Same here on the suicides. I know a disproportionate number of people who have killed themselves. I read somewhere long ago that suicide is the flip side of murder. Some people go one way, others go the other, when their emotional states put them in that situation.
Some go both ways as in the mass shootings, or wife and children killings, followed by suicide.
I suppose civil people with strongly anti-criminal collectivist inclinations, like Japanese, opt for suicide, while strongly criminal places with individual gain and survival, such as South Africa, go for murder.
I can right now think of 8 people in our families, and acquaintances, who have killed themselves. They were all benign people who found life too hard going, with emotional separation and odd childhoods [in the cases I know about their childhoods]. Plus others who were not far away from it, including attempts. Only one was in the older age group, about 65 years old, the rest being young or young middle-aged.
Maybe I just know a lot of people so it seems disproportionate - murder and suicide are highly noticeable and memorable.
Mqurice |
