The controversial new Netflix series 13 Reasons Why is “not helpful”, says Australia’s national suicide prevention charity as it strives to reach a cross-sector response to the issue.
Representatives from industries including finance, agribusiness, retail and sport joined suicide prevention experts and academics for the inaugural National Stop Suicide Summit in Sydney on Monday, hosted by Lifeline Australia.
How do you attack the loneliness of modern life that makes people feel this way?
The chief executive of Lifeline, Pete Shmigel, said suicide was a society-wide problem businesses needed to respond to, not just the mental health sector.
Suicide remains the leading cause of death for Australians aged between 15 and 44, with 3,027 deaths in 2015. The overall rate that year was 12.6 per 100,000: the highest rate in more than 10 years.
Suicide was particularly prevalent within male-dominated industries – blue-collar jobs, such as in construction and mining, featured heavily, said Shmigel – as well as those that granted access to the means of suicide, such as medicine.
“If you’ve got access to highly potent, dangerous drugs, you’re going to have a higher rate.”
The issue could not be addressed by the health system alone. “Basically we’re asking: how do you attack the loneliness of modern life that makes people feel this way?”
That presented opportunities for Lifeline Australia and other charities to collaborate with the private sector in suicide prevention, Shmigel said.
Twitter was sharing its data relevant to suicide – “times of day, trigger points, key vocabulary” – with the Black Dog Institute, a not-for-profit facility for diagnosis, treatment and prevention of mood disorders and affiliated with the University of New South Wales.
The financial sector had insight into how debt might factor into suicide risk too, he said. “These people have a wealth of data that we think can empower us in terms of suicide prevention.”
Depictions and discussion of suicide could help when part of the problem was that it was taboo to talk about.
“That’s the fine balance: reporting about suicide as a theme, as a topic, as an experience, to illustrate that hundreds of thousands of people go through [thoughts of suicide] every year, but only 3,000 die by it.
“I think part of the narrative around suicide has to be that … most get through it and go on to live positive and productive lives; let’s share that side of the story.”
Shmigel expressed concern that 13 Reasons Why ran the risk of presenting suicide as a “legitimate choice”, and crossed a line in its detailed depiction of means.
“Once you start talking about means, that gets very dangerous. People who are susceptible, that’s the one situation where you can tip them a bit.
“In this case, 13 Reasons Why has gone over that line, which is not helpful.”
Shmigel also had reservations about the effectiveness of news reports that skirted around suicide deaths, citing “no suspicious circumstances”.
“I for one don’t know if that’s helpful. If we continue to communicate in these secret codes about suicide, we continue to perpetuate some of the shame.”
Honesty and openness was key, said Shmigel, when thoughts of suicide seemed to be “part of the human condition”.
“These thoughts, this behaviour, affect hundreds of thousands of people; it’s not necessarily because you’re crazy or you’re unwell … We need to put it into context and say ‘I’ve had these thoughts too’.
“It happens. We get down. It’s kind of in the nature of how our brains work, and most of us get through it.”
- Readers seeking support and information about suicide prevention can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14; Suicide Call Back Service 1300 659 467; MensLine Australia 1300 78 99 78; Multicultural Mental Health Australia www.mmha.org.au; Local Aboriginal Medical Service available from www.vibe.com.au
13 Reasons Why "not helpful", suicide prevention summit told
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