After so many years dedicated to the study of suicide, what is the figure that most alarms you, warns you or challenges you?
There are three.
That of the total number of suicides in 2020, the last year computed: 3,941 suicides, 7.4% more than the previous year.
It is a historical figure, never since 1906 have there been so many suicides.
Another key fact is that more than 1,000 women had never committed suicide.
And there is a significant increase in suicides in very old people, over 75 years old, the great forgotten.
There is always some suicide in people over 100 years.
In old age, loneliness, widowhood, loss, are determining risk factors. If there are 11 suicides a day, one every 2.5 hours, if there is an attempt every seven minutes... What kind of problem is the suicide in Spain?
In Spain, suicide should be a matter of state.
Why? Because it transcends mental health, health, social, educational, journalistic, institutional... It is a human and social, collective and individual problem.
Suicide is not anyone's fault, but it is everyone's responsibility, Administration included.
In 2019 it was the first cause of death in young people between 15 and 29 years old.
11 people commit suicide a day and 200 attempt it. That means that some 80,000 people attempt suicide a year in Spain and that between three and four million will have suicidal thoughts at some point in their lives.
It cannot be reduced to an exclusively mental or health problem.
It is a global problem that requires global approaches. Do we commit suicide more or do we measure it in another way? Both.
A higher number is registered, but we are also improving their registration.
Still, we have to keep improving.
For example, in the records of attempts and ideations.
So why do they claim that there are 200 attempts for every completed suicide or that millions of people have suicidal thoughts?
Because they are estimates based on the WHO, which has studied these phenomena.
Here we also need to fine-tune something that is rarely talked about.
We estimate that there is a significant percentage of accidental deaths that may be suicides.
They appear in the statistics as 'accidents', 'accidental drug intake'... The Civil Guard estimates that 5% of traffic accidents are actually suicides.
The judicial consideration for a death to be suicide is very strict.
But so far in the 21st century, accidental deaths have increased in Spain by 240%.
We intuit that in this data there is a significant volume of suicides.
Why do human beings commit suicide? We don't know why people commit suicide, nor why they have depression or why they get cancer.
But that doesn't mean we don't know what to do to prevent it.
Same with depression or cancer.
And we also know that what most influences suicide is not the climate, nor the geography, but the culture.
There are sectors that focus on gender and say that if more men than women commit suicide it is because of feminist policies.
However, experts maintain that women try it more than men.
How does gender influence?
We know that three men commit suicide for every woman and that three women attempt suicide for every man.
And we know that this is the case all over the world.
What cannot be used is data to demonize women,
men don't kill themselves because of women.
As in gender violence, they are not killed because of them.
You cannot make a political use of suicide.
Men tell us that one of the things they fear most is social reproach after a suicide attempt.
We perceive that this stigma weighs more on men than on women, which could encourage them to use more lethal methods than women. Some authors also indicate that men and women receive a different education in roles.
For example, that men are taught from childhood a more aggressive form of conflict resolution than women, which could explain a more violent coping when deciding to take their own life. Yes, that's right.
But more than aggressiveness, I would say 'self-aggressiveness' or impulsiveness.
And that's where biology comes in.
As for the social, the pressure for roles is different by gender and also very important.
The expectations are different for each gender and that ends up being assumed by individuals.
It's swampy ground, but it's about teaching a girl to be a princess with the dress and a boy prince with a sword.
The thing about children not crying.
And all these roles make it more difficult for men to ask for help than for women. Why isn't there a Comprehensive Suicide Prevention Plan and what differentiates it from a Mental Health Strategy? It's most inexplicable.
How is it possible that a progressive country in social and health matters does not take suicide as a matter of State and put it within a Mental Health Strategy and not in a specific Prevention Plan?
That is inadequate and insufficient.
It's a miss shot.
A Plan shows that the Government is serious about an issue and is determined to do whatever it takes to fix it.
If there is no Plan, it is because there is not much awareness of the impact of suicidal behavior in Spain.
It is a symptom.
It is as if 4,000 deaths a year were not enough. What do the figures for the 024 phone reveal? What is needed.
And not only for people at risk, but for their environments and professionals.
In one month there have been 15,000 calls, 650 referrals to Emergencies and 290 suicides in progress.
And with it we learn that there are other things we could do and do not do.
Look, in Ireland there are coasters in pubs that say: 'Are you sad?'
'Something is wrong?'
'Call, speak'.
And they put a phone.
Prevention...90% of prevention actions are free:
use the training budgets for professionals that already exist to train them in prevention, subtract budgets from awareness campaigns, talk... We have to talk about emotional education and suicide in schools.
Talking is free, losing the fear of talking about suicidal behavior is free.
The taboo must be broken. Should 024 be attended by psychologists? It depends on each situation.
There has to be a more general filter and, behind it, if there is risky behavior, attention from a professional.
I have heard criticism of 024, but no one has ever claimed that 112 operators are psychologists.
And, even so, I believe that professional care should be required in life-threatening situations. And those of us who are not health professionals, do we know how to treat a person with suicidal ideation? We are not aware that we have them next to us.
It is what my colleague Dulce Camacho calls in her book 'The unexpected loss'.
It happens even to the toilets themselves, there are no protocols in the health system.
We are not aware and when we are we are afraid.
And it's the easiest thing in the world.
You have to talk about it.
If you think someone is suicidal, ask them outright.
He will thank you.
You have to talk, talk and talk.
As Cecilia Borrás says, what kills is silence. Let's go with a battery of myths.
Whoever commits suicide wants to attract attention... Every suicide attempt is a request for help.
Committing suicide is for cowards... Suicide has to do with suffering, not with courage or cowardice.
Suicide must be prevented, not judged. There are more suicides where it rains and it is cold... Suicides do not depend on weather conditions,
or orographic.
It is said that Asturias and Galicia lead the statistics because where there is no sun and it rains there are more suicides, but where there are fewer suicides is in Cantabria, which is next door and it rains more.
One of the places with the most suicides in Spain is the triangle formed by Alcalá la Real (Jaén), Priego and Iznájar (Córdoba).
Suicide is more influenced by culture than by geography. Talking about suicide encourages people to do it... What kills is silence.
The best prevention is to talk. One last almost philosophical question, an ethical appeal.
Is suicide a right? The right is suicide prevention.
We have the right to use all possible resources so that we do not reach suicide, because the suicide does not want to die, he wants to stop suffering.
And the challenge is to reduce that suffering to reduce suicidal ideation.
It is said that Asturias and Galicia lead the statistics because where there is no sun and it rains there are more suicides, but where there are fewer suicides is in Cantabria, which is next door and it rains more.
One of the places with the most suicides in Spain is the triangle formed by Alcalá la Real (Jaén), Priego and Iznájar (Córdoba).
Suicide is more influenced by culture than by geography. Talking about suicide encourages people to do it... What kills is silence.
The best prevention is to talk. One last almost philosophical question, an ethical appeal.
Is suicide a right? The right is suicide prevention.
We have the right to use all possible resources so that we do not reach suicide, because the suicide does not want to die, he wants to stop suffering.
And the challenge is to reduce that suffering to reduce suicidal ideation.
It is said that Asturias and Galicia lead the statistics because where there is no sun and it rains there are more suicides, but where there are fewer suicides is in Cantabria, which is next door and it rains more.
One of the places with the most suicides in Spain is the triangle formed by Alcalá la Real (Jaén), Priego and Iznájar (Córdoba).
Suicide is more influenced by culture than by geography. Talking about suicide encourages people to do it... What kills is silence.
The best prevention is to talk. One last almost philosophical question, an ethical appeal.
Is suicide a right? The right is suicide prevention.
We have the right to use all possible resources so that we do not reach suicide, because the suicide does not want to die, he wants to stop suffering.
And the challenge is to reduce that suffering to reduce suicidal ideation.
but where there are fewer suicides is in Cantabria, which is next door and it rains more.
One of the places with the most suicides in Spain is the triangle formed by Alcalá la Real (Jaén), Priego and Iznájar (Córdoba).
Suicide is more influenced by culture than by geography. Talking about suicide encourages people to do it... What kills is silence.
The best prevention is to talk. One last almost philosophical question, an ethical appeal.
Is suicide a right? The right is suicide prevention.
We have the right to use all possible resources so that we do not reach suicide, because the suicide does not want to die, he wants to stop suffering.
And the challenge is to reduce that suffering to reduce suicidal ideation.
but where there are fewer suicides is in Cantabria, which is next door and it rains more.
One of the places with the most suicides in Spain is the triangle formed by Alcalá la Real (Jaén), Priego and Iznájar (Córdoba).
Suicide is more influenced by culture than by geography. Talking about suicide encourages people to do it... What kills is silence.
The best prevention is to talk. One last almost philosophical question, an ethical appeal.
Is suicide a right? The right is suicide prevention.
We have the right to use all possible resources so that we do not reach suicide, because the suicide does not want to die, he wants to stop suffering.
And the challenge is to reduce that suffering to reduce suicidal ideation.
Priego and Iznájar (Córdoba).
Suicide is more influenced by culture than by geography. Talking about suicide encourages people to do it... What kills is silence.
The best prevention is to talk. One last almost philosophical question, an ethical appeal.
Is suicide a right? The right is suicide prevention.
We have the right to use all possible resources so that we do not reach suicide, because the suicide does not want to die, he wants to stop suffering.
And the challenge is to reduce that suffering to reduce suicidal ideation.
Priego and Iznájar (Córdoba).
Suicide is more influenced by culture than by geography. Talking about suicide encourages people to do it... What kills is silence.
The best prevention is to talk. One last almost philosophical question, an ethical appeal.
Is suicide a right? The right is suicide prevention.
We have the right to use all possible resources so that we do not reach suicide, because the suicide does not want to die, he wants to stop suffering.
And the challenge is to reduce that suffering to reduce suicidal ideation.
We have the right to use all possible resources so that we do not reach suicide, because the suicide does not want to die, he wants to stop suffering.
And the challenge is to reduce that suffering to reduce suicidal ideation.
We have the right to use all possible resources so that we do not reach suicide, because the suicide does not want to die, he wants to stop suffering.
And the challenge is to reduce that suffering to reduce suicidal ideation.
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