Suicide is an important topic which is affecting many people and their loved ones in our society. Although we hear about young people who die by suicide more prevalently, they are not the age group that is most affected. Older people actually have twice as many suicides in a given year than people 30 or younger.

However, every 12.8 minutes someone in America completes suicide. This is a lot of people while 78% of the actual suicides are male, 75% of the non-fatal attempts are female. The method people use are genera;;y: 51% firearms, 24.5% hanging, and 16% poisoning (which is most usually a drug or prescription overdose) Men tend to mostly use the more traumatic methods.

While many people feel that holiday times such as Christmas, etc. will bring on more suicide attempts, this is actually not borne out of statistics. The spring time (primarily the month of April) actually shows a higher incident of suicide. It is important to keep in mind that suicide is not caused so much by difficult life situations, but by medical and psychological problems. Over 90% of suicide victims have been diagnosed with such things as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, or other mental and emotional concerns. This should be something of a comfort to the loved ones, who tend to take on a lot of guilt, thinking they should have been able to prevent the loss.