simistic teenagers reported low depression while pregnant (perhaps
because of the belief that connection to the baby and the baby’s fa-
ther would solve ongoing problems), but reported high depression
postpartum (perhaps because, in addition to the usual physiological
and psychological challenges of childbirth, the idea that motherhood
would solve ongoing problems was not confirmed).85
If failed belongingness is implicated in suicidality, one might pre-
dict that twins enjoy some protection from suicide, given the belong-
ingness inherent in twinship. If fact, there is evidence to support this
prediction. Using population-based register data from Denmark, re-
searchers found that twins have a reduced risk of suicide. The suicide
rate among the more than 21,000 twins, as compared to nontwins,
was 26 percent lower for men and 31 percent lower for women.86
Some studies have found mental illness to be slightly more common
among twins than among singletons. Twins’ belongingness may off-
set the risk for suicide conferred by slightly higher rates of mental
disorders.
The loss of a parent relatively early in life appears to confer risk for
suicide later in life. In Eskimos in the Bering Strait region, the major-
ity of a sample of suicide attempters had lost a parent during child-
hood.87 Close to half of a sample of famous people who died by sui-
cide experienced loss of a parent before age eighteen.88 Researchers
The Desire for Death ● 127
compared the records of patients with borderline personality disor-
der who had died by suicide to living control patients with border-
line personality (a stringent comparison, because some proportion
of the living control patients were at elevated risk for later suicide by
virtue of their borderline personality disorder diagnosis). The sui-
cide group experienced childhood losses such as death of a parent
more frequently than the control group.89 There are of course alter-
native explanations to the link between early separation from a par-
ent and later suicidality in the child (especially if the parent’s death
was by suicide, in which case genetics would be implicated), but a di-
minished sense of belongingness from losing a parent is one viable
viewpoint.
Immigration and Suicide
Like separations from parents, separations from a “mother country,”
according to a belongingness view, might be associated with height-
ened suicidality. The very high rate of suicide in Buenos Aires, Ar-
gentina in the late 1800s was attributed to massive immigration, with
a high rate of suicide among foreign-born males.90 In a study of
nearly lethal suicide attempts by 153 people and 513 matched con-
trols, participants were asked about changing residence over the past
year. Changing residence in the past year was associated with a nearly
lethal suicide attempt, as were specific dimensions related to the
move, such as distance and difficulty staying in touch.91 All of these
aspects of moving are associated with a sense of disconnection.
National Tragedies and Suicide
In times of acute national crisis, people pull together, and belong-
ingness should thus increase. According to my model, then, national
crises, despite their negative aspects, should nevertheless suppress
suicide rates. There are data to support this view, at least regarding
three salient national tragedies in the United States. First, suicide
128 ● WHY PEOPLE DIE BY SUICIDE
rates in response to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy
were investigated. In the twenty-nine U.S. cities included in the re-
port, no suicides were reported during November 22–30, 1963. By
contrast, several suicides occurred during November 22–30 of years
before and after 1963.92 Second, in the two weeks preceding the Chal-
lenger disaster in 1986, there were 1,212 suicides in the United States;
in the two weeks following the disaster, there were 1,099. Third, al-
though detailed suicide rates are not readily available for the period
following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, calls to 1-800-
SUICIDE, a national toll-free suicide crisis hotline, plummeted from
an average of around 600 calls per day to around 300 per day—an
all-time low—in the days following the attacks.
An additional documented phenomenon that conforms to this
pattern is decreased suicide rates during times of war.93 Regarding
war, in their classic study, Dublin and Bunzel stated, “Contrary to
what might be expected, times of disorganization and chaos such as
prevail during a war apparently do not increase that personal disinte-
gration which leads to a larger number of self-inflicted deaths. It
would seem that the all-engrossing, unaccustomed activities and the
enlargement of interests to include more than the ordinary petty
concerns of a limited circle of family and friends absorb people’s en-
tire attention and prevent them from morbid brooding over individ-
ual troubles and disappointments . . . There is no time during war to
indulge in personal or imaginary worries.”94 They go on to document
relatively low rates of suicide during the American Civil War and the
Franco-Prussian War.
Statistical bulletins put out by Metropolitan Life Insurance Com-
pany in the 1940s also show low suicide rates during World War II. A
bulletin from 1942 states, “The death rate from suicides among the
policyholders of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. for 1942 is
practically the same as for 1941 and is with one exception the lowest
on record. Likewise, 1941 suicide rates in England were 15%, in Ger-
The Desire for Death ● 129
many 30% below the 1939 level. Wartime drop in suicide rates is a
general phenomenon observable even in neutral nations. The phe-
nomenon is ascribed to economic forces and such psychological
forces as forgetting one’s petty difficulties and finding a new purpose
in rallying to the defense of one’s country.”
A postwar bulletin put out in 1946 read, “The downward trend
characterizing the suicide death rate in this country during the war
was abruptly reversed following V-E Day.” Thus, nationally absorb-
ing incidents, whether they are tragedies or wars, tend to suppress
suicide rates, probably because they pull people together. In the case
of war, the pulling-together effect appears to fade as the war ends.
Does Being a Sports Fan Have Anything to Do with Suicide?
The camaraderie and sense of belongingness from being a fan of
sports teams can be considerable, especially under conditions of suc-
cess (as many who have lived in university towns have observed
when the university wins a national championship). It is interesting
to consider, then, whether teams’ success affects suicide rates; from
the present perspective, it might, in that increased belongingness
should be associated with lower suicide rates.
Believe it or not, some studies suggest a connection between sports
teams’ performance and suicide rates. One study assessed the
suicide
rates as they related to success of professional sports teams in twenty
U.S. metropolitan areas from 1971 to 1990. Results showed that the
team making the playoffs and winning a championship both were re-
lated to a decline in the local suicide rate.95 Another study examined
the association between a soccer team’s defeat (high-profile defeats
of Nottingham Forest in 1991 and 1992) and deliberate self-poison-
ing. The accident and emergency records of a university hospital
were examined, and results indicated an excess of deliberate self-
poisoning incidents during the time frames following the defeats.96
A third study postulated that a long run by hockey’s Montreal
130 ● WHY PEOPLE DIE BY SUICIDE
Canadiens in the Stanley Cup playoffs is a time when people in Que-
bec experience increased informal interpersonal contact, and that
this would serve to suppress the suicide rate in the area. By contrast,
when the Canadiens are eliminated early on, the study hypothesized
that interpersonal contact (belongingness) would be relatively less,
and the suicide rate might increase. One of the study’s clearer results
was an increase in the suicide rate in young men in Quebec when the
Canadiens were eliminated from the playoffs early on.97
It appears that sports teams’ poor performance can affect suicide
rates. Can good performance do so as well? My students and I re-
cently conducted three studies to see if sports-related “pulling to-
gether” is associated with lower suicide rates.98 In the first study, the
suicide rates in Franklin County (Columbus), Ohio, and Alachua
County (Gainesville), Florida were correlated with the final national
ranking of the local college football teams—the Ohio State Buckeyes
and the Florida Gators, respectively. These teams are of substantial
concern to the local population. Given the effect that these teams’
success has on their communities, we expected that there may be
an association between the teams’ final national ranking (which is
known by early January of a given year) and the suicide rate in that
year. In fact, we found that suicide rates in both Franklin County and
Alachua County were associated with national rankings of the col-
lege teams, such that better rankings were related to lower suicide
rates.
In the second of our three studies, we made a prediction regarding
the “Miracle on Ice,” when the U.S. Olympic hockey team upset the
Russians, the world’s dominant hockey team at the time. This oc-
curred on February 22, 1980. It is fair to say that the 1980 U.S. Olym-
pic hockey team’s surprising victory over the dominant USSR team
captured the country’s attention. In fact, twenty-two years later, the
players were the final torchbearers for the Salt Lake Winter Games,
and there was a 2004 movie about the team entitled Miracle. The vic-
The Desire for Death ● 131
tory itself was amazing, but its resonance was heightened by the
geopolitical climate at the time. On February 22, 1980—the date of
the “Miracle on Ice”—the Iran hostage crisis was in its 111th day,
and the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan was approximately
thirty days old. The victory, both in and of itself and because of its
symbolic qualities, clearly exerted a “pulling together” effect on peo-
ple in the United States. We therefore expected that the U.S. suicide
rate might be particularly low on February 22, 1980 as compared to
other February 22nds before and after. In fact it was—fewer suicides
occurred on the day of the “Miracle on Ice” than on any other Febru-
ary 22 in the 1970s and 1980s.
These first two studies, as well as the previous literature on sports
phenomena and suicide, leave open the possibility that suicide rates
are lower at times of success not because of pulling together, but be-
cause of a sense of increased efficacy, vicariously obtained through
the team’s success. The studies on national disasters are not compati-
ble with this possibility; nevertheless, in our third study, we were
able to address it directly in the domain of sports by examining the
number of suicides occurring in the United States on Super Bowl
Sunday, as compared to suicides occurring the Sunday before and
after. Though approximately a third of the U.S. population watches
the Super Bowl, the majority are not devoted fans of either of the
teams in a given Super Bowl; thus the “vicarious efficacy” explana-
tion would not be a convincing explanation for any Super Bowl ef-
fect. We predicted that suicide rates on Super Bowl Sundays would be
lower than on comparison Sundays, but only from the mid-1980s on,
when the Super Bowl was firmly entrenched in the national con-
sciousness as an occasion for social gathering (not just for men, but
for women too, in part because of the advertising and spectacle asso-
ciated with the game—a phenomenon that took hold in the early- to
mid-1980s).99 This was precisely what we found.
Although none of these three studies alone provides conclusive ev-
132 ● WHY PEOPLE DIE BY SUICIDE
idence that sports-related “pulling together” increases belongingness
and thus leads to reduced suicide rates, taken as a whole these studies
provide converging evidence that is consistent with the hypothesis.
This is particularly true when it is considered together with the di-
verse and converging lines of evidence (on twins, parents, poets,
Faulkner, etc.) relating low belongingness and suicidality.
Fans of teams that have not won championships in decades may
be wondering where they fit in here. A prominent example involves
fans of the Chicago Cubs (though having grown up in Atlanta, I
would point out that I can count major Atlanta sports champion-
ships on one finger, whereas people in Chicago have fared far better).
Would I predict high suicide rates in Chicago because of the Cubs?
My answer is no, and again, it has to do with belongingness. There
is a kind of camaraderie inherent in the Cubs’ plight, and Cubs
fans have pulled together, much as people do for serious tragedies.
Another interesting example, of course, is the Boston Red Sox. Like
the Cubs, their fans were long-suffering . . . until the fall of 2004, that is, when the Red Sox won the World Series. When detailed suicide
data are available for this period in Boston, it will be very interest-
ing to see whether the success of the Red Sox suppressed local sui-
cide rates.
Belonging to Death
In the previous chapter, I noted that people who are far along the tra-
jectory toward suicide come to see death in a very peculiar light; they
use terms like “beautiful” and “graceful” when describing it, and
seem to fuse concepts of death, destruction, and waste, on the one
hand, with life, sustenance, and nurturance, on the other hand. I be-
lieve this can only happen once someone has lost the visceral fear of
death—in other words, has acquired the ability to enact lethal self-
injury, as described in the last chapter. Thwarted
belongingness may
The Desire for Death ● 133
also be implicated. As people lose connections to others, they may
start to form connections to the idea of death. Consider, for example,
the quotations in Chapter 2 from Sylvia Plath’s poem “Edge” and
Richard Heckler’s interviews with suicide survivors.100 In such exam-
ples, there is no mention of other people; the connection is to death
and its symbols.
Some people do, however, merge the need to belong with
suicidality. In the September 13, 2003 issue of Asia Times Online,
reporter Suvendrini Kakuchi wrote, “Japan, a suicide-prone country,
is grappling with a new trend—a spate of Internet-related suicides
linked to websites where young people, who are total strangers, can
contact one another to plan their deaths.” The article continues, “The
latest incident was reported in May, when a 24-year-old man and two
women, 23 and 20, met for the first—and last—time at a train sta-
tion, got into a car together and drove to a wooded area where
they asphyxiated themselves.” The Japanese media reported they
had accessed a suicide website, and a letter left by the man in the car
revealed they had become acquainted for only one reason—“just
wanted to die together, nothing else.” By the logic of the model pre-
sented here, I assume that these people’s need to belong was
thwarted, which contributed to their desire for death. But it is a testi-
mony to the power of the need to belong that even in suicide, some
people want company.
Similarly, in Jon Hilkevitch’s Chicago Tribune article in 2004 on
recent suicides on subways and other rail lines, he wrote, “Almost
always, suicide victims peer into the locomotive cab in their final
moments. They stare right into the eyes of the engineer, perhaps
reaching for a last human connection.” An engineer said of a recent
suicide, slowly shaking his head, “He looked up at me right when I
hit him.” The engineer continued, “I’ve heard other engineers say
[people committing suicide] look at you. I don’t know why they do
134 ● WHY PEOPLE DIE BY SUICIDE
it. I sure wish they wouldn’t, because the picture stays with you. You
try to forget about it, but you don’t ever, really. It ain’t easy.”
How Do Burdensomeness and Thwarted Belongingness
Why People Die By Suicide Page 17