Reply #16: and this is what I have found so far...

[xray s]

http://www.mercola.com/2002/jan/12/abuse_suicide.htm

JAMA December 26, 2001;286:3039-3096

Early Childhood Abuse Linked to Suicide Attempts

Adults who suffered abuse or other negative experiences during their childhood are more likely than their peers to attempt suicide decades later.

The researchers found that individuals with at least one type of harmful childhood experience were two to five times more likely to attempt suicide. For example, those who reported being emotionally abused as a child were five times more likely to report a suicide attempt, while those who reported having had parents who divorced or separated during childhood were nearly twice as likely to report a later suicide attempt.

People who experience several traumatic events may be 30 to 50 times as likely to attempt suicide at some point in their life -- either in childhood or adulthood -- as those with a more carefree past, the researchers estimate.

(snip)

For example, Dube said, only 1.1% of adults who reported no negative childhood experiences attempted suicide. In contrast, 35% of adults who reported seven or more negative childhood experiences had attempted suicide.

Early exposure to these negative events may disrupt the proper development of the neural pathways within the brain, affecting subsequent mental health.

I know this is only one study, but it seems to me environmental factors of abuse would drastically increase the probabilty of dispair in an individual that could then lead to suicide.