Metro Letter about Suicide Myth

The following letter discusses the
student-suicide shooting that occurred in Montgomery County last week.
I previously explained that Shane Halligan pointed to despair over low
grades and prompt punishment from his parents that put the final nail
in the coffin, which led to his public suicide. I had moments when I
was so upset over my grades that I wanted to kill myself, but Mr. Romer
is right – there is a larger issue at hand that would trigger an
adolescent to suicide. The following is a letter to the editor from
Metro’s Tuesday, December 19, 2006 edition (p. 16):

Correct the myth about suicides

PHILADELPHIA. Regarding “Suicide rocks
school” (Dec. 13): A young person’s violent suicide death in a public
setting is surely a big story – but a dangerous one. Your coverage of
the death is misleading at best and perpetuates a myth about suicide
that has little basis in fact.

We know that such stories prominently
displayed can lead others who lead others who have thought (sic) of
suicide to do the same. Considerable research has found that such
tragic events are preceded by periods of intense mental distress, most
often diagnosable as major depression. This is far more serious than
being “despondent over his grades,” as one official – a lawyer, not a
mental health professional – speculated.

Correcting the myth that some relatively
trivial immediate event caused the death may help others in similar
shoes to get the assistance they need rather than to act on the same
impulse. — Daniel Romer

Mr. Romer is the director of the Adolescent Risk Communication Institute at the University of Pennsylvania

Loose Screws Mental Health News

Cyberonics has its vagus nerve stimulator (VNS) while Neurontics is attempting to promote its Neurostar. The Food and Drug Administration will consider whether Neurontics’ device will be able to compete with Cyberonics’ device on Jan. 26. The VNS, according to FDA standards, is the only device that has been proven to show efficacy in depression treatment for those who do not respond to drug treatment. While the VNS is surgically implanted in the chest and stimulates nerves in the neck to alleviate depression, Neurontics claims that Neurostar is not surgically implanted and uses magnetic pulses over the course of three to six weeks to stimulate a patient’s brain.

In the most shocking news ever, the Australian Mental Health Council has found that marijuana can induce mental illness. [sarcasm] Former Federal Police commissioner Mick Palmer has noted three significant conclusions from the MHC report: Cannabis use can:

• increase the risk of mental illness in young adults, namely with those who have a family history of psychosis

• make any current mental illness worse

• induce poor education and employment outcomes

This report once again reminds us, kids, that we must always say no to drugs. Especially if you’re mentally ill.

An article from the UK Guardian points out that Hollywood’s depiction of mental illness is NOT what people experience on a normal basis. Tim Lott states the reality of mental illness quite well:

“Genuinely accurate depictions of mental illness are still rare in all the art forms. Why? For the very good reason that real mental illness is boring. Depressives are toxic and dull. Manic depressives are irritating. People with schizophrenia or autism are largely indecipherable.”

Just in case you didn’t know, depression can be a problem during the holidays. Oh and p.s. from the article: those who abuse anti-depressants are more likely to commit suicide. You know… just in case you were wondering. Amy Alkon at the Advice Goddess Blog rightly shoots down the holiday-suicide increase myth.

NBC5 in Chicago has reported that “brain music” can help fight depression. Brain waves are recorded through an EEG (electroencephalogram) and then the recordings are turned into a music CD containing two files. According to Dr. Galina Mindlin, who introduced the therapy to the U.S. from Russia, says one file helps a patient relax and the other file helps increase “concentration, performance and productivity.” Mindlin adds that the “relax” music helps decrease anxiety levels in a patient and helps the patient fall asleep and stay asleep. The treatment, according to NBC5, has been used in Europe for the past 15 years, but is not widely available in the U.S. BUT if you’re itching to try it, you’d better have some dough in your pocket: it’s not covered by insurance and costs $550.