Suicides in South Florida

[Karl-G]

This has nothing to do with being gay.

 

There have been a number of suicides here in South Florida that I know about because they took place in my building or close-by, and none has been reported in the paper. Four to be exact. I wonder why?

 

Yesterday, on one of the royalty message boards I read about the recent suicide by jumping off a building of a young Romanov descendant here in South Florida. It took place only a few blocks from where I live, and I read the paper daily. Nothing locally ever appeared, although the New York Times apparently reported it as a sudden accident. Last week my cleaning lady reported a suicide from the 18th floor of the building I lived in formerly. Nothing in the paper. Several months ago a lady jumped off a balcony in a building nearby; a friend of mine was president of the condo association and told me. We watched the papers - nothing. About the same time, another friend, living on Galt Ocean Mile and a member of the board, told me of a lady who had jumped off her building. Nothing in the paper. She also said she knew of others in the past which had never appeared in the paper.

 

I wonder if the suicide rate is unusually high here along the coast in high rises? But no one talks about it? Many families do not want suicide mentioned in death notices, I guess, but still. Is anyone else aware of such events?

[SteveStacks]

That's quite sad....

Such a waste....

 

There have been some studies done that seem to indicate strongly that published reports of suicides trigger copycat suicides in the weeks following. Several of them are cited in the book "Influence" which discusses patterns of social behavior.

 

Among the most disturbing evidence of the potential causal connection is the fact that certain traits in the reported suicides match those of the ones which ensue.

ie a reported suicide which involves others triggers suicides which involve others and a reported suicide which involves only the suicidal individual triggers suicides which only involve the single individual etc.

 

in this case, it seems like some of the victims you mentioned may have been aware (perhaps through similar community channels by which you found out about it?) of the previous suicides and the similarity between the victim's choice of method may be further indication of just those patterns of social behavior.

 

there are a lot of sad people out there and apparently being reminded of the suicide "option" triggers some of those people to emulate the act. it may be for that reason that the local press is not reporting these suicides. If the data from those studies is being analyzed correctly, their discretion on the matter is a good thing.

[Louis]

When you read an obituary where it reads, "died unexpectedly" it could very likely be a suicide.

It is rare when news papers will used the word suicide. Family are dealing and friends are dealing with a death of a loved one, and many of those releatives or friends would be questioning themselves about what they could have done to prevent it. For a news paper to use the word suicide it would make a very private, painfull event public.

There is a town east of where I currently lived and two iron ore mines were shut down in the 80's. One of the guys I worked with was from there, and everytime he would go home, which was almost weekly another friend of his (who would have been a teenager), would have commited suicide. This went on for a few months unfortunately. Kids were making secret pacts with each other and there were also copy cats. Engineers on various railways unfortunately run over people who commit suicide. It happens more often than one would think. I know several engineers and conductors, and didn't know how bad it was until they had mentioned it last spring. There was a string of such suicides around May, east of Thunder Bay.

[Guest zipperzone]

Just slightly off topic.......

 

Can you imagine a situation where you would commit suicide?

[+ Tygerscent]

It's obviouse they don't like that building! Try painting ro throwing some new bark mulch around~ It works wonders.

Seriously though... I've been to Florida. There's a lot of meth and class/economic oppression there. High crime and difficult home situations as a result of it. Pretty obvious class distinction as well.

Seattle seems to have a high suicide rate. I think due to the weather up there.

There are a few places I travel very carefully in: Philly, (statistically high violent crime rate), Miami & Fort Lauderdale even during broad day light and San Francisco. Coincidently, chrystal is very prevalent in those places.

 

Tyger!

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[+ Tygerscent]

Actually, I can... I had a partner of 5 years... love of my life. Brilliant Chemist and science researcher. Sweet, charming, funny, beautiful brown eyes and naughty in a really cute way. I dated him for 5 years and took care for him for five more after that. Shortly after we met, he moved in. I put him through college at Univeristy of Portland and we were both accepted to medical school upon his graduation. Three months prior to us going to med school the company I worked for called me away from our home on the coast and back to Portland to cover a strike situation. In the two months I was gone he got mixed up with Meth. He fled to Palm Springs the day before my return home from the strike and got deeper into the meth. In a very short period of time he became paranoid and was hallucinating and hearing voices. After six or seven tries, he eventually succeeded in committed suicide in 2001. It was not a pretty site.

This past january I finally took his pictures down. I took them off the wall and put them on my desk, then moved them to my big wooden bowl on the floor, then moved them into a paper bag and finally into a box. That in itself took me about three weeks~ I can't even being to tell you how much I miss him~ After the meth there was no day where he felt safe in his life. He was over the top devoured by inner fear.

So to answer your response, I can imagine it. It's emmence and stifling at the same time. My original respons to this was humorous but my deeper feeling on it is not that at all.

 

Tyger!

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