People commit suicide for a number of reasons, in ancient times a commander of soldiers was expected to ‘fall on his sword’ (literally) if he was defeated or risked capture, and this was seen as the honorable thing to do.
Today suicide is associated with mental illness and depression more often then a particular event.
I firmly believe todays society plays a big part in the higher suicide rates we have today, particularly in teenagers, who have the dubious Honor of having the majority of suicides per age bracket.
people today don’t spend time together as families, and don’t take enough time to talk and connect with one another, meaning any problems someone is facing often go unnoticed within families or social groups.
The social norm for what young people should do is now also less clear, years ago there were drastically fewer choices, people generally followed their families into trade employment, and got married, or else chose from a vastly smaller range of subjects if they did go to college, that were more often linked to a specific career and path. Today teenagers are given progressively more and more choices as to what they can do, and yet are expected to know what they want to do for the rest of their lives by their later teen years, and are expected to be on the way there.
This creates feelings of being lost, and uncertain where to turn for answers, and this coupled with the pressure they are feeling from every direction can cause depression which before long turns into thoughts of suicide. As often as not people who are attempting suicide these days don’t hate themselves, as much as the word and its expectations and pressures.
