show a “saw behavior”, with ups and downs. But if we look back we would see that, “in 2013, the absolute number of deaths by suicide was the same as today.” What in her opinion has clearly increased is “the tendency to verbalize suicidal behavior and self-harming behaviors.”

And that is when an indisputable fact was put on the table: That the covid pandemic marked a before and after in suicidal behavior. “We were coming from a few years of systematic reduction in suicide. But in the period 2020-2022 there has been a very significant increase in cases, as well as diagnoses of depression and anxiety increased by 25%,” confirmed Diego Palao. “The economic impact of the pandemic was combined with the difficulty in accessing health services and, of course, social isolation,” added the director of Mental Health at the Corporació Sanitària Parc Taulí.

“People are designed to act collectively, have relationships of belonging, affection, have objectives and give meaning to our lives. And with the covid all that was very affected,” said Dolz. “Adults had more tools to deal with it, but young people did not. They lacked emotional nutrition; and they only had digital nutrition, which perhaps was not the best.” In this “context of deprivation of what was essential” is where, according to the doctor, all this vulnerability of young people appeared at its maximum expression.

NO TO SILENCE

The speakers agreed that there is no single way of intervention to mitigate the problem of suicide, but rather that action must be taken from all fronts. The first of them, helping people with suicidal ideas to express it: “The main tool is to talk, to shout, because on the other side there are people who, whether they know us or not, can help us,” said Cecília Borràs. And Minister Manel Balcells added: “Asking for help is difficult; but talking is a therapeutic element in itself. For this reason, we must focus our efforts on people with suicidal ideas being able to express it.”

And it is already perceived as true mentality change about. For example, today it seems that “young people have a much more open attitude towards therapy,” says Montse Dolz. “The new generations are also sharing what happens to them on the networks.” Although, for the specialist, this last point also has its counterpart: “Today, talking about these issues in Internet gets a lot of likes. And this can generate a kind of support from the suicidal ideas. “It is a double-edged sword,” considered the doctor.

The need to share emotional distress is also important for people who survive suicide. “For them, it is often hard to continue living. And it is important to be able to verbalize it, to alleviate the idea of ​​being a burden to others. In a society in which everything must be easy, in which there is no time for almost anything, it is difficult to share feelings as deep as that darkness that grows inside you,” explains the president of Després del Suïcidi – Associació de Survivents. This entity has assisted more than 250 people this year, to ensure that the home (where suicide or attempts often occur) does not become a traumatic environment; to overcome the stigma; and to learn to face a society that questions us as caregivers of those who wanted (or managed to) take their own lives.

PUBLIC POLITICS

To reduce suicide numbers, the Government of the Generalitat of Catalonia has launched the Suicïdi Prevention Plan of Catalonia, which from 2021 to 2025 includes measures that “go beyond the health system and the specialized devices,” Balcells pointed out. “We have to go where things happen. That is why we must provide support in schools, give tools to teachers, for early detection. Also at the university. And in prisons, where there has been a significant increase in suicides.”

It is also worth highlighting the importance of Codi Risc Suïcidia specific protocol for urgent action, common for all health agents involved, especially emergency teams, and which Parc Taulí was a pioneer in implementing in 2008.

Related news

Finally, Palao highlighted, “it is necessary to work synergistically and simultaneously between all areas and agents” to “not reach such severe cases and achieve a more resilient society, with more capabilities, purposes and hope,” Dolz constructed.

To finish, the president of DSAS launched an interesting reflection: “It is curious how unhappy this world makes us, being as we are in a welfare society.” Thus, Cecília Borràs alluded to an article published in the New York Times in 2012. In that publication – explained Borràs – it talked about how suicide had historically been related to people without family ties, who were outlawed from a social point of view. However – that writing stated – “a change was taking place in the way in which young people saw suicide, as a decision that anyone could make at a given moment, especially in a context in which the middle class was disappearing, which caused a hopeless vision and no future prospects.”