I live in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and what I saw in today’s paper saddened me. The suicide rates are up 12% percent from just five years ago. There were 119 people that killed themselves in my hometown last year, and 578 committed suicide in my state in the same period. Suicide rates are twice the rate of homicides in Oklahoma.
Oklahoma is just a small state. In 2005 nationwide there were 32,637 suicides. Most of these deaths were young men. Most of the young man were plagued with depression.
What is going on, why are the suicide rates increasing? The paper called it the “Hidden Epidemic.” The suicide rate has tripled nationally in the last 30 years.
I doubt there is just one reason for it. I can see the pressure being put on young people in school to achieve far beyond what I experienced. Why? Why is all this necessary, people are individuals, they learn at different rates, humans just don’t fit into the “one schedule, one method for everyone” routine offered in most schools and businesses.
Churches are losing attendance, holding onto ancient doctrines that no longer work with the better educated young people. Science has become materialistic, or naturalistic, teaching spiritual things are nonsense, and mythology according to many scientists.
Where will the young turn to find meaning and purpose for their lives. How will they cope with the vicissitudes of today’s modern life styles. It is time to start addressing some of these problems in earnest.
I know some of them are finding meaning and purpose in near death experiences. A spirituality without religion. Millions of people have had near death experiences and have been changed for the better. Just reading near death experiences have helped many more. There is meaning and purpose to life, we are eternal beings and will live after the death of our bodies, these things we have learned from NDEs, and the research on them.
There is hope for the future for everyone.
© 2009, Lekatt. All rights reserved.
I also live in Tulsa and check the police website often looking for any calls that may affect my area. I have noticed that the calls for suicides or suicidal subjects are daily occurrences and must be many times any calls for persons down or homicides. Those with suicidal thoughts ought to realize that these calls are so common that the authorities treat them as a routine chore, about like a traffic stop. Certainly not newsworthy. Wake up. If you think nobody cares about you now and that committing suicide will somehow change that and make them sorry, be advised. The only way to interact with your fellow man at all is to stay alive; once you kill yourself you are beneath noticing and afterwards nothing more than a few bits of data entry for the statistics.