suicide {glossary}
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a be you book starts with this:
Our county is 6th in the nation in suicide rate. Every 9 days someone takes their life. Globally, the current rate is one every 40 seconds. Suicide is the second leading cause of death in 11-24 year olds.
The measure we are currently using toward success, the actions we are currently using to fix problems, even to determine which problems are problems, aren’t boding us well.
We’re watching suicide rate increase as other death rates decrease.
Otto Scharmer‘s new book starts with this:
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), in 2000 more than twice as many people died from suicide as died in wars.
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At one point (slide 51), we were calling Mad World the lab theme song…
I think one of the reasons many of the kids in the lab felt adamant about keeping the name – detox– for this process of learning to learn, is because of issues such as suicide. It’s not a light hearted, or a mean-spirited, let’s do away with school, let’s fight for rights, et al, .. revolution. It’s about the corruption of the human spirit. Many have suggested – detox – is too harsh, or has too many bad connotations. Perhaps that’s the point.
Disrupt yourself.
Detox yourself.
You’re the only one that can.
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Perhaps Oscar Wilde is right…
And if so, perhaps many suicides are homicides.
Perhaps if we detox/disrupt ourselves, become ourselves, we’ll get at the root of the problem, instead of more rules/security/laws/lawsuits/paperwork/distrust.
the death of us – suffocating from the day – et al
when you’re in a space and you feel like you don’t belong (w/o compromising your fittingness by playing all the supposed to ness of polite smiles et al) – depression
when you feel like you don’t belong in all the spaces – suicide
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your
…
perhaps we kill suicide, homicide, when we
what matters.
as a people.
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every. one.
via http://boingboing.net/2013/01/12/rip-aaron-swartz.html
I don’t know if it’s productive to speculate about that, but here’s a thing that I do wonder about this morning, and that I hope you’ll think about, too. I don’t know for sure whether Aaron understood that any of us, any of his friends, would have taken a call from him at any hour of the day or night. I don’t know if he understood that wherever he was, there were people who cared about him, who admired him, who would get on a plane or a bus or on a video-call and talk to him.
every person needs to know.
perhaps we spend the next 10, 20, 5, 1 year…
perhaps we spend just one year.. on just that.
just that.
in public Ed.
grazie Aaron.
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I still expect my kids to attend an ordinary and gigantic public high school. But the least I can do is promise this: If there’s ever a referendum on extending the school year, I’ll vote no.
unless as Ben suggests… we extend the school year to all year, 24/7. in the city, as the day. (which means getting at the root, ie: no compulsion, 100% curiosity. cure city ness.)
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Given that the summer vacation reduces the teen suicide rate from 6.22 per 100,000 to 4.71, this means that banning public school would save 1,092 lives per year.
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on suicide talk as taboo..
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in 2010 – worldwide # of suicides outnumbered deaths in murders/wars – @ottoscharmer1: Global Presencing Forum presencing.com/global-forum-2
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Our highly personalized reaction to Robin Williams’s suicide, and our inability to sustain a national conversation about the depression epidemic after his death, provide important clues about why we’ve made so little progress in addressing this problem.
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also here:
http://www.upworthy.com/what-happens-if-you-try-to-kill-yourself-and-survive?c=ufb1
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sept 2014:
WHO releases first global report on suicide prevention
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tweets via Taleb:
The suicide rate in Belgium is >1.7 x both suicide & homicide rate in the U.S.
(yes, with “guns”). News turns normal people into idiots.
The suicide rate is Belgium is >4 times the total homicide rate in Lebanon,
(including war violence & suicide). News makes people clueless.
The suicide rate is Japan is >6 times the total homicide rate in Lebanon,
(including war violence & suicide). News makes people clueless.
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please stay – levi the poet
Nadine Burke Harris – early adversity – aces=4 – suicide 12 times higher
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Tim Ferriss on suicide:
http://fourhourworkweek.com/2015/05/06/how-to-commit-suicide/
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on masking depression:
maladaptive perfectionism
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on suicide being a match for debt from debt footnotes. (as myth)
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dark side to start ups:
http://www.businessinsider.com/austen-heinzs-suicide-and-depression-in-startups-2015-7
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suicide on campus:
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video – of survivor from golden gate bridge jump:
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guns and suicide
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greenland highest suicide rate in world -via Tom:
The details blurred into one long, dismal memory of bodies found and parents crying and silent funerals where no one ever asked the question that everyone was wondering.
Why?
[..]
In Greenland, the problem was only getting worse. Between 1970 and 1980, the suicide rate there quadrupled to about seven times the U.S. rate (it’s still about six times higher). The suicide rate was, and still is, so high that it’s not an exaggeration to say that everyone in Greenland knows someone who has killed himself. Many people I spoke with struggled to explain what that felt like, to live in a place where suicide is so pervasive, and most of them settled uncomfortably on the same word: normal.
[..]
Atsa answered thousands of calls during her time on the hotline, and for her, there was a clear pattern behind Greenland’s suicides. Love, she says. Or, loss of it.
[..]
There’s also something broader — a loss of identity that happens when a culture, in this case Inuit culture, is demonized and broken down. When a culture is largely erased over less than a generation, as it was in Greenland, a lot of young people feel cut off from the older generations, but not really part of the new one.
[..]
The first one said Loneliness. Being lonely for long time. Being lonely in whole life.
Number three read simply Love.
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shared by shay on fb – cause is never simply suicide – quit saying committed suicide
http://themighty.com/2016/04/the-cause-of-death-is-never-simply-suicide/
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my revolutionary suicide – by Melissa Harris-Perry
http://ajccenter.wfu.edu/2016/07/08/my-walden-melissa-harris-perry/
already dead.. to oppression/patriarchy/sexism/racism/homophobia/hatred..
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aug 2016 – suicide in co
http://tri1025.com/suicide-can-be-prevented-lets-walk-to-save-coloradans-and-remember-those-lost/
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shared by Graham on fb:
Powerful
The thing most likely to kill me is me
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via Dougald‘s crossed lines #11.. via Anne.. et al.. on suicide ness.. and how it’s been going up for white middle class males (w no college degree).. and how those are ones voting for trump ness
Case-Deaton death rate study, but seen through the eyes of someone living in one of those counties, someone who has been sitting in with the Medical Examiner:A typical day would include three overdoses, one infant suffocated by an intoxicated parent sleeping on top of them, one suicide, and one other autopsy that could be anything from a tree-felling accident to a car wreck (this distribution reflects that not all bodies are autopsied, obviously.) You start to long for the car wrecks…
Unlike the AIDS crisis, there’s no sense of oppressive doom over everyone. There is no overdose-death art. There are no musicals. There’s no community, rising up in anger, demanding someone bear witness to their grief. There’s no sympathy at all. The term of art in my part of the world is “dirtybutts.” Who cares? Let the dirtybutts die.
You know, I could just repost every other paragraph of that piece here, but really you should go and read the whole thing.same post:Yeah I know, not fun and games – the shouts, the smashing glass, the headlights on the lawn, but what am I supposed to do, raise my kid to stay one step ahead of the inspectors and don’t, for the love of god, don’t ever miss a payment on your speeding ticket? A noose is something I know how to fight. A hole in the frame of my car is not. A lifetime of feeling that sense, that “ohhhh, shiiiiiit…” of recognition that another year will go by without any major change in the way of things, little misfortunes upon misfortunes… a lifetime of paying a grand a month to the same financial industry busily padding the 401k plans of cyclists in spandex, who declare a new era of prosperity in America? Who can find clarity, a sense of self, any kind of redemption in that world?’
the dreams we are sold.. even when we achieve them appear illusionarycomparison you’re making inside you’re head.. my life should not be like this..how can we create the conditions for more fruitful convos about what it means to be vulnerable in these conditions.. but also.. the ways in which society itself says.. this is what you need to do to feel happy
fb share by heidi h g – death by 1000 cuts
@EthanZ
Excellent @WIRED piece on the dismantling of Senior House at @MIT and what it means for colleges more broadly: wired.com/story/a-weird-…“I can’t tell you how many times I heard that Senior House saved a student’s life,” Feldmeier says. He points out that despite MIT’s high suicide rates—12.6 per 100,000 students in the years between 2010 and 2015 (the national collegiate average is 7.5)—Senior House hasn’t had a suicide in more than 20 years.
This isn’t surprising. People from marginalized groups do better when they find each other, according to psychological research. “Belonging to groups has really positive consequences, especially for mental and physical health,” says Dominic Packer, associate professor of psychology at LeHigh University, who studies group dynamics and the effects of ostracism.
Over and over again people say Senior House was the first place they’d ever not felt judged. What they are describing is, in many ways, a safe place.
jun 2017 – on suicide
Ourselves As Our Biggest Threat
un- every year 800 000 people commit suicide on global scale.. larger number than amount of people that die in armed conflict and natural disasters combined..
what kind of cancer has hijacked consciousness/amygdala to make people’s very selves be their biggest threat/risk-factor
we’ve already been told that depression and anxiety are being diagnosed at epidemic levels.. that there is a fundamental fracture in our collective psyche.. that our hunger for meaning.. our desire for cosmic heroism..
tolstoy: man’s inability to live w/o a way to bridge the finite with the infinite is severely under threat
we don’t have faith anymore in large numbers.. we don’t have a connection with something large than ourselves.. starved for deeper meaning/significance.. seekers.. hungry for something else.. yet we can’t seem to find what we’re looking for
the moviegoer by percy walker: the search is what anyone would undertake if they were not sunk in the everyday ness .. the gravity.. the swamp.. of his own lives.. to merely become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something.. not to be onto something is to be in despair
rev of everyday life.. of alive/awake/free people
today.. this is our crisis.. our societies.. our cities.. our social structures.. are organized in a way that is oppressive to way too many of us.. does not allow for acts of cosmic heroism.. for symbolic slaying of the dragon
some people are so poor all they have is money.. and so.. i think we need to rethink this whole picture of how we organize our lives..
let’s try a nother way .. sans money ness
.. come out with better symbolic structures that allow our psyches to merge with some higher meaning.. so that our lives can stand for something.. this i think.. could be our cure
let’s try this structure/cure: cure ios city
ie: hlb via 2 convos that io dance.. as the day..[aka: not part\ial.. for (blank)’s sake…].. a nother way
#India | Since 1995, four years after this country opened its doors to #freemarkets nearly 270,000 Indian cotton farmers have killed themselves https://t.co/Cik7jAdJ9K
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/telesurenglish/status/979950164327780352
agri surplus.. rahul‘s paper
Next time you see the #SuicideAwareness campaign, state the truth: #TraumaAwareness , #TraumaCausesSuicide #NurtureBoys and #Suicide80PercentMale
Maria Popova (@brainpicker) tweeted at 4:32 PM – 9 May 2018 :
I was reminded today of this beautiful, life-giving poem Galway Kinnell wrote for a young friend contemplating suicide — pass it on to anyone you know is wading through this thickest darkness https://t.co/9XNuKAIlFQ (http://twitter.com/brainpicker/status/994344263885434890?s=17)
[..]
Wait.
Don’t go too early.
You’re tired. But everyone’s tired.
But no one is tired enough.
Only wait a while and listen.
Music of hair,
Music of pain,
[..]
most of all to hear,
the flute of your whole existence,
rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.
via fb share.. from Peter Gray on suicide.. written may 2018
Children’s & Teens’ Suicides Related to the School Calendar
Psychiatric emergencies and youth suicides rise sharply with the school year.
as serious as this tragedy (school shootings) is, it is dwarfed by another school-related tragedy–suicide.
Suicide is the third leading cause of death for school-aged children over 10 years old, and the second leading cause (behind accidents and ahead of homicides) for those over 15 (here(link is external)). The evidence is now overwhelming that our coercive system of schooling plays a large role in these deaths and in the mental anguish so many young people experience below the threshold of suicide.
the rate of emergency psychiatric visits was more than twice a high during school weeks as it was during non-school weeks.
For boys, the suicide rate was, on average, 95% higher during the school months than during summer vacation; for girls, it was only 33% higher. This finding is consistent with the general observation that boys have a more difficult time adjusting to the constraints of school than do girls. Stated differently, when girls commit suicide, school is apparently less likely to be a cause than is the case for boys.
Hansen and Lang also found that the school-year increase in teen suicide rate held only for those of school age. For 18-year-olds, most of whom would be finished with high school, the increase was barely present, and for 19- and 20-year-olds it had vanished.
One finding that bears repeating comes from a large survey conducted a few years ago by the American Psychological Association, which revealed that teenagers are the most stressed, anxious people in America; that 83% of them cite school as a cause of their stress; and that, during the school year, 27% of them reported experiencing “extreme stress” compared to 13% reporting that during the summer.
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Carmen A. Medina (@milouness) tweeted at 6:56 AM – 1 Jun 2018 :
Deaths by suicide and firearms are rising sharply among kids, undoing years of progress https://t.co/B80FnsD4et via @ (http://twitter.com/milouness/status/1002534455859470337?s=17)
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The Stream (@AJStream) tweeted at 6:05 AM – 2 Jul 2018 :
Suicide rates increases in almost every single US state, according to @CDCgov: https://t.co/voqwbNEI2I What factors do you think contribute to the rise of suicides across the US? Tweet your thoughts ahead of our show. (http://twitter.com/AJStream/status/1013755470044127232?s=17)
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on farmer suicides.. agri surplus
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Big Think (@bigthink) tweeted at 5:31 AM – 12 Jul 2018 :
This may be responsible for the high suicide rate among white, American men https://t.co/Gkz3hWFuic https://t.co/WbuGkJgalj (http://twitter.com/bigthink/status/1017370956799627264?s=17)According to suicide prevention expert, Dr. Christine Moutier, white, middle-aged men account for 70% of deaths from suicide each year. Nine-tenths of them are from a lower socioeconomic class..Veterans are often one of the largest segments within this group. According to a 2014 Veterans Affairs (VA) report, 20 commit suicide each day. 65% of them are age 50 or older.
A larger segment of this group has chosen the slow suicide route. Many are succumbing to things like alcohol liver disease or a drug overdose. So what’s causing this? White men without a college degree have seen their employment prospects dwindle in the last few decades, mostly due to mechanization
middle-aged black and Hispanic men at the same education level, have also been impacted by these same economic forces. Yet, the suicide rate among these groups hasn’t risen.
They are trying to fit into a role that’s no longer supported by the real world.
Kurt Laitner (@klaitner) tweeted at 3:44 PM on Tue, Aug 28, 2018:
Appalling>
Children ‘attempting suicide’ at Greek refugee camp – https://t.co/PlkfXaGWIL
(https://twitter.com/klaitner/status/1034557443890659328?s=03)
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8 min video from parents of Robbie Eckert lakewood co – start the convo now [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kipGOGRT4g]
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50 min doc (2016) – not alone – by Jacqueline Monetta @jmonetta12 [http://not-alone.live/jacqueline-monetta]
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6080158/plotsummary
Driven by a desire to understand why her best friend killed herself at 16, Jacqueline Monetta, 18 gets teens suffering to share their struggles with mental illness and suicide attempts. Through her intimate one-to-one interviews, Jacqueline, and the audience learn about depression, anxiety, self-harm, suicide attempts, getting help and treating mental illness. As their stories unfold, they assure the audience that mental illnesses, like physical illnesses, can and should be treated.
15 min – i wanted really badly to be enough
18 min – the reason it seems to easy to consider suicide.. is because it’s so exhausting to stand in front of that window.. everyday
you feel like there’s no way it’s every going to get better
19 min – i didn’t know how to exist anymore.. because i felt like everything was my fault
21 min – i would be distracted by the physical pain for a while.. but it never fixed anything
35 min – it’s hard to feel connected.. but then that’s why we lose people
44 min – you have to deal with the real illness that is going on
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Maria Popova (@brainpicker) tweeted at 6:01 AM – 4 Jan 2020 :
Albert Camus, who died on this day in 1960 in a car crash, with an unused train ticket in his pocket, on the will to live and the most important question of existence https://t.co/khBKYLdZYOhttps://t.co/TmKZJYMB3W (http://twitter.com/brainpicker/status/1213445234622967808?s=17)There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest — whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories — comes afterwards.
I see many people die because they judge that life is not worth living. I see others paradoxically getting killed for the ideas or illusions that give them a reason for living (what is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying). I therefore conclude that the meaning of life is the most urgent of questions.
a story about people grokking what matters – everyday
It is always easy to be logical. It is almost impossible to be logical to the bitter end.
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phelps 2020 – extremely thankful i did not take my life: https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/19/health/michael-phelps-depression/index.html
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from Erich Fromm‘s the sane society:
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the fact that more than half of all hospital beds in the us are used for mental patients on whom we spend an annual sum of over a billion dollars may not be an indication of any increase in mental illness, but only of an increasing care.. some figures.. more indicative of occurrence of more seer mental disturbances.. 17.7% of all rejection of draftees in the last war were for reasons of mental illness..
the only comparative data which can give us a rough indication of mental health, are those of suicide, homicide and alcoholism..
no doubt the problem of suicide is a most complex one, and no single factor can be assumed to be the cause. but even w/o entering at this point into a discussion of suicide, i consider it a safe assumption that a high suicide rate in a give population is expressive of a lack of mental stability and mental health.. that it is not a consequence of material poverty is clearly evidenced by all figures.. the poorest countries have the lowest incidence of suicide, and the increasing material prosperity in europe was accompanied by an increasing number of suicides.. as to alcoholism, the reis not doubt that it, too, si a symptom of mental and emotional instability..
the motive for homicide are probably less indicative of pathology than those for suicide. however, though countries with a high homicide rate who a low suicide rate, their combined rates bring us to an interesting conclusion.. if we classify both homicide and suicide as ‘destructive acts’ our tables demo that their combined rate is not constant, but fluctuating between the extremes of 35.76 (suicide) and 4.24 (homicide)
10
a quick glance at these tables shows a remarkable phenom: denmark, switzer, fin, sweden and the us are the counties w the highest suicide rate, and the highest combined suicide and homicide rate, while spain, italy, n ireland and the republic of ireland are those w the lowest.. the figures for alcoholism show that the same counties w highest suicide rater have also highest alcoholism rate..
the fact that suicide and alcoholism figures largely coincide, seems to make it plain that we deal here w symptoms of mental unbalance..
maté addiction law et al
we find then that the countries in europe which are among the most democratic, peaceful and prosperous ones, and the us, the most prosperous country in the world, show the most severe symptoms of mental disturbance..
the aim of the whole socio econ development of the western world is that of the materially comfortable life, relatively equal distribution of wealth, stable democracy and peace, and the very counties which have come closest to this aim show the most severe signs of mental unbalance..
it is true that these figures in themselves do no prove anything.. but at least they are startling.. even before we enter into a more thorough discussion of the whole problem, these data raise a question as to whether there is not something fundamentally wrong with our way of life and with the aims toward which we are striving..
also true that no where has peace.. equity.. et al
11
could it be that middle class life of prosperity.. while satisfying our material needs leaves us w a feeling of intense boredom and that suicide and alcoholism are pathological ways of escape from this boredom
boredom.. ? rather empty from the almaas holes law
our most basic needs (maté basic needs) have nothing to do with material prosperity et al
could it be that these figures are a drastic illustration of the truth of the statement that *’man lives not by bread alone’ and that they show that **modern civilization fails to satisfy profound needs in man? if so .. ***what are these needs..
*indeed.. **civilization as not only failing to satisfy.. but as killer.. of these profoundly deep ***basic needs
before we enter the specific discussion of these questions.. it seems we should take up the general problem of the pathology of normalcy, which is the premise underlying the whole trend of thought expressed in this book
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from darran anderson‘s inventory
Vik Shirley (@VikShirley) tweeted at 5:02 AM – 10 Mar 2020 :
A passage on drowning from Darran Anderson’s haunting, stylish and inventive memoir, Inventory. @ChattoBooks @Oniropolis https://t.co/Z0oGU8SKpJ (http://twitter.com/VikShirley/status/1237333008291639296?s=17)suicide however is a plural thing, even in the death of a single person
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suicide prevention isn’t just posting the suicide hotline. healthcare is suicide prevention. housing is suicide prevention. food security is suicide prevention. access to mental health care is suicide prevention.
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/_QueenHeyonce_/status/1286774725843329024It’s almost as if the way to prevent suicides is to have a society which treats people well and doesn’t immiserate or abuse them. https://t.co/GtcEKoen2Z
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/iwelsh/status/1286930974224326657
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(CW suicide) It is six years since we lost Robin Williams, which changed the way we discuss mental health forever. As someone who has suicidal thoughts most days this quote always helped me. “You don’t want to die, you just want to kill how you’re feeling right now”.
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/TechnicallyRon/status/1293117622981201920
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The sad state of mental health in 2020:
“One out of ten US adults seriously considered suicide in the last month. For young adults (18-24), the proportion was an astonishing one in four.”
Experiences that provide connection & community will help
Twitter – what else can we do?
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/gregisenberg/status/1313597405179371526
ie: cure ios city
to undo our hierarchical listening
heal us all
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The suicide rate among active duty service members in the US military increased by 41.4% in the five years from 2015 to 2020, according to data provided in an annual report from the Department of Defense on suicide in the military https://t.co/T3T5GEDyTF
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1443718581158567938
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be you. 