Suicide kills more people than wars Lets do something about it

A snippet from Sanctum:

Malachi held my gaze for a moment, then looked away. “I’m sorry to tell you this, but you’re on an impossible mission. Three thousand people arrive at the Suicide Gates every single day. Haven’t you noticed the size of this city? You could wander for years and never find her ...

When we were preparing to go on sub with this book, my agent flagged this part, wondering if my numbers were accurate. Three thousand people a day??

Here's how I got that number: The World Health Organization estimates that over a million people in the world commit suicide every year (with estimated annual fatalities rising to 1.5 million by 2020). Suicides account for half of violent deaths in the world, more than the number from murders and war combined.

Suicide kills more people than wars.

In the United States, every year, over 35,000 people kill themselves. And if you consider the fact that, for every completed suicide, there are about 10-20 attempted suicides ... that's heinous. That's tragic. That's an epidemic.

When I was in college, I worked for a local helpline, and I took a lot of calls from people who were considering ending their lives. It was an up-close introduction to the anguish some individuals experience--and the need to provide them with support and help that keeps them here with us in the land of the living.

Probably that experience was, in part, why I wrote Sanctum. It's about Lela, who is given the opportunity to rescue the soul of her best friend, Nadia, who committed suicide. But in real life, none of us have that chance. Once a friend or loved one has committed suicide, we are left here to mourn. And to try to keep anyone else from leaving this life because it was too painful to continue living it.

When I got my first advance check for Sanctum, I donated a portion of it to The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, because people who are in despair--who feel alone--need to connect. It saves lives. And when my friend Justine Dell came to me and asked me if I wanted to help her raise money for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, there was no way I was going to refuse.

All next week, Justine and I are going to be raising money for this cause. I'm really hoping you'll help.

http://justine-dell.blogspot.com/p/out-of-darkness-suicide-prevention.html

We're making it easy. And fun. Worth your while.

On Saturday, October 6th, we're going to have an auction. Every dollar raised will be donated to the AFSP. You'll be able to bid for things like book prize packs and agent query crits. For a rundown of some of the prizes, check out Justine's blog.

We need your help spreading the word, though (and to give you the chance to raise money even if you can't bid in the auction on Saturday). Starting Monday, October 1, we'll have a Rafflecopter giveaway of prizes here. You'll get entries for spreading the word about the  giveaway and the auction.

And even by doing that, you'll be raising money, because the more entries we get, the more I am personally going to donate to the AFSP. More details about that on Monday.

Plus, if you donate directly to the AFSP and send us your receipt, you'll be entered in a special drawing to win some especially cool stuff.

How does that sound? Would you like to join us in raising money to help stem this epidemic?

Please check out our donation page--that's the place to start if you want to donate to the AFSP's fundraising arm, which sponsors the Out of the Darkness Community Walk that Justine's going to participate in (you can also donate directly to the AFSP here if you prefer), and remember that there will be a cool drawing just for those who do that and email us the donation receipt--one entry for every dollar donated.

Also check out Justine's FB page for this event. She's having it in conjunction with her launch party for her debut novel, Recaptured Dreams.

And please, please: come back Monday to enter to win prizes, help us raise money, and spread the word!

More Great Quotable Quotes from People Who Agree with Me About Stuff

Today's post is the second of a series of two containing some of my favorite recent quotes that center around themes discussed in this blog. 

As mentioned, I have been collecting the quotes and putting them on my Facebook fan page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/David-M-Allen-MD/80658565761?fref=ts. The ones posted here started in January of 2014, and are loosely organized by topic. 

Family Dysfunction

"Taking responsibility for something and self-blame are horses of two entirely different colors. The former is empowering; the latter is paralyzing." ~ John Rosemond, Ph.D

Chronic Mental Illness

Our prison population is bigger than Slovenia
Cause we put people in jail instead of treating schizophrenia 
        ~ John Oliver

On trying to find the cause of schizophrenia: "30 wasted years of looking for bad mothers followed by 30 wasted years looking for bad genes." ~ E. Fuller Torrey, M.D.

Psychiatric Practice, Electronic Medical Records, and Managed Care

"The shift from benzodiazepines [for anxiety disorders] to antidepressants is one of the most spectacular achievements of propaganda in psychiatry." ~ Giovanni Fava, M.D., clinical professor of psychiatry at SUNY in Buffalo.

"You're complaining about a Freudian slip? Freud should be able to wear whatever he wants." ~ Tony Kreitzberg

"Why would anyone want to teach me to tolerate my pain? My only interest is in removing it!” ~ Cynthia Mueller, a blog reader, when first exposed to the DBT treatment model for borderline personality disorder.

"Methadone and Buprenorphine [suboxone] should be our first line opiates for use in the treatment of severe acute pain. That way, if patients become addicted to them, they would already be taking the appropriate treatment for their addiction!" ~ Steven A. King, M.D.

"The current EHR has destroyed the narrative, especially in psychiatry, and converted the basis of care to a checklist." ~ George Dawson, M.D.

"It's not just about doing the right thing for your patients, it's about proving to someone else that you've done the right thing, and sometimes "I can't quite remember if I'm an underpaid physician or an overpaid data entry clerk!" ~ Dr. J.D., Family physician.

"The proving [that I did right by a patient] takes longer than the doing." Chrisitine Sinsky, M.D.

"You don't need any research to show that if you are cycling people with serious mental illnesses in and out of short stay psychiatric units in 3 - 5 days and basing their stay there on whether or not they are "dangerous" and using treatments that take weeks to work that by definition you are appearing to treat many more patients but providing adequate treatment to very few. You don't need any research to show that when you shift mental health care from psychiatric units run by psychiatrists to county jails that the outcomes will be worse. You don't need any research to show that when people do not get research-based psychotherapies in the manner that they were designed and instead get a few crisis oriented sessions that do not address their basic problems that outcomes cannot hope to be better. When your attitude is that all mental health treatment can proceed by treating common problems with definite social etiologies with medications as fast as possible and not having an intelligent conversation or working alliance with the person affected - it is logical that treatment outcomes will not improve. Treatment outcomes do not improve if you do not provide effective treatment and that is the mental health landscape at this time." ~ George Dawson, M.D.

"I don’t know if anyone has ever not tensed at being told to relax." ~ Carolyn Hax

"Health care systems that allow patients to rate their doctors on satisfaction ratings without considering that patients might be dissatisfied with reality should be held to task." ~ George Dawson, M.D.

"You want a tale of two cities...look how the financial services industry has captured regulation to their advantage vs. how doctors have been battered by regulation. But it's based on the mind-set of Goldman Sachs vs. the mindset of the family practitioner...who politically shows up for a gunfight with a butter knife." ~ James O'Brien, M.D.

"Managed care has done an expert job of cost shifting by developing business friendly treatment criteria, abandoning the social and community mission of treating difficult problems associated with mental illness and addiction, and removing the element of humanism from psychiatric treatment. When I first started to practice, discharging people from a hospital when a psychiatrist had serious concerns about whether or not they could make it or whether they would be safe was very uncommon. Today those discharges are the rule rather than the exception largely due to the imaginary dangerousness criteria. "~ George Dawson, M.D.

Drug War

"When we talk about marijuana as a gateway drug, we have to remember that the last three occupants of the White House have smoked marijuana. We can very well say marijuana is a gateway drug to the White House” ~ Carl Hart, Ph.D

Psychiatric Diagnosis

"Then there’s the matter of testing a child to determine if he has ADHD. The plain fact is that none of the published diagnostic criteria depend upon test results. They refer to behavior, period." ~ John Rosemond, Ph.D.

"A [mental] disorder does not operate with [social environmental] discrimination. If something was “wrong” with [your child], she would be obnoxious in front of friends, their parents, teachers, and the people in white coats who came to take her away (tra la, for those who appreciate the reference)."
~ John Rosemond, Ph.D.        

            ("Actually, "Ha Ha" and not "Tra La" ~ Napoleon XIV)

A reader writes that her friends 'recently spent around $300 on their daughter’s birthday party—her first. They bought lots of stuff to entertain their young guests and extended family. The child, a baby, obviously had no clue what was going on. I should mention that the parents are struggling to make ends meet.' As my readers know or should know, I am a psychologist. That qualifies me to determine and assign psychological diagnoses. As such, it seems obvious to me that these parents suffer from a now-commonplace parenting malady known as just plain nuts." ~ John Rosemond, Ph.D.

"One symptom does not make a diagnosis " ~ John Rosemond, Ph.D.

"Test anxiety is frequently not an aberrant psychological response - it is instead the normal anxiety anyone would feel in facing a situation for which they were inadequately prepared." ~ Barbara Oakley, Ph.D.

"Under the influence of intense affects, EVERYBODY becomes an idiot."~ Otto Kernberg, M.D.

"Only in America does 'gotta' substitute for 'wanna' so we can avoid the guilt. " ~ The Last Psychiatrist

ADHD

"An often trivialized cause of irritability, difficulty concentrating, reduced vigilance, distractibility, decreased motivation, lack of energy,and disturbed mood: insufficient sleep syndrome. People with this syndrome, common in our 24 hour society, intentionally curtail sleep for work, social, family, or other reasons. According to the International Classification of Sleep Disorders, a practical and effective remedy does exist: more sleep." ~ Psychiatric News.

"The maps of child obesity in the U.S. look suspiciously like those of the ADHD epidemic, with the highest rates in the deep South." ~ Psycritic

"It’s truly surprising how many parents have been told that if their child did not have ADHD the child would not respond to stimulant drugs. In the blitzkrieg of World War II, German bomber pilots took a stimulant drug with a chemical structure similar to that of Adderall. When the American military discovered how much the stimulants helped German pilots, they put stimulants in the kit of every American and British bomber pilot to improve their concentration and alertness on long-haul missions. Surely not all these pilots had ADHD." ~ Marilyn Wedge, Ph.D.

"...after taking the [drug company-designed screening] ADHD quiz, I've realized that both I and my cat have the dreaded disease. I'm off to get us both the treatment we need." ~ Anonymous comment on one of my blog posts.

Evolutionary Psychology

"Selfishness beats altruism within groups. Altruistic groups beat selfish groups. All else is commentary." ~ David Sloan Wilson, Ph.D.

"We mammals are curiously preoccupied with social hierarchy. You may say you don’t care about status, but if you filled a room with people who said that, they’d soon form a hierarchy based on how anti-status each person claims to be." ~ Loretta Breuning, Ph.D.