Suicide Is More Common Than You Think

[hedezev4]

I wanted to make this post because I think many people underestimate how common suicide actually is.
Like me — and probably many others who've looked up the stats at some point — I didn't fully understand the scale of it.
At first, I thought the figure of 10–25 per 100,000 referred to a lifetime risk, not a yearly one.
Earlier today I saw a post, and most of what I'm sharing here is actually a reply to that. In that post, someone claimed that only 1 in 150,000 people die by suicide. I replied in detail, and after writing it all out, I felt like it deserved its own post.

I'll use statistics from my own country. According to different sources, there are:

1. 11 suicides per 100,000 people per year (official data), and
2. 25 per 100,000 per year (according to the World Health Organization).

If we take the average life expectancy — 72 years — we get:

1. 11 × 72 = 835 suicides per 100,000 over a lifetime
100,000 / 835 = 1 in 120

2. 25 × 72 = 1,807
100,000 / 1,807 = 1 in 55

So over a lifetime, somewhere between 1 in 120 and 1 in 55 people die by suicide.
It's also possible to adjust for age, as suicide risk differs across age groups, but I chose not to include that here.
We can also break it down by gender — in my country, around 80% of suicides are committed by men.

For men:

1. 80% of 835 = 668
   50,000 (half of population) / 668 = 1 in 75
2. 80% of 1,807 = 1,445
   50,000 / 1,445 = 1 in 35

For women:

1. 20% of 835 = 167
   50,000 / 167 = 1 in 299
2. 20% of 1,807 = 362
   50,000 / 362 = 1 in 138

So the lifetime suicide risk for men is roughly 1 in 35 to 1 in 75, and for women it's 1 in 138 to 1 in 299.
These numbers can go even higher if someone has additional risk factors — such as mental illness, substance abuse (including alcohol), unemployment, a previous suicide attempt, social isolation or loneliness, the loss of a relationship, academic failure, or belonging to the LGBTQ+.
So in the end, suicide is not as rare as people often think.

 

[dust-in-the-wind]

It just isn't talked about because of the stigma. That is why normal people have the impression it's not common.

 

[Darkover]

evidence suggests the lifetime worldwide prevalence of suicide is around
1% that's 80 million people, and the one-year prevalence is around 0.01% that's 800,000 people,
the lifetime worldwide prevalence of attempted suicide is around
5% that's 400 million people, and the one-year prevalence is around 0.2% that's 16 million people

1 in 20 will attempt suicide during their lifetime

 

[FuneralCry]

I always wish to be them as all I want is to never suffer in this cruel, torturous and deeply undesirable existence I always saw as a mistake, for me non-existence is just all that's positive for me and is all I see as desirable.

I just wish for an eternal dreamless sleep free from all cruelty and suffering where this existence is all gone and forgotten and I'd just always prefer to not exist than be burdened with this existence of unnecessary suffering with no limit as to how much agony I can feel, I always suffer from how I cannot just have the option to cease existing peacefully and never suffer ever again, I'd never wish to exist in this horrific anti-suicide world.

 

[Haibane-renmei-reki]

I wanted to make this post because I think many people underestimate how common suicide actually is.
Like me — and probably many others who've looked up the stats at some point — I didn't fully understand the scale of it.
At first, I thought the figure of 10–25 per 100,000 referred to a lifetime risk, not a yearly one.
Earlier today I saw a post, and most of what I'm sharing here is actually a reply to that. In that post, someone claimed that only 1 in 150,000 people die by suicide. I replied in detail, and after writing it all out, I felt like it deserved its own post.

I'll use statistics from my own country. According to different sources, there are:

1. 11 suicides per 100,000 people per year (official data), and
2. 25 per 100,000 per year (according to the World Health Organization).

If we take the average life expectancy — 72 years — we get:

1. 11 × 72 = 835 suicides per 100,000 over a lifetime
100,000 / 835 = 1 in 120

2. 25 × 72 = 1,807
100,000 / 1,807 = 1 in 55

So over a lifetime, somewhere between 1 in 120 and 1 in 55 people die by suicide.
It's also possible to adjust for age, as suicide risk differs across age groups, but I chose not to include that here.
We can also break it down by gender — in my country, around 80% of suicides are committed by men.

For men:

1. 80% of 835 = 668
   50,000 (half of population) / 668 = 1 in 75
2. 80% of 1,807 = 1,445
   50,000 / 1,445 = 1 in 35

For women:

1. 20% of 835 = 167
   50,000 / 167 = 1 in 299
2. 20% of 1,807 = 362
   50,000 / 362 = 1 in 138

So the lifetime suicide risk for men is roughly 1 in 35 to 1 in 75, and for women it's 1 in 138 to 1 in 299.
These numbers can go even higher if someone has additional risk factors — such as mental illness, substance abuse (including alcohol), unemployment, a previous suicide attempt, social isolation or loneliness, the loss of a relationship, academic failure, or belonging to the LGBTQ+.
So in the end, suicide is not as rare as people often think.

I wrote about this last night on another thread, many countries have a HUGE stigma on this topic and most C.T.B cases just get reported as "incidents":

"places like the Islamic world where suicide is a huge taboo tend to have misleading suicide stats, because mostly they get reported as incidents thanks to shame that it brings to the families in question, they keep it a secret and tell everyone that it was an incident, because they don't want to say that their child/partner/parent/sibling etc commited suicide."

 

[Apathy79]

evidence suggests the lifetime worldwide prevalence of suicide is around
1% that's 80 million people, and the one-year prevalence is around 0.01% that's 800,000 people,
the lifetime worldwide prevalence of attempted suicide is around
5% that's 400 million people, and the one-year prevalence is around 0.2% that's 16 million people

1 in 20 will attempt suicide during their lifetime

These feel about right anecdotally too. And line up with the OP. That's a lot of attempted suicides. We're not so niche here after all.

 

[SoulWhisperer]

Interesting post, I've read something about frequency and relative rarity of deaths by suicide.

 

[wham311]

Just makes me livid that I was put in a place that so many people want out of.

Makes me feel even worse that my parents were doing so much better than me that they couldn't have imagined I'd do this poorly

 

[Upon a hanging Body]

Good job doing all the work for this post! Suicide itself is usually something people don't publicly disclose for others , it's highly stigmatized.
People are afraid of losing people because in return they could follow after them.

 

[bananaolympus]

Well it is the number 1 cause of death of ppl aged 18-25 i believe

 

[theboy]

So sad:/

 

[ChinUp]

Just makes me livid that I was put in a place that so many people want out of.

Makes me feel even worse that my parents were doing so much better than me that they couldn't have imagined I'd do this poorly

Hi. I don't want to be here anymore. I'd rather die. I don't want to go to the hospital. I need someone who understands.

 

[wham311]

Hi. I don't want to be here anymore. I'd rather die. I don't want to go to the hospital. I need someone who understands.

Exact same.

 

[Ligottian]

I saw this in the book The Savage God, by A. Alvarez. Sometime back when Ireland was hardcore Catholic, a coroner ruled a man's death as "Accident while cleaning gun with his tongue". Seriously.

 

[Kali_Yuga13]

I came across a thread in the reddit bereavement sub from a family member of someone that used SN and a bunch of people chimed in reporting the same. I was quite surprised actually.

At any given moment there's usually 25X more lurkers than member users browsing here. The majority of people that ctb aren't on this site ruminating over every detail or just drive-by to find a method. In a 2018 article I read about Amazon and SN it said they shipped something like 11k units before clamping down. That's a lot of people sitting on the means for that one method and I assume there's a trickle of those that end up using it over time adding the the overall numbers.

There's also the fact that elderly people do commit suicide. Some just take extra pills they have on hand unbeknownst to anyone and are ruled death by natural causes.

Intentional opiate IDs made to look accidental. Probably some amount of missing persons are suicides in remote areas.

 

[ChinUp]

I live at home with my dad and I want to ctb but don't know exactly what to do. I just want to go!

 

[Cauliflour]

I saw this in the book The Savage God, by A. Alvarez. Sometime back when Ireland was hardcore Catholic, a coroner ruled a man's death as "Accident while cleaning gun with his tongue". Seriously.

I'm sorry it was so funny I had to draw it...

 

[Douggy82]

I'll use statistics from my own country. According to different sources, there are:

1. 11 suicides per 100,000 people per year (official data), and
2. 25 per 100,000 per year (according to the World Health Organization).

If we take the average life expectancy — 72 years — we get:

1. 11 × 72 = 835 suicides per 100,000 over a lifetime
100,000 / 835 = 1 in 120

2. 25 × 72 = 1,807
100,000 / 1,807 = 1 in 55

So over a lifetime, somewhere between 1 in 120 and 1 in 55 people die by suicide.

Why would you multiple 11 x 72?

 

[hedezev4]

Why would you multiple 11 x 72?

To calculate the lifetime suicide risk for an average person. 72 is the average life expectancy in country X. This is because standard statistics on this topic only take into account the number of suicides per year.