Nevada’s suicide rate is among the nation’s highest; it doesn’t need to be

By Kim Palchikoff

Monday, May 2, 2016 | 2 a.m.

Suicide is hard to write about. It’s even harder to talk about, which is why it is so rarely discussed — especially in the media — unless a celebrity such as Robin Williams ends his own life. And even then, public reflection on his lifelong struggle with mental illness and his suicide didn’t last much longer than a week. It’s not just depressing, it’s unsettling. It’s hard to know what to say, and people close to the victim feel guilty that they didn’t see it coming and intervene.

But a startling new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, released April 22, says a lot about suicide in America, even if it’s mainly done with data, which is often how suicide gets discussed by officials. In short, between 1999 and 2014, the suicide rate in the U.S. rose by 24 percent, marking a 30-year high in every age group except for older adults, who have a high rate to begin with. Suicide rates among girls ages 10 to 14 tripled. American Indian females had the largest increase among all ethnic groups: 89 percent.

Another trend: a rise in the number of Americans killing themselves with firearms.

These statistics are not just depressing, they’re frightening, and they demand an answer as to why so many people are so miserable that they see no way out besides death.

In 2011 the CDC gave a reason: it linked suicide to economics, pointing out that the suicide rate generally rose in recessions such as the Great Depression and the end of the New Deal.

What does this all mean to Nevada, a state known for some of the nation’s highest suicide rates? Among people 65 and older, the suicide rate in Nevada is about double the national average — 33 per 100,000, compared with 17 per 100,000 nationally.

Here are more troubling Nevada suicide statistics from the Suicide Prevention Resource Center:

• Nevada has the fourth-highest suicide rate in the nation.

• Suicide is the second-leading cause of death for Nevadans ages 15-24.

• More Nevadans die via suicide than from homicide, HIV/AIDS or car crashes.

• Firearms are used in 53 percent of suicides in Nevada.

Behind these numbers are tragic stories about someone’s child, grandparent, mother, uncle. These people have names and had lives they couldn’t cope with. Many are senior citizens with silver-colored hair who worked hard, raised families, celebrated birthdays, laughed at sitcoms, had best friends and inflated balloons on New Year’s Eve — the little things that created the tapestry of their lives.

And so you wonder: What would cause a 50-year-old, a 30-year-old or a 10-year-old to feel so trapped that the only way out was death?

Geriatric suicide expert Dr. Yeates Conwell, the co-director of the Center for the Study and Prevention of Suicide and director of the geriatric psychiatry program at the University of Rochester Medical Center, points to the “4 Ds of suicide.” Older adults can be at high risk for suicide if they experience clinical depression, debility (physical weakness) from other sicknesses, disconnectedness from friends and family members, and access to deadly means.

Many people with mental health issues are at a high risk for suicide. For me it’s a quality-of-life issue. Sometimes thoughts of ending it all stem from living with a never-ending illness, combined with other factors — how to pay rent, for instance, or how to get an appointment with a doctor in less than a month. Other times, it’s clinical depression, pure and simple. When you get into a really bad funk in which you stay in bed all day, talk to no one and are haunted by nightmares, it’s easy to at least think, “I wish this could all be over.”

This is why people who field calls at places such as the Crisis Call Center, a Nevada suicide hotline, are so important. They are experts in the field, trained to communicate with anyone in crisis, of any age, by phone, text or email. They say Nevada’s elderly often are the most depressed, but the least likely to reach out for help.

I refuse to believe suicide has to be a part of Nevada’s landscape, like gaming or mining. Maybe our state could institute a program that’s popular in Japan in which, for a fee, mail carriers will knock daily on senior citizens’ doors to make sure they are OK, and will call someone if they are not. This could be especially useful in rural communities, where mental health professionals are scarce.

Reducing the incidence of suicide will take effort, but it can be done. Other states, Colorado and Tennessee among them, are tackling their suicide issues and gaining national attention for their efforts. Nevada also has detailed state suicide-prevention plans with many goals, such as, “Increase awareness among primary care providers that depression is not a normal part of aging,” and “Support community problem solving through forums, and inter-agency partnerships and coalitions.”

But for 20 years, Nevada’s senior suicide rate has remained No. 1 in the nation.

Clearly, more needs to be done in our appropriately nicknamed Silver State. And maybe we can help individually and do what mail carriers in Japan do: check on an elderly neighbor and offer some friendly conversation.

Kim Palchikoff is studying social work at UNR and writes about mental health. Her Twitter handle is @NVmindsmatter.