Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide

...We know, for example, a great deal about the underlying conditions that predispose an individual to kill himself—heredity, severe mental illness, an impulsive or violent temperament—and we know, too, that there are some events or circumstances in life that interact in a particularly deadly way with these predisposing vulnerabilities: romantic failures or upheavals; economic and job setbacks; confrontations with the law; terminal or debilitating illnesses; situations that cause great shame, or are perceived as such; the injudicious use of alcohol or drugs. We have much knowledge, as well, about who commits suicide: the most vulnerable age groups and the social backgrounds and gender of those most at risk; and we know, too, about the hows and wheres and whens of suicide: the methods used; the places, times, and seasons chosen. But we are less certain of why people kill themselves. Psychological states, complex motives, and subtle biological differences are difficult enough to ascertain in the living; determining their existence, or the role they may play in those who die by suicide, is something else again...

NO ONE KNOWS who the first was to slash his throat with a piece of flint, take a handful of poison berries, or intentionally drop his spear to the ground in battle. Nor do we know who first jumped impulsively, or after thought, from a great cliff; walked without food into an ice storm; or stepped into the sea with no intention of coming back. Death, as Seneca states, has always lain close at hand; yet it is a mystery why the first to kill himself did: Was it a sudden impulse, or prolonged disease? An inner voice, commanding death? Perhaps shame or the threat of capture by an enemy tribe? Despair? Exhaustion? Pressure from others to spare common resources of food and land? No one knows...We will never know who or why or how the first to kill himself did (or herself; we will never know that either). But it is very likely that once suicide occurred and others were cognizant of it, the act was repeated...