A customer at work told me people will start committing suicide soon

[Haole Girl]

She took off on a long tirade about the economy.
I kept trying to steer her away from it but she wouldn't let it go.

She was being melodramatic, right?

People aren't going to start committing suicide, in large numbers, because they have lost their jobs and can't pay their bills... right?

Will someone please try to reassure me?

Her thick Jamaican accent is still haunting me.

:-(

[hobbit709]

1. There's already been an increase in violence.

[csziggy]

55. Yes, the "domestic violence" numbers so far this year in Florida are over 8,000 cases

Last year's total was just a little over 15,000. Why can't these fucks take it out on the shitheads who set up this mess instead of on their families? The Florida Legislature is still fucking around and not helping anyone with this steaming pile of shit they made of our state.

[Jamastiene]

2. No, most will

commit theft, robbery, possibly homicide, and other such types of things for survival first. "Robin Hood" style gangs may even pop up here and there.

Suicide will be a much less often seen act compared to the survival of the fittest actions.

[Deja Q]

10. Ironic, what we call "fit"...

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. During the Great Depression of the '30s the suicide rate did increase

from 14 to 17 per 100,000 people. But the current situation is not nearly as bad as it was then (yet, and maybe not ever). Chances are that there may be more than the usual numbers of suicides, because people who are already stressed, depressed and having other troubles in their lives may be pushed over the edge by additional hardships caused by the economy. However, your co-worker is certainly being melodramatic -- there will not be masses of suicides in the streets.

[MadMaddie]

17. There is something different about this current environment

Many Americans have never, ever known what hard times are. They have never had their turned off, their water turned off. The repo man haunting them...not sure where the next meal is going to come from.
Americans will have to adjust their lifestyles to live within their means and that it will be a hard adjustment for some.

It will be too much for some but I believe that Americans will persevere and pull through this.

[Mike 03]

4. This tidal wave of suicide/homicide has been growing for eight months.

Go to Google news and search on "family murder suicide". It is an epidemic, and it's growing by the week.

[Mike 03]

5. In fact, just Google on California news alone over the past week.

There have been numerous:

Spree killings
Office violence
Family on family violence (murder/suicide)
Stranger child abductions
Family abductions
Probably unknown serial murders that we'll only learn about in two or three months...

[Shell Beau]

6. Talk about Debbie Downer! I hope not.

Money can send people over that edge, but hopefully those who are almost there have someone to help them. I try my best to think and stay positive. YOu have to with all the shit around us.

[Generic Brad]

7. They will not do that

They will turn to drugs and other forms of escape in huge numbers instead.

That wasn't very reassuring of me, was it?

[Haole Girl]

9. Well,

it is the most reassuring post so far!

:rofl:

[Skittles]

8. yes

not necessarily because of the economic downturn, but as the last straw in lives they thought were already devoid of meaning

[BeachBaby]

11. Unfortunately, it's true.

I don't remember what network, but there was a segment on how suicides and murder-suicides (guy killing his wife and kids and then himself) have made a sharp increase since the stock market began its downward spiral.

When people are shit outta luck, they take drastic measures.

Sad, but true. :(

[Xipe Totec]

12. As if suicide was a rarity before our time

Sadly, there have always been those among us who take this dark road to oblivion.

We will never truly fathom their reasons.

[Haole Girl]

13. I know this

I was just really hoping our most recent economic conditions will not make it more so. :-(

[Mike 03]

18. Also, lately, the suicidal individual takes his/her dependents along with them. NT

[wartrace]

14. We've already had three where I work.

They are laying off 900 people from good paying jobs & unfortanatly three have killed themselves.

[Haole Girl]

16. Do you mind me asking where you work?

If you aren't allowed to post the name here I understand.

Just curious.

I'm so sorry.

[wartrace]

31. Sent you the name in a PM.

I still have a month to go & don't want to risk my severance.

[MrPerson]

15. In other news - Phil Collins to make comeback.

[Haole Girl]

19. Are you 13 years old, or what?

:shrug:

[MrPerson]

20. I thought it was an April Fools day thread. It is the Lounge.

[Haole Girl]

21. You're really not funny

I'm sure that's a news flash to you.

[MrPerson]

23. And people aren't really going to start commiting suicide

in greater numbers.

Get a grip.

[MrPerson]

27. And thanks for ruining my April Fools Day

I hope you're happy now.

[Haole Girl]

28. Hey, it's the Lounge

:shrug:

[MrPerson]

32. You didn't really ruin my April Fool Day.

I was just being overly dramatic.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

34. Whew!

I was so upset with your reaction, I was looking at that bottle of morphine tablets, and thinking ............................

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

48. Well, it's a lot funnier than your suicide joke.

If you're going to joke about suicide, you need to spice it up a little.

[Haole Girl]

51. I am lost

This is an insane thread. I had a sincere question/request. I don't joke about suicide (especially since my own mother committed suicide).

I think it's time to let this thread die a natural death... please.

[Lethe]

36. Su, Su, Suicide

:hide:

[CreekDog]

44. okay, that's classy

i admit i laughed a little. :hide: but i don't approve. x(

[Tangerine LaBamba]

22. Don't let it get to you .............

The only difference between, say, thirty years ago and now, is that the news is far more comprehensive and we hear about it almost immediately.

In 1979, if a guy in California killed his kids and his wife and then himself, it made the news on the East Coast several days later. Just not a big news story.

Now, they all get big play, but it's not a new thing. That lady was just crying "Wolf!"

Fuck her accent. Hum some Beatles tune or else watch this, and see if you can resist singing along and feeling happy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMWi7CLoZ2Q

[Haole Girl]

24. Thanks

And thank you very much for the vid. :D You may have just saved me from having a stroke at that very moment... I am not kidding. :hug:

[Tangerine LaBamba]

35. Oh, honey ............

I don't know what else is going on with you, but I'm glad I could, in some small way, alleviate your burden.

Don't let that kind of talk get your down. It's still a great life, and there are always possibilities waiting out there.

Chin up. I'm not the most optimistic person in the world, but every day is a new chance to make a total asshole of myself, and I embrace that possibility every day.

Bookmark that video. It's my "go to" thing when I need to smile. Never fails...........................

[Blandocyte]

25. As my cousin said

years before he committed suicide, "if people want to kill themselves they will. I mean, it's not like somebody's holding a gun to their heads." RIP, Jim. I miss you.

[ogneopasno]

26. Don't worry about it -- Miss Cleo was wrong about all that other stuff; she's wrong about this, too.

[cwydro]

46. Miss Cleo!

lol! I had forgotten about her!

[Lil Missy]

29. Probably true. Sorry.

[sammythecat]

30. When times are good, people are happy

When times are bad, people are not so happy.

Loss of income leads to increases in depression and divorce, why wouldn't it also lead to an increase in suicide? I don't have the statistics and I'm not an actuary, but it just seems logical that in hard economic times there will be more suicides than when the economy is good.

[RagAss]

33. The Bush Effect.

We're gonna have scenes that make Jonestown look like a church bingo !

[applegrove]

37. A Sales rep who sells to one of the stores I work at did a few weeks ago.

[Tom Kitten]

38. I'm doing fine so far

Unemployed from a job I had since 1989 since August 2007, unemployment benefit extensions come and go, possessions sold, savings depleted, can't get a job yet, living on food stamps, car died, but never considering killing myself or other people.

[northernlights]

39. do you have dependents?

There's a big difference between only having to feed and shelter yourself, and trying to feed a couple other mouths as well, which aren't necessarily covered by food stamps.

If you have to give up a critter family to shelters, praying that someone takes them in...for me that could be the tipping point.

And you're only into the 1st year of it. Some of us were victims of the Bushonomics post 9/11 and have yet to be re-assimilated into the main stream, no matter how carefully we prepare or how hard we've tried.

Everybody has a tipping point. Hard times can shove some people over that edge, and the longer those hard times continue the more people will find themselves approaching their personal tipping points.

[cwydro]

47. Well, committing suicide doesn't help your dependents...

not one bit.

[northernlights]

53. obviously not, nor was that the point...

my points were:

1. it's one thing to "lose everything" when it's "stuff." It's hard, but the stuff doesn't care and some day can be replaced. It's an entirely different thing to "lose everyone" if you have pet dependents that are your surrogate family and you have no way to feed or house them, so are forced to give them up. Then you are one step closer to your tipping point.

2. in case you've missed the news lately, there have been a number of murder/suicides with entire families wiped out by a layed off parent. Sick and unfair as it is, it is happening.

[cwydro]

57. I have pet dependents and if I were forced to go on food stamps

I would feed them with those. My critters love human food.

My mother grew up in poverty in Wales during WWII and they never once fed their dogs or cats dog or cat food. All of their pets lived to a ripe old age.

[My Good Babushka]

40. I don't understand the whole murder-suicide because of

financial ruin sort of thing. I could lose all my stuff, but no one's going to drive me to kill myself. I'll hold on, like a cockroach. Heck, I'll start stealing other people's stuff, live undetected in other people's attics.

[old mark]

41. I thought you would say people would commit suicide because

Obama was president and his economic policies were working.

There may be an increase in murder/suicides as husbands kill their families and themselves to spare them the shame of being broke.
I believe there have been some already.

mark

[asthmaticeog]

42. 1) You were warned of impending doom. 2) You needed comforting. So...

3) You came to D.U.?

There have been better ideas. ;)

[Tuesday Afternoon]

43. Truly well said

:toast:

and for Haole Girl :hug:

[Haole Girl]

45. I've decided I must be...

a masochist. :P

[NJmaverick]

49. The stock market is back over 8000 today

and the jobs usually follow a couple of months after the market. It appears that President Obama is starting to get things turned around.

[tigereye]

50. maybe people will step up and help each other, watch over each other,

and folks will show their resourcefulness in the face of adversity.

[Runcible Spoon]

52. As long as it's just Wall Street investor class, who cares?

[moriah]

54. Don't stress, but she does have a point...

... in that finances affect a lot of things in life.

The man I had been with for five years lost quite a bit of money he had invested -- had bought stock in WaMu -- and was stressing about it greatly. He broke up with me Tuesday. I'm sure that it wasn't all that, by a long shot, but it is an additional stress factor. For some people job and security and finances and breadwinning, etc, are something they put a lot of their self-esteem in, and he was one of them.

I don't anticipate suicides in the streets, but yeah, some people will find the additional stress too much...

[dysfunctional press]

56. there will most likely also be a rise in violent and non-violent crime.

depression eras aren't pretty.