Davis, W.A. (1994, April 13). "Kurt Cobain’s death heightens spring suicide alert." The Boston Globe.

OVERVIEW

When Kurt Cobain shot himself with a shotgun on April 8, 1994, suicide experts feared a spate of copycat suicides might follow. The 27-year-old Cobain had reached the status of icon for a generation. Amidst the confusion and rage of his music, one song cried, "I Hate Myself and Want to Die." The wave of grief and talk about the Nirvana star’s death was so strong that suicide experts feared a great increase in youthful suicides would follow. At least one fan, a 28-year-old Seattle man did shoot himself with a shotgun apparently partly in despondency over the star’s death. Some 65% of males and 45% of females who take their own lives, do so with a gun.

According to Margaret O’Neil (executive director of Boston’s branch of the national suicide prevention program called "The Samaritans"):

There is great concern in the field that others may emulate Kurt Cobain, contagion is something that everyone who works in suicidology is very concerned about.

O’Neil’s office receives an average of 6,000 calls per month, and the Seattle suicide produced significant attention but no significant increase in calls to the Boston office:

There hasn’t been a dramatic increase in the number of calls since Cobain’s death, but a lot of those who do call, particularly on the teen line, talk about him.

Nirvana was a leading part of the Seattle grunge sound and style. Considering that he had a successful "alternative band," a lovely spouse (Courtney Love), and a baby daughter, some found it difficult to believe he would take his life. But suicide, says O’Neil "is a matter of private pain, not public perception."

Especially noteworthy is the fact that suicide attempts increase in the spring and somewhat less in the fall.

Energy is higher in the spring (O’Neil observed), and people feel more independent and less depressed. But it is when people are starting to come out of deep depression that they are at highest risk of committing suicide. That is when they may feel empowered to take control of their life—by ending it.

Current president of the American Association of Suicidology and professor of psychology at the University of Indiana, John L. McIntosh, offers these statistics:

30,000 People commit suicide each year in the U.S.

There were 87 a day nationwide in April 1993. (Compared with 74 a day in December 1993.)

Dr. Mark Teicher of McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts says:

Suicides peak in the spring, probably as a consequence of winter, when people can become very depressed because they are forced to be inside a lot and can’t get away or benefit from the healthiness that comes with being outside.

Teicher further notes that 35 million Americans suffer from SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder (triggered b y seasonal light changes). He believes that SAD may deepen existing depression and intensify suicidal feelings. Teicher also sees changes in temperature and barometric changes as contributing factors:

Abraham Lincoln had two bouts of suicidal depressions so severe that his friends had to lock him up to keep him from hurting himself, and both came during the two largest barometric pressure changes recorded at that time.

As to why Kurt Cobain and so many others take their own lives, experts remind us that "the reasons are very individual and situational, and often involve alcohol abuse, unemployment, mental illness, gender confusion, loss of a loved one or the ending of a relationship."

Executive director of the American Association of Suicidology, Julie Perlman, says:

People don’t become suicidal without reasons. It doesn’t happen in a vacuum, but the issues aren’t simple.

A David C. (who asked that his last name not be used) of New York City has been severely depressed and suicidal for ten years. He is also alcoholic, and his suicide attempts have often come at the end of a drinking binge. His opinion comes out of his own personal experience when he says:

Most suicidal people have multiple problems and come from families with multiple problems...The turning point for me came when I joined Alcoholics Anonymous. (After giving up drinking, he became a phone volunteer for a suicide prevention hot line and founded a self-help group known as Healing from Suicidal Pain. He also remembers spring as ‘the darkest time of all.’)

People with depression feel closer to other people in winter because everyone is depressed then. But in spring, when others start to feel better, the depressed are still depressed, and as the weather improves, the gap just gets wider. There is a lot of envy in depression, because when other people feel good, you feel worse; that is why there are also a lot of suicides around the wedding of a sibling.

The author of this article concludes:

While weather and seasonal changes are certainly factors in many suicides and suicide attempts, there are usually so many other factors involved it is impossible to say just how important they are. Suicide studies indicate that factors such as age, loneliness and repeated career or relationship failure are usually more powerful motives for self-destruction than light changes and other seasonal influences.

Davis quotes a volunteer for a support group for those who have lost someone to suicide:

Depression is a big factor, but impulsive acts take place as well, particularly among young people. Four years ago the young woman I planned to marry hung herself, seemingly without warning.

The classic signals of possible suicide attempts are

• Sudden and unexplained improvement in mood.
• Giving away prized possessions.
• Making a will or discussing funeral arrangements.
• Losing interest in personal appearance.
• Increased use of alcohol and drugs or the taking of risks.

Above all, if there is any sense that someone is thinking of suicide, one should not be afraid or embarrassed to talk with them about it. It is critical that depressed persons verbalize their feelings and intentions.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION

1. When someone like Kurt Cobain or a young person in town commits suicide, do you know how to discuss this with your own children or with those in your class or youth group? Do you, in fact, do so? How have these discussions gone? What activity have you found most helpful for young people around a difficult suicide?
2. What in this article has most attracted your attention? Do you understand the nature of "copycat suicides" and seasonal influences? What in all this do you want to hear discussed?
3. Besides the prevention of suicides, what responsibility do we have to those who suffer loss in someone else’s suicide? Might that include the death of celebrities?
4. In planning discussions of suicide, how would you pay attention to the seasons of the year?
5. What does the suicide of a rock star or prominent figure mean?
6. How are we to deal with the suicidal implications of popular music?
7. Without being simplistic, what is the relationship of faith and depression and suicide?

IMPLICATIONS

1. There are different ways in which parents, teachers, counselors, and youth leaders must understand and respond to suicides, suicide attempts, and the hurt, guilt and fear that suicides produce.
2. Kurt Cobain’s life, music, and suicide are all significant reflections of an age and a generation. They should be taken seriously. There are a range of differing reactions and opinions about his death. He will join James Dean, Jim Morrison, and others as a hero or even martyr for some and a "cop-out artist" for others. For most, this private and public action is significant and worthy of discussion.
3. The seasonal aspects of suicides ought to be taken seriously, but it is important to realize these are most often a secondary factors.
4. Behind the issue of suicide are the important matters of the meaning of life, the dignity of life, and the responsibility of relationships. Suicide is sometimes an angry act. Certainly there was rage, as well as confusion and prophecy, in the music of Nirvana and Cobain.
5. The issue of depression as a clinical disease must always be a part of our consideration of suicide.
6. Religious hope ought to have a place in discussions of suicide. In difficult times, we all need to review our theology of hope. And we make sure of the means by which hope is celebrated, along with the memorialization of friends’ deaths, among young people.

Dean Borgman cCYS