Depression Symptoms: What’s Behind Europe’s Spike in Suicides

http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/13111/depression_symptoms_suicide_and_economic_crisis/

The metaphor of suicide has been used to depict the downward spiral surrounding countries bludgeoned by the economic crisis—particularly U.S. and Eurozone communities plagued by epidemic joblessness and a rash of budget cuts. Now the term literally describes the psychological dimension of the crisis, according to studies on suicide rates.

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The BBC summarized:

During the period, there was a rise in unemployment by a third.

Only Austria saw suicide rates fall. This was put down to the country being less exposed to the financial crisis than the others.

Of the risers, Finland fared best while Greece had the worst record. The UK saw a rise of 10% to 6.75 suicides per 100,000 people.

Dr David Stuckler, one of the researchers, said: "There was a complete turnaround. Suicides were falling before the recession, then started rising in nearly all European countries studied. Almost certainly these rises are linked to the financial crisis."

And he added it was also possible there would be other health consequences from the economic problems as the impact on heart disease and cancer rates was not likely to be seen for many years.

In a way, such studies confirm the obvious: as life gets harder, people beset by hopelessness begin to question whether it’s worth it. Still, the data underscores the senselessness of a crisis fueled by the gambling of financiers--high on irrational exuberance and a sense of corporate invincibility--with such grave potential consequences for ordinary people, far from Wall Street, who essentially played by the rules. The lethal impacts speak to the malaise rotting society’s political and economic organs. Suicide starts to seem a strangely rational measure of life’s cheapness in a monetized society--people’s logical response to a loss of control over their destinies.