Title: Depression and Suicide | Psychology Today
Headings: Depression and Suicide
Depression and Suicide
On This Page
How does depression lead to suicidal thinking?
How common is suicide in depression?
When does emotional pain become unbearable?
What factors raise the risk of suicide among the depressed?
How can I tell if suicide is a risk?
Do anti-suicide pacts work?
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Content: According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2 percent of people ever treated for depression in an outpatient setting take their own life. Among those ever hospitalized for treatment of depression, the rate of death by suicide is twice as high (4 percent). Among those hospitalized for depression because of suicidal ideation or suicide attempt, 6 percent eventually take their own life. About 60 percent of people who kill themselves have a mood disorder that s potentially treatable; younger persons who kill themselves often have a substance abuse disorder as well. Life events involving loss —a job, a relationship, one’s health—play a role, too. When does emotional pain become unbearable? Suicide, some observers believe, is less an attempt to end one’s own life than to escape the mental pain of endless negative thoughts, reliving life’s failures and defeats, enduring constant self-recrimination, and envisioning only bleakness ahead, which are the hallmarks of depression. Rejection of any kind—relationship breakup, the silence of a friend, social shunning— is one of the harshest experiences a human can endure and can create so much emotional agony that it is increasingly linked to suicide attempts among young adults. Studies show that the same areas of the brain that are activated by physical pain are activated when we experience rejection.