Suicide


 * 1-800-273-8255 American Suicide Prevention Hotline
 * +81 (0) 6 4395 4343 Suicide Prevention Centre, Osaka
 * 08457 90 90 90 The Samaritans, UK
 * 13 11 14 Lifeline Australia
 * IMAlive Online Crisis Network

For any tropers who feel this way... You Are Not Alone. There are numbers you can call. Please, talk to someone.

Despite what many works may lead you to believe, suicide is a serious and extremely sensitive topic even with teenagers--the trouble is sorting out the hormonal and Wangst-ridden teens from the ones who are genuinely suffering. This can be hard to do since many have little to no knowledge of psychology, and the warning signs are much more nuanced and variable than what the media portrays. The pervasive mishandling of the issue, especially by Hollywood, leads to many deaths that could have been prevented if the proper measures had been taken. However, this page is not the end-all guide to diagnosis: This will merely debunk the common misconceptions surrounding suicide, as well as shed light on the reasons for them.

It should be noted that Depression is by far the leading reason behind suicide, which is why this page will also discuss the symptoms of depression. This makes it even harder for average people to differentiate between the two, but whether the person is actually suicidal does not make their condition any less serious: If left untreated, a depressed person may consider suicide anyway if they believe that nobody cares enough to confront them about it.

Depression can be either situational or chronic, and is sometimes linked to family history. Cultural views of depression are naturally quite negative, but the specific kind of negativity varies: Western societies view it as a condition that requires support and professional aid, while Eastern societies (in particular central Asia) either do not see it as serious, or they consider it a stigma and actively refuse to deal with it. Japan in particular has the combination of stigmatizing depression while viewing suicide in a positive light, and as such has the ninth-highest suicide rate in the world.

But even in Western societies, the stigma around depression is such that sufferers will not ask for help immediately; occasionally, they will even insist that they feel normal and refuse help if offered. Constantly refusing help despite evidence that they need it is as much of a warning sign as asking for it: If someone suspects that their friend or loved one is feeling any sort of distress, they should keep offering help no matter how often the person refuses. It is extremely important that family and friends remain as supportive as possible, because the person is already under considerable mental stress--giving up on them may reinforce or even cause feelings of worthlessness, and suicide may be more likely than if they'd never gotten help in the first place.

While it is impossible to pin down a single cause of depression, there are many diagnosable symptoms that almost entirely stem from widespread changes in brain activity. Sufferers become either agitated (in the clinical sense; experiencing constant irritation, stress, and anxiety) or lethargic (both mental and physical capabilities are severely diminished), but the common result is that neither are able to feel happy, or even their former baselines of "normal." A correlation (note that the direction of causation is still debated) also seen between depression/suicide and over-general memory; the inability to pinpoint specific happy or depressed periods, leading to the understatement of the former and overstatement of the latter.

The brains of depression sufferers show significant decreases in serotonin, disturbance of normal sleeping patterns (most often insomnia, but oversleeping is not unheard of), and a decreased immune system. Drug prescriptions to remedy the imbalances generally have good results, but they themselves are not sufficient as a treatment plan; a balanced treatment of depression should involve therapy first, with medication second, and even without the physical recovery of a suicide attempt, it can take from months to several years to fully restore the person to normal.

Common Misconceptions
Note that these are sometimes exaggerations of real symptoms and often overlap with depression-sufferers.


 * Misconception: a suicidal person must have substantial reason to feel that way. Many people are only familiar with the extreme form of Driven to Suicide, where a single and severe emotional trauma makes the person's reason for killing themselves clear. While this can be the case, even a long string of disappointments or a series of moderate disappointments in a short enough time can become unbearable. In the case of a family history of depression, there really might be no situational reason to explain their depression; they just had bad luck with genetics.
 * That said, going too far in the other direction and assuming that suicidality is only out of a biological mental illness is also a huge misconception and mistake. It IS possible to be Driven to Suicide, especially in situations involving abuse to the point where the abuse (especially emotional abuse) has entirely destroyed someone's self-concept or taken away their will to live. Do not immediately assume that a suicidal person's family or religious organization is somehow always "on their side" or "trying to save them from themselves" - these are two groups that can and sometimes do inflict such pervasive emotional abuse.
 * Misconception: men are serious when they attempt suicide, but women are only doing it for attention or as a cry for help. Every single suicide due to depression is a cry for help. The truth is that men tend to use more violent methods of suicide that are more likely to be successful, both because they have greater access to more violent methods and because they simply don't care about the mess they leave behind. They may even find glory in causing a mess as a "take that" to whoever has to clean it up - their wives, the police, etc. Women, on the other hand, tend to use drugs or knives, methods that are much less likely to be successful but also much less likely to make a huge mess. Unfortunately, the belief that men are serious while women are only looking for attention can be found in some older professional handbooks, and has led many to think that a man who attempts suicide is worthy of assistance, while a woman who attempts suicide is just an over-emotional attention whore who needs to be ignored or belittled so she "doesn't learn from the attention to do it again". (It is true that women attempt suicide more often than men but men succeed more often, but it's not 100 women attempting suicide once to every 20 men who attempt suicide once: it's 20 women attempting suicide five times each for every 20 men who attempt suicide once.)
 * Misconception: calling police is always the solution. Calling authorities on someone or pressing a "suicide notify" button on a post is a last resort - which too many people take as the proper response. The only time one should call authorities is if there is a threat of harm to others involving the method of choice, or the person is actively violent toward anyone trying to help. If you have any sort of pre-existing friendship with the person threatening suicide (even being an acquaintance), it's generally better to try to talk to them and encourage them to talk to others, or to contact close friends of the person that can help. The reasons why calling police on a suicidal person can be Nice Job Breaking It, Hero are below:
 * Police involvement, especially police involvement that ends badly or the threat of police, can shut off communication and encourage someone who needs, above all else, to talk and share and be open with their emotions to instead be so afraid of consequences from a law enforcement visit, that they close off communication and/or pretend happiness rather than openly communicating pain. You do not know if someone is being an Attention Whore or if they actually need to talk, and silencing helps no one.
 * Not all police officers are understanding of suicide attempts and suicidality, especially among women and GLBTQIA people or with people they've had prior contacts with for suicide attempts. Having a cop come out and berate someone for being a drama queen or telling them they're better off dead will worsen the situation.
 * Police involvement heavily raises the risk of violence. Someone unstable who is otherwise not violent may be mistaken for violent and killed or seriously injured by police feeling threatened.
 * Police will investigate/arrest for any "criminal activity" going on in many cases. This may include simply having a bag of marijuana around them or unpaid traffic warrants - so police involvement can leave someone with a lasting criminal record and its repercussions for the rest of their life.
 * Misconception: it is easy to tell when someone is suicidal. It has a basis in fact, as most people become unhappy before attempting suicide, but there are different ways of showing such an emotion and many are not thought as suicidal until someone discovers the body or takes them to the emergency room. This is due to the person believing their existence is unwanted, not revealing their emotions to be less of a burden to others, or denying their feelings in an attempt to make them go away. Finally, they may attempt to work through it themselves or be too proud to accept help, as it is "only in their head." They often force themselves to appear happy, amused, or "normal," in which the only people who could tell the difference are close friends and family members--of which the vast majority do not have medical backgrounds, and thus don't have the training to deal with it appropriately. On the other side, those who do have family in the medical field may hide their symptoms because "a doctor/nurse/psychologist's kid shouldn't have any problems."
 * Incidentally, some seriously depressed people will actually get better just before attempting suicide. This is because they've finally figured out a way to escape their angst, and are therefore feeling hopeful for the first time in ages.
 * In many cases, it's the extent of the depression that prevents suicide attempts. The depressed person simply does not have the motivation to kill themselves. If they improve, the motivation can increase without an improvement in feelings, and the person attempts suicide. This can prove a problem for those on antidepressants.
 * Misconception: everything goes back to normal right away. While the short-term problem may be dealt with, it can take several months to go back to normal even without the physical recuperation of a suicide attempt. Major depression involves severe chemical imbalance in the person's brain, and relapsing or attempting suicide again after a year is common among nearly half of all sufferers. Even after therapy, it can take several years for the person to genuinely return to normal; further complication is when the person themselves thinks that this is true. They may hide their symptoms of relapse to keep others from worrying, or go for years without further treatment in the mistaken belief that they "should be back to normal." Even worse are the cases where the suicide is taken for a joke or forced to be abandoned, and the depressing events continue.
 * Misconception: all suicides leave suicide notes, so if a suicide doesn't leave a note either the attempt wasn't serious or it wasn't really suicide. Again, utter nonsense perpetuated by Hollywood. Most suicides don't leave notes. In some countries fewer than one in ten suicides leave notes. It's more common in the US specifically because of media depictions.
 * Misconception: the average suicide victim is a young adult. This varies hugely from country to country, but in most Western countries elders commit suicide at a much higher rate than younger people, and contrary to conventional wisdom it's not due to age or health but almost wholly due to depression.
 * Misconception: anyone who considers or attempts suicide is being selfish and cowardly. This is a very pervasive stereotype, but for obvious reasons, it's one of the most blatantly untrue ones. People attempt suicide for a variety of reasons, whether that's due to a long history of depression or recent traumas, and oftentimes people in the grip of depression who are considering suicide attempt it out of a desire for it "all to be over." The best way to help someone who's attempted or is about to attempt suicide is not to tell them they're being 'selfish' or 'inconsiderate', but to assist them in getting the help they need.
 * The inverse is sometimes the case. People who survive or intentionally botch their suicide won't always be happy at first. Some may in fact feel worse, because either they couldn't even manage to DIE properly, they feel like they've been cheated out of relief, or they feel they "chickened out" and have now burdened their loved ones with financial and emotional stress--the exact thing they wanted to avoid. It is a very twisted form of Survivor Guilt that is often confusing for loved ones to deal with.
 * Misconception: all teens aren't really serious about suicide. This applies to children as well - some people believe that teenagers are doing it for the attention, and the children are just joking/can't really want to die. But there are teens who are genuinely suffering. If a teen or child is forced to abandon a suicide, and life continues as normal, this can just make it worse and the child/teen more likely to actually commit suicide.
 * Misconception: medication and/or hospitalization alone will fix it! Unfortunately, too many people have this view of mental illness (especially depression) as something people just need to "snap out of," or something that can be "fixed." While medication and hospitalization can help some, there are some caveats to believing both are some sort of instantly effective cures for depression.
 * Hospitalization (especially forced hospitalization and in some contexts, especially where abuse has been a part of the depression and especially if the abusers insisted on the hospitalization as punitive, or hospitalization in a context of labeling and shaming or forced treatment) can be a traumatic, painful experience itself. While modern-day mental hospitals are NOT generally what would be found in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest or such, not every professional employed by one is necessarily understanding. The "psychiatric survivor" and "mental health consumer" movements have some very good commentary on this - in short, forced hospitalization should be a very last resort much as calling the authorities should be, and do the research to find a hospital where patients are treated with kindness and respect.
 * Co-morbid depression originating from abuse, grief, and/or PTSD is very difficult to treat much less cure, because the space between "correcting chemical imbalance" and dealing with legitimate emotions from a horrifyingly traumatic experience is very difficult to define. That doesn't mean recovery is impossible - it just means it is very long, mostly from talk therapy, and that most (currently legal) medication's utility is limited because SSR Is can cure any existing chemical imbalances - but not make painful experiences or memories any less so.
 * Antidepressants and neuroleptics are not always the correct medication. A complete physical for physical causes of the depression or depression-like symptoms absolutely needs to be conducted, as does a full mental evaluation for other mental causes. Someone can be anemic and needing iron (and treatment for the anemia-causing disease). Someone can be suffering from hyperthyroid or hypothyroid - both conditions which absolutely cause symptoms easily confused with depression and bipolar alike.
 * On the subject of neuroleptics, they generally should be seen as a last resort in cases of depression. Not because they're "antipsychotic drugs" (a stigma entirely unwarranted) but because they are very powerful drugs with often heavily sedating direct effects and severe side effects (the biggest one being extreme obesity and diabetes for modern neuroleptics). They should rarely if ever be used as first-line treatment for unipolar depression because they can worsen it - and a doctor suggesting them as such generally means one needs another doctor.
 * Finally, even in cases where the depression is solely the result of a chemical imbalance of brain chemicals, it takes around two weeks for medication to reach its full effect, and somewhat longer for talk therapy to begin to work. Do not give up or insist on adding more/stronger meds because it's not instant, and do give yourself and your mind and body time to heal.

Signs and Symptoms of Depression and/or Suicidal Thoughts

 * Persistent feelings of sadness or worthlessness, for at least two weeks. (Obvious sign of depression.) A common description by sufferers is that they feel "empty" or "hollow" inside. Unfortunately with teens, it is often dismissed as typical moodiness. This leads to the perfect storm of feeding their self-destructive thoughts, making them reluctant to seek help from adults, and instilling the belief that they have to prove their unhappiness is genuine--regrettably, some of those attempts work.
 * Lack of interest in previously enjoyed activities for at least two weeks. (Obvious sign of depression.) An extreme sign is when the person is trying to enjoy themselves, but cannot even feel anxious about their lack of enthusiasm. They may simply stop participating in their hobbies, but some people retreat into their homes altogether and rarely leave the house.
 * Frequent breakdowns and crying episodes. (Known, but exaggerated.) This is rarely witnessed first-hand, despite common media depictions. Depressed people in real life will more often seek out quiet and isolated places during such episodes, either because they want privacy or because they want others to notice that they're gone. Whether male or female, the sufferer may have an (un)conscious desire to be found, as the act has a dual purpose of validating their feelings and giving them "proof" that someone cares about them.
 * Sleeping too much, or being unable to sleep. (Known, but may not be recognized as a symptom in itself.) This is frequently due to the chemical imbalances.
 * Unexplained, frequent aches or pains due to the immune system shutting down. (Little-known/overlooked.) A variant of this is when minor injuries or illnesses take too long to heal, such as a cold persisting for a month or scrapes and bruises lasting for days. Those with no medical experience often cannot connect this to depression.
 * Feeling cold in inappropriate weather, or the coldness persisting in adequate warmth. (Little-known/overlooked.) This may be the reason for the stereotypical depictions of a black-clad "emo" teen, as dark colors absorb and retain heat better than light clothes. It also is one of the most frequently-overlooked symptoms, as wearing sweaters is not unusual in certain climates and even the person in question may not realize that this is a symptom.
 * Changes in appetite and the subsequent weight gain/loss. (Little-known/overlooked.) As stated before, depression involves large-scale physiological changes, and subsequently affects the person's appetite. On the other hand, this can be hard to detect as those with decreased appetite will either remind or force themselves to eat normally, and those with increased appetite may hide the bulk of their overeating. Both sides may play it off as insignificant, or even joke about it to keep people from worrying.

While these are the seven major signs, it is not the case with everyone and there are many more symptoms that may be particular to a specific person.

It should be noted that a great deal of depression and suicide involves appearances and (often) self-imposed pressures: Depression stems from both an inability to express emotions and the underlying, if warped, desire to protect their loved ones from such "unsafe" or "wrong" emotions. The major issue during therapy is that the person accepts that they have a problem, that they need help, and that the steps for returning to normal will not happen right away. Generally, a good therapist will help their client figure most of it out by themselves instead of trying to set deadlines or goals for them. This is also why therapy is overwhelmingly one-on-one or in groups of fellow sufferers, rather than with family members or friends--the emotional involvement would impede the person's progress for a number of reasons.

To those who only know the media portrayals (which are greatly watered-down, particularly the physical side of depression), seeing what a genuinely depressed person would look and act like would be a huge shock, and most sufferers are understandable in their refusal to let loved ones into the actual therapy sessions.

There are numerous other sites that go into detail about suicide and depression, but knowing what's wrong is only half the battle: If you or anyone you know is showing signs of depression, seek professional help immediately.

Some Real Life stories
"Berryman was best; He wrote like wet paper mache Uh-huh, but he went the Heming Way."
 * Edwin Howard Armstrong, inventor of FM radio. Left penniless and distraught by his rivals' lawsuits, he jumped from a 13th storey window in 1954, aged 64.
 * Two other 20th century writers that committed suicide, besides Hemmingway: Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton. Sylvia Plath killed herself by inhaling the fumes from a gas oven after her husband, fellow poet Ted Hughes, cheated on her and left her for another woman (Assia Wevill, who six years later committed suicide in the same way). Anne Sexton suffocated in carbon monoxide in her garage while wearing her mother's coat--after years of mental illness, blaming herself for her mother's cancer, and feeling responsible for her divorce in 1971.
 * The (somewhat nebulous) connection between creative writers--especially female poets--and higher rates of mental illness/suicide is known as the Sylvia Plath effect.
 * Another 20th century author to commit suicide: Virginia Woolf--inevitably pushed over the edge by years of depression, mental illness (particularly, hearing voices), and feeling guilty about being a burden to her husband. The Norton Anthology of 20th-Century British Literature cites the fear of being arrested by the Gestapo as a reason for suicide. She filled her coat with rocks and walked into the Ouse River near her house. (This had to have been particularly painful, as she was a good swimmer.)
 * John Berryman, another poet, who--like Hemingway--killed himself with a double-barreled shotgun in the mouth. As Nick Cave put it:


 * Austrian writer Stefan Zweig explained in his suicide note that he couldn't bear to watch Europe tear itself apart again. Reading his autobiography gives you a good idea of just how nostalgic he was for a golden version of Europe that had been destroyed since the first world war.
 * Truman Capote may have committed suicide, or he may have accidentally overdosed. He wouldn't let Joanne Carson call an ambulance, though, so even if he didn't actively kill himself, he didn't really want to live.
 * Hunter S. Thompson, in pain from illness and generally tired of life, wrote "Football Season Is Over" and called it a day with a pistol.
 * Robert E. Howard made plans to end his life when his mother's health started failing. After his mother entered her final coma and a nurse told him that she would never again regain consciousness, Howard went to his car and shot himself in the head, dying the day before his mother did.
 * More intelligent animals, such as dogs, cats, monkeys, and apes, have been known to be driven to suicide by the loss of a master, mate, or companion, either passively by starvation and dehydration, or actively by jumping off a precipice or lying in front of oncoming traffic.
 * Not only that, but older dogs know that their life is at an end, and starve themselves. This usually convinces their owners to have them put down. Proves that dogs know about death.
 * It's possible that the one fatality of the Tamoca Narrows Bridge, Tubby the spaniel, commited suicide - he rejected a rescue team, and attacked them when they tried to save him by force.
 * In World War II, the Japanese government deliberately frightened the civilian populations, most notably in Okinawa, about the supposed atrocities that the Allies would inflict should they take their islands to the point where many committed suicide. Only one-third of the civilan population of Saipan survived the American invasion, and most of the deaths were suicide.
 * One of the less sung figures in World War II, Alan Turing was instrumental in the decoding of the Enigma machines, where he helped come up with ways to determine the day codes faster (and indeed invented the first electronic computer to do so ). He killed himself after being outed as a homosexual (after naively reporting a liason who used the diversion to allow an accomplice to burgle his home; the police gave the burglar immunity for testifying against Turing) forced to take medication (which may well have caused the depression, as well as making him go from a fairly fit young-ish man to being obese), as well as being fired from his job at a university and making it impossible for him to find funding for his computer. Imfamously he did so by eating an apple he had poisoned with the cyanide compounds he used in his work (possibly to make it plausable to his mother that his death was accidental).
 * Painter Vincent van Gogh is now known as a major post-impressionist artist, but his life was extremely hard. He was very talented, but only managed to sell two of his 2 000 artworks, living his life more or less in poverty. He also suffered from schizophrenia, possible bipolar disorder and depression during his last years. Eventually, the voices in his head got the best of him, and van Gogh shot himself on 27th of July 1890.
 * Professor Henry Bedson, the head of the microbiology department at University of Birmingham Medical School, committed suicide in 1978 after samples of live smallpox he was studying traveled through the vents and infected a woman working in the same building, killing her.
 * In Ancient Rome, committing suicide was a common way out for upper-class individuals who expected to receive a death sentence in the near future. In fact, people sentenced to death were often allowed to take their own life instead of being executed. The Annals of Tacitus mention dozens of such cases.
 * Committing suicide prior to trial was preferable to a death sentence because it allowed your heirs to inherit your estate. If you were executed, your wealth was forfeited to the state.
 * Speaking of Ancient Rome, quite a few Roman politicians were driven to suicide in the dying days of the Republic including:
 * Cato the Younger, as with the murder of Pompey and the essential collapse of any resistance to Julius Caesar (which from Cato's perspective was a tragedy since Pompey's coalition was the legitimate government of the Roman Republic), he lacked any desire to live in a world where the Republic had essentially ceased to exist. Caesar was quite displeased with this--Pompey had been murdered and now another of the most powerful men of the Republic died, but neither of these worthy opponents fell at his hands in battle. Cato was highly honored in Rome for his incorruptibility and intransigence and, indeed, Octavian likened himself to Cato.
 * A generation later, more famously, Marc Antony committed suicide in the aftermath of his crushing defeat at the Battle of Actium, his lover Cleopatra following him to the grave not long afterwards.
 * In a pretty horrific example, Mitchell Henderson became an infamous meme ("an hero") by committing suicide... after which trolls made up the idea that he did so because his ipod was stolen.
 * The infamous case of the game addict who was driven to suicide by Ever Quest.
 * Actually, his mother drove him to it. Everybody just blamed Ever Quest because it was more convenient.
 * Ex-Hot Scoop Christine "Chris" Chubbuck commited suicide by shooting herself on the air in The Seventies. The damage wasn't nearly as severe as head explosions or Pink Mist, as those in the studio thought it was a tasteless prank... until they realized it wasn't. Poor Christine died some hours later.
 * Robert "Bud" Dwyer did something similar. And then Filter wrote a song about it.
 * Kurt Cobain.
 * Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky arguably killed himself after former "friends" threatened to go public about his homosexuality.
 * The notably fatalistic Tchaikovsky drank unboiled water during a cholera outbreak. It may have been a deliberate suicide attempt; it may have been just not caring any more whether he lived. His life was something of a shambles, despite his musical successes to that point.
 * To put it politely, it isn't exactly an unfounded stereotype when you hear about poets always committing suicide. The "Confessional Poetry" movement of the Modernist era is a particularly morbid example. Again, to put it politely, all of the examples given in the opening paragraph on the article for the movement on The Other Wiki took their own lives.
 * School bullies drive their victims to suicide so often that there's a specific term for it: "bullycide". Just part of growing up... right?
 * Also has spread to the internet in places like MySpace, where some people are hounded and tormented by other people to the point where they announce their plans to kill themselves and their tormentors cheer them on. There has been one case that made the news where a teenage girl was harassed over and over again over a personal issue in her life and she killed herself. It was revealed that the tormentor was an adult woman who knew the girl in person and didn't like her.
 * Let's get the name of the heartless, cruel adult out in the open here: Lori Drew is the name of the cruel monster who got Megan Meier to kill herself. Because Megan and Lori's daughter were having a typical teenage spat. Megan was just thirteen; her adult tormentor was obviously a lot older. And she got lured in by a fake profile set up to fool her into thinking a boy was interested in her. There are no words.
 * Combine Kids Are Cruel and Adults Are Useless, and you have the case of Phoebe Prince.
 * France Télécom employees: 46 have commited suicide from January 2008 to April 2010, due to a management style based on permanent harassment and stress.
 * Questionable. France Télécom employs 180,000 people (from engineers to civil servants from its government-owned days). 46 out of France Télécom's 180,000 employees means the suicide rate of France Télécom employees is 25 per 100,000; very close to the average suicide rate of France, slightly below by some estimates, slightly above by others. In other words being France Télécom employees was most likely incidental to their suicides.
 * A somewhat facetious and unsympathetic look at the phenomenon by the people at Reason Magazine draws this conclusion.
 * Mark Speight, a presenter on the British children's art programme SMart. He was discovered to have hung himself near Paddington Station after his fiancée died.
 * 50% of transgendered people attempt suicide at least once before their 18th birthday. Also, obviously, many other LGBT individuals, especially young people and teenagers.
 * More about the Werther Effect: After German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote The Sorrows of Young Werther (mentioned above), young men who were deeply affected by the novel because of its subject manner (a young man in unrequited love with a beautiful young woman who was attached to a much older man) would visit Goethe and confess their own unrequited loves to him, then they'd depart and commit suicide.
 * Of course, most copycat suicides from the book didn't involve the young man in question meeting Goethe in person; so many young German men were found drowned with The Sorrows of Young Werther on their bodies that Goethe prefaced the second edition with the text, "Be a man, and do not follow me!"
 * This story of a student who committed suicide after being outed as gay due to a prank.
 * Including the young man in the news story above, at this writing, 6 gay teens across the United States have taken their own lives in just one week. For every LGBT kid who commits suicide, another 20 try.
 * Ian Curtis of Joy Division hung himself, due most likely to his collapsing marriage and bouts of severe epilepsy, combined with pre-existing depression.
 * A useful article on what it feels like to want to commit suicide.
 * Perhaps the only time to win an argument by using Godwin's Law.
 * The award-winning photojournalist Kevin Carter (who was the subject of the Manic Street Preachers song of the same name) killed himself due to the many horrific things he had seen and photographed over the years.
 * Speaking of the Manic Street Preachers, their former lyricist and rhythm guitarist Richey James Edwards might be an example. Depressed, self harming, anorexic and an alcoholic, Richey went missing in early February 1995 and has never been seen since. While a body has never been found, his car was found not far from the Severn Bridge, a notorious suicide spot.
 * Baku Hatakeyama, best known for playing Ki Ranger in Himitsu Sentai Goranger, killed himself for that very reason. Unable to escape I Am Not Spock as Ki Ranger, and unable to find work in general, with financial problems as well, commited suicide, much to the regret of Aka Ranger.