"Only 1 out of 20 dies." Really?

[TheVanishingPoint]

The statistic is false, or worse: built on a convenient lie.
Who are the nineteen "suicide attempts" that don't result in death?
They're the ones who sit on a bridge railing for forty minutes in broad daylight, waiting to be noticed.
They're the ones who cut themselves everywhere except where it would actually be fatal.
The ones who take six aspirin and call an ambulance.
The ones who say "I wanted to die" as soon as they arrive at the emergency room, just to get a bed in psychiatry or to give their distress a name.
These are not suicide attempts. They are cries for attention. Symbolic acts, perhaps desperate, but not lethal.
And yet, they're included in the statistics.
Just like every news article that celebrates the "hero police officer" who talks someone down after they've been perched on a bridge with no guardrail for over an hour.
We read about at least six or seven of these "heroes" every day, all over the world. Always the same story, the same phrases, the same staged photo.
Emotional photocopies.
In some countries, the president even publicly congratulates the police for stopping a suicide that, in most cases, would never have happened anyway.
It's applause offered to a performance.
Because if that person really wanted to die, they would have done it already.
Those who truly want to die don't wait. They don't call. They don't expose themselves. They don't let you get close.
Dying is a private act. Final. Solitary.
Everything else is theater.
But the statistics don't distinguish.
So we're told that "most suicide attempts fail," to comfort the living and hand out medals to those who merely interrupted a performance.

I remember once, years ago, I had left the camera on in the living room, half-hidden. My aunt hadn't noticed. She heard a car pulling up she thought it was my uncle and immediately started crying over family issues, religious ones, theatrical ones. But it wasn't my uncle. It was the gardener.
So she wiped her tears, turned on the TV, and waited.
Then the actual car arrived.
I was watching everything with my cousin on the camera: my aunt pulled out the tissue again and resumed "crying," but by then the tears were gone, the emotion dried up, and the whole scene had become a tired farce. She rubbed her eyes, trying desperately to redden them.
And yet... it worked. My uncle felt sorry for her. She got what she wanted I won't say what it was.
But from that day on, I understood that visible suffering is often just a warm-up for applause.

Those who truly know death understand this: when someone really wants to leave, they leave no space for spectators.

 

[getoutgirl]

I can't say I remember most of it cos my memory sucks, but I have read a lot of suicide literature and studies and I've seen those numbers quite a lot. Sometimes ranging between 10 to 25 of attempts that do not result in death for each that does, depending on the study and org. But yep I'd say they are pretty legit or point somewhere.

I don't know the exact reasons. There is still a prevalence to overdose on medication, specially on women, and sadly it is not sufficiently public knowledge that that most likely won't kill you. So that might account for failed ones and awful experiences. And no method is certain either. Plus regret and survival instinct, or however you want to put that. This site doesn't shy away from the fact suicide is a hard thing. Sometimes that's a good thing. I don't know what to think about a lot of stuff still.

They're the ones who sit on a bridge railing for forty minutes in broad daylight, waiting to be noticed.
They're the ones who cut themselves everywhere except where it would actually be fatal.
The ones who take six aspirin and call an ambulance.
The ones who say "I wanted to die" as soon as they arrive at the emergency room, just to get a bed in psychiatry or to give their distress a name.
These are not suicide attempts. They are cries for attention. Symbolic acts, perhaps desperate, but not lethal.

however this I don't stand for.
Some statistics aren't worth invalidating people's real struggles and suicidality, specially when there is no need to alter them. Gatekeeping will always be a thing, you'll feel better if you decide an outer group and label it the fake ones, the ones that pretend while you are "really going through it", you can gain validation for yourself in contrast. And I believe that you Are going through it, but these people too, and they are no strawmans or how you'd wish they'd be, they are actual people and you can look around.

Shit like "If you wanted to die you'd done it already" "those who truly want to die" "calls for attention" is the kind of things we hear from people who don't know what this feels like, and it adds to the lack of understanding and stigma. It makes these people feel worse than how they are already feeling. But if you don't believe they are feeling much and its a performance, I understand why it's easier to say it.

I'm sorry about your aunt she seems like a manipulative pitiful person.
but you got the wrong lesson from that. Suicidality is complicated and not your aunt. Suicidal people are not your aunt.
I don't expect you to change your mind about it all a sudden, but please don't come here perpetuating those views. It helps no one here and if anything this place should be for helping.

 

[eupdplishlp]

I think you are wrong assuming visible suffering is a warm up for applause. some emotions arent controlable they are expressions of very real emotions. I think men should cry more for example and are shamed for it in fear or looking like they are asking for attention when really they should cry and not care how they look s it revies stress and a hug is loving. visible suffering 9/10 isnt one people can control. Yes there is a 1 in 10 that do it for attention but even they are suffering in a way that deserves care and love. no one needs an applause for suffering but they do need caring words or a hug


everything else you said you are right

 

[TheVanishingPoint]

I can't say I remember most of it cos my memory sucks, but I have read a lot of suicide literature and studies and I've seen those numbers quite a lot. Sometimes ranging between 10 to 25 of attempts that do not result in death for each that does, depending on the study and org. But yep I'd say they are pretty legit or point somewhere.

I don't know the exact reasons. There is still a prevalence to overdose on medication, specially on women, and sadly it is not sufficiently public knowledge that that most likely won't kill you. So that might account for failed ones and awful experiences. And no method is certain either. Plus regret and survival instinct, or however you want to put that. This site doesn't shy away from the fact suicide is a hard thing. Sometimes that's a good thing. I don't know what to think about a lot of stuff still.


however this I don't stand for.
Some statistics aren't worth invalidating people's real struggles and suicidality, specially when there is no need to alter them. Gatekeeping will always be a thing, you'll feel better if you decide an outer group and label it the fake ones, the ones that pretend while you are "really going through it", you can gain validation for yourself in contrast. And I believe that you Are going through it, but these people too, and they are no strawmans or how you'd wish they'd be, they are actual people and you can look around.

Shit like "If you wanted to die you'd done it already" "those who truly want to die" "calls for attention" is the kind of things we hear from people who don't know what this feels like, and it adds to the lack of understanding and stigma. It makes these people feel worse than how they are already feeling. But if you don't believe they are feeling much and its a performance, I understand why it's easier to say it.

I'm sorry about your aunt she seems like a manipulative pitiful person.
but you got the wrong lesson from that. Suicidality is complicated and not your aunt. Suicidal people are not your aunt.
I don't expect you to change your mind about it all a sudden, but please don't come here perpetuating those views. It helps no one here and if anything this place should be for helping.

I want to make it clear that I never said that those who suffer aren't truly suffering. On the contrary, I fully acknowledge that pain can be immense, devastating, unbearable — and not just among users on this forum, but everywhere: among friends, classmates, relatives, colleagues.
My point was never an attack on those in pain, but a cold reflection on the difference between wishing for death and truly wanting to die.

Those who truly want to die, often do. We see it every day in real suicides: quick, silent, without delay.
But those who hesitate, who wait for hours on the edge of a bridge, who lie down on the tracks 40 minutes before the train arrives they may be suffering deeply, yes. But what they express is not always a true will to die, but rather the desperate desire for the pain to end.
It's an expression of suffering, not necessarily a death impulse. It's an attachment to life, disguised as rejection. It's the urge to end suffering, not to end life.

That's why I can't accept that my analysis be dismissed as lacking empathy. This isn't judgment it's a distinction.
Because if we fail to distinguish, we end up equating those who've carried out an irreversible act with those who, despite the suffering, are still in some kind of dialogue with the world, with possibility, with a hidden hope.

Also, I never claimed that this forum shouldn't be a place for help. On the contrary, there are recovery sections here, spaces of comfort, and people who cling to life precisely through words, through exchange, through the presence of others.
And someone seeking help is, by definition, still attached to life. They may not know it, but they are. They're seeking relief not the end.

And what we call the "fear of death," often renamed the "survival instinct," isn't that a form of attachment to life itself?
When you're truly done, hollowed out, exhausted, you don't overthink it. You don't build up scenes. You don't call for help. You don't stage yourself on a bridge. You disappear. That's it.

I mean no disrespect to anyone. But I stand by clarity.
And I say, without euphemism, that many of the cases that distort suicide statistics are not real attempts to die, but symbolic acts, cries for help, extreme manifestations of pain still hoping for an answer.

And even that, if we're being honest, is no one's fault but it shouldn't be ignored either.

I think you are wrong assuming visible suffering is a warm up for applause. some emotions arent controlable they are expressions of very real emotions. I think men should cry more for example and are shamed for it in fear or looking like they are asking for attention when really they should cry and not care how they look s it revies stress and a hug is loving. visible suffering 9/10 isnt one people can control. Yes there is a 1 in 10 that do it for attention but even they are suffering in a way that deserves care and love. no one needs an applause for suffering but they do need caring words or a hug


everything else you said you are right

Thank you for your response it shows sensitivity and a sincere desire for human understanding. And I want to be clear: I have nothing against visible suffering, nor against tears. I never said that those who cry are pretending, or that anyone who expresses pain is seeking applause. I fully understand that emotions often overwhelm us. In fact, I agree: men, too, should be able to cry without shame or having to explain themselves.
But my reflection was moving on a different level.

I was speaking about a very specific dynamic the one involving extreme gestures, or declared ones, that are later counted as "suicide attempts." This isn't a moral judgment, but a technical, cold reflection on the meaning of such an act.
Suffering does not mean wanting to die. Wanting relief is not the same as wanting nothingness.
And when someone calls for help, when they wait, when they hope someone will come then they are not seeking death, but a pause from pain.
That too, yes, deserves attention, respect, and care. But it is something else entirely.

To say that not all suicide attempts are truly attempts to die is not to despise those who suffer. It means calling things by their name out of respect for those who no longer hesitated, and out of honesty toward those who are still here, and perhaps, deep down, want to be.

That too, in its own way, is an embrace not of the emotion we see, but of the truth that so often goes unheard.

 

[getoutgirl]

Aight, well at least I'm glad you empathise with their suffering. And I agree there can be the distinction there you mention and sure it's worth discussing.

But those who hesitate, who wait for hours on the edge of a bridge, who lie down on the tracks 40 minutes before the train arrives they may be suffering deeply, yes. But what they express is not always a true will to die, but rather the desperate desire for the pain to end.

But I still think this is a perfectly valid form of suicidality, probably the most common, and should still be accounted into the statistics. I don't see that distinction being meaningful at present and for what matters.
still, something worth discussing.

I didn't like your post not cos it's pointing out that distinction to discuss it, but because it comes off as very gatekeepy and invalidating in the way you phrase it. And demeaning too.
You keep describing them as winny fakers full of doubt and attention seeking.
"Everything else is theater" ... Now you may think they are still suffering and it's all not just an act as you said now, but the way you wrote it doesn't come across as that. At all.
Hell by the end you add a comparison to your manipulative aunt. There is no way around you worded it with intention and a negative disposition.
You might also have intended this to only describe some cases... but still it comes off as very gatekeepy and generalising.

This being most people's experience with suicidality, one which includes doubt and fear and not a full detachment to life, it helps no one to invalidate or describe in such a way. That's my main issue.

 

[Dejected 55]

So goes the old saying... There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.

Statistics can be manipulated in most cases to prove what you want them to prove.

I remember dealing with a company that used to have a lot of damaged product and customer complaints and if you complained too much the company would quote their damage percentages as being absurdly low. I couldn't figure out how that could be when I was seeing a lot of damages and knew countless others seeing the same thing.

Then one day looking at the invoices I figured it out.

This company sold product and it also sold supplies. Things like bags to store your product in for protection... and those bags were sold in packages of 1000. You had to buy a package, and it was a small item because the bags were small, and it was very unlikely to get damaged itself... but if you looked closely on the invoice. If you ordered say 10 packages of this supply... It was actually invoiced as 10,000 individual items at pennies each. So there was 10,000 items virtually guaranteed to never get damaged in transit... and you would never order near that quantity of other items in a single shipment and probably not over the course of a month... but you might need those supplies several times a month potentially.

Skewed the FUCK out of their safe shipment statistics as you might expect. I confronted the company on that one time... I think they were surprised someone figured it out. I told them if they wanted real damage statistics they needed to count each pack of 1000 as 1 item shipped since that was the only way anyone could order them... and then see how high their actual damages would come up. They never responded... but I did my own calculations on my own experiences and it was night and day the difference the company wanted to measure vs reality.

 

[Kwalls]

I understand why people might think this is insensitive but I really like it. I've had both 'false attempts' and real ones. I know the difference between really wanting to die and just begging the world throw you a bone. However, both situations can result in a successful suicide- it's just a matter of how committed they were to really dying.

 

[Worndown]

Overall, that is probably a good number.
On this site we hear of so many attempts. Some serious and some less serious. They count equally
Every time an attempt leaves a paper trail, it counts.
Post attempt contact/therapy will pull out failed attempts that never caused intervention. Those get counted too.
Successes leave a trail.
It is just doing the math to get this ratio.

 

[Wolf Girl]

It's weird how you're gatekeeping being suicidal like it's a special club. The capacity to end one's life is acquired. A lot of people who successfully ctb had to work up to it by doing things that you consider "attention-seeking." Sitting on the ledge for hours, hesitation wounds, etc. These are all things people have done before dying.

 

[badatparties]

Yeah, i think we should avoid making it a competition of who is more serious and what not. It's seriously douche cake behavior. Like men commit suicide more successfully because they use lethal means, while women tend to go more for pharmacological options. I'm not going to sit here and say, " look at those attention seeking women, they can't even kill themselves, boys rule, girls drool."

The guy being talked off the bridge is still in pain, i mean what kind of self respecting individual want's to be publicly talked out of suicide by a cop. We can talk about statistics but it's a bit messed up to talk about others in pain that way.

 

[Xiaojiu]

Yeah, i think we should avoid making it a competition of who is more serious and what not. It's seriously douche cake behavior. Like men commit suicide more successfully because they use lethal means, while women tend to go more for pharmacological options. I'm not going to sit here and say, " look at those attention seeking women, they can't even kill themselves, boys rule, girls drool."

The guy being talked off the bridge is still in pain, i mean what kind of self respecting individual want's to be publicly talked out of suicide by a cop. We can talk about statistics but it's a bit messed up to talk about others in pain that way.

Also, saying that those who are on that bridge, not going for the jump and calling them attention seeking? Cries for help?

We honestly DON'T know what a person is going through that leads them to cut themselves, who tries to OD, or get on that bridge. Saying they aren't jumping right at the rise of the impulse of wanting to die, because they should have done it by now, is actually pretty insensitive. Because it's downplaying the pain and suffering they are going through that leads them to that point.

Like, dying by suicide shouldn't be a competition or like a membership to the mile high club or something lol

Cause let's be real, if my existence was awesome, I wouldn't even be on this site

 

[fallendevil]

i don't understand why people make posts like these of talking about "serious" suicidal people tbh, like what is your goal? Do you want to prove that you're best ana (ana in this case being suicidal) or whatever. Those are still attempts regardless if you think they're well thought out or not.

 

[TheVanishingPoint]

Saying "one completed suicide for every twenty attempts" without looking at what those twenty actually are paints a false picture. A good share of recorded "attempts" are nothing like high-lethality acts with a clear intent to die. Clinicians have been describing this for decades. Back in 1969, Kreitman coined the term parasuicide to refer to self-harm or suicidal gestures where the primary aim wasn't death. Around the same time, Sifneos wrote about "manipulative suicide," noting that in some hospital settings, as many as sixty percent of admitted cases fit that pattern. These acts often serve a relational purpose to express distress, to communicate a need, or to influence someone and programs like Dialectical Behavior Therapy were designed in part to address them. Large WHO/EURO studies across Europe, involving over a thousand patients, found that in parasuicide cases the stated goal was often not to die, and that this pattern held across countries, age groups, and genders. Other research shows that when you separate out the truly high-lethality, clear-intent attempts, the ratio of deaths to attempts looks nothing like "one in twenty."
The law makes similar distinctions. In England and Wales, Section 76 of the Serious Crime Act 2015 makes controlling or coercive behavior a criminal offense, and official guidance lists threats and manipulative acts within a relationship as examples including using suicide threats to pressure or control someone. In the United States, definitions vary by state, but coercive control is recognized in several jurisdictions. California's Family Code §6320, for instance, treats it as behavior that "disturbs the peace" and can justify a protective order. Courts and legal scholars there have noted that suicide threats used as leverage in a relationship can amount to domestic violence. At the federal level, the Department of Justice defines domestic violence as a pattern of power and control, with threats and other coercive tactics squarely included.
So clinically, there's solid evidence that a portion of so-called suicide attempts are better understood as communication or relational pressure, not a determined wish to die. Legally, both in parts of Europe and in the U.S., emotional blackmail of this kind including threats of suicide is recognized as a form of abuse. That's why repeating "one completed for every twenty failed" without unpacking what those twenty consist of hides the real variation in intent and lethality, and ends up producing a number that's meaningless from a clinical or forensic point of view.

 

[kopebaldy]

Regardless of whether that statistic is correct.

I feel like most attempts are made when the person wasn't in their right mind, or they're just uninformed. Heck, I didn't even know that OD and wrist cutting were useless.

It's more likely to fail if you just grab whatever available at home and didn't have a clear plan. Suicide is hard dude, I failed twice already.

Also, someone was pushed to the point of thinking that ending their life was the only choice and you're here trying to gatekeep fucking suicide?

What the hell, mate?

 

[theboy]

I do not know

There are many failed attempts

 

[Dejected 55]

I'm not even sure what the statistic is being used to say. The successes being "low" may or may not mean anything. A high number of attempts, to me, says a lot of people were hoping for success. If methods get more reliable, more of those attempts turn into success... which means a lot of people really don't want to be here. Seems like maybe everyone else might want to pay attention to that?

 

[Eriktf]

i agree that the statistic are probably a little off

sure taking a few paracetamol and calling for an ambulance are close to 0% success rate but it do not mean they didnt want to die when he/she did it so its hard to say if it should make the statistic or not

but im sure when i drove in to a big rock and didnt tell anyone it was not an accident that didnt make it in to the statistic

a statistic about suicide attempts would be hard to keep accurate

but it really not a competition about who the most suicidal

i think all attempts should be taken equally Severus even if there was no intent to die

 

[ceilng_tile]

I can't say I remember most of it cos my memory sucks, but I have read a lot of suicide literature and studies and I've seen those numbers quite a lot. Sometimes ranging between 10 to 25 of attempts that do not result in death for each that does, depending on the study and org. But yep I'd say they are pretty legit or point somewhere.

I don't know the exact reasons. There is still a prevalence to overdose on medication, specially on women, and sadly it is not sufficiently public knowledge that that most likely won't kill you. So that might account for failed ones and awful experiences. And no method is certain either. Plus regret and survival instinct, or however you want to put that. This site doesn't shy away from the fact suicide is a hard thing. Sometimes that's a good thing. I don't know what to think about a lot of stuff still.


however this I don't stand for.
Some statistics aren't worth invalidating people's real struggles and suicidality, specially when there is no need to alter them. Gatekeeping will always be a thing, you'll feel better if you decide an outer group and label it the fake ones, the ones that pretend while you are "really going through it", you can gain validation for yourself in contrast. And I believe that you Are going through it, but these people too, and they are no strawmans or how you'd wish they'd be, they are actual people and you can look around.

Shit like "If you wanted to die you'd done it already" "those who truly want to die" "calls for attention" is the kind of things we hear from people who don't know what this feels like, and it adds to the lack of understanding and stigma. It makes these people feel worse than how they are already feeling. But if you don't believe they are feeling much and its a performance, I understand why it's easier to say it.

I'm sorry about your aunt she seems like a manipulative pitiful person.
but you got the wrong lesson from that. Suicidality is complicated and not your aunt. Suicidal people are not your aunt.
I don't expect you to change your mind about it all a sudden, but please don't come here perpetuating those views. It helps no one here and if anything this place should be for helping.

Agreed. Even if someone really is just "doing it for attention," the fact that they have to go to such lengths to get people to listen means more about the people around them than it does about them.