It\u2019s no secret that African-Americans \u2013 particularly teens \u2013 are committing suicide at record levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide rates have increased by 30 percent since 1999 and nearly 45,000 lives were lost to suicide in 2016 alone. A June 2019 study conducted by the Journal of Community Health revealed that suicide deaths among Black females aged 13 to 19 rose 182 percent between 2001 and 2017, while the rate among Black teen males rose 60 percent during that same period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From 2015 to 2017, 52 percent of Black teen males who died from suicide used firearms, a method with a fatality rate of nearly 90 percent. Another 34 percent used strangulation or suffocation, which has a fatality rate of about 60 percent. Among the 204 Black teen females who died by suicide from 2015 to 2017, 56 percent used strangulation or suffocation and 21 percent used firearms, according to the study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Experts and others have tried to determine why African-Americans increasingly are choosing to end their lives. Theories have run the gamut \u2013 from the lack of strong father-figures to racism and social media and even the increase in Black wealth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Whatever the reason, the CDC said it\u2019s important to note that suicidal thoughts or behaviors are both damaging and dangerous and should be treated as a psychiatric emergency. CDC officials also caution that those who have suicidal thoughts should understand that it doesn\u2019t make one weak or flawed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhy are we killing ourselves? The lack of treatment of mental illness is the key factor to why suicide is on the rise in the Black community,\u201d said Clarence McFerren, a mental health advocate and author who admits to previously having suicidal thoughts as a teenager. \u201cThroughout my life, I\u2019ve been faced with difficult situations which festered into five mental illness diagnosis \u2013 ADHD, PTSD, severe depression, bipolar tendencies and anxieties \u2013 and I did not understand what was going on until I took the steps to get help.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Famed Beverly Hills family and relationship psychotherapist and author, Dr. Fran Walfish said she\u2019s treated hundreds of thousands of children and teens each year and recently she\u2019s seen the number of troubled teenagers who are cutters and dealing with suicidal thoughts, feelings, ideas, plans, and even attempts of suicide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere is nothing glamourous about suicide. The one common-denominator shared by all who cut, contemplate or attempt suicide is that they feel emotionally alone in their families,\u201d said Walfish, the author of \u201cThe Self-Aware Parent,\u201d and who appears regularly as an expert child psychologist on the CBS Television series, \u201cThe Doctors.\u201d \u201cThey feel there is no one person they can talk to about their pain who will listen, validate, understand, and be a safe warmly attuned place for comfort.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sam Gertsmann, the founder of Opinion-Lounge, a website for discussing politics, said he\u2019s had extensive experience working suicide hotlines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhile suicide is a complicated topic, it\u2019s clear that the rise of social media is one of the main causes of the recent jump in suicide rates,\u201d Gertsmann said. \u201cSocial media show users pictures and videos of everyone living better lives than they are; even though these pictures are often staged and paint an inaccurate picture, the brain isn\u2019t able to differentiate and simply sees that everyone else is better off. Social media also puts numbers on your popularity \u2013 your followers, your likes, your replies. And, no matter how many you have, you\u2019ll always want more.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kevin Darn\u00e9, the author of \u201cMy Cat Won\u2019t Bark! (A Relationship Epiphany),\u201d believes the suicide rate among young African-Americans is due to the growing list of Black millionaires and billionaires.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cToday, we have Oprah owning a TV network, Tyler Perry owning his own studios, Shonda Rhimes owning her night of television on ABC, Jaz-Z becoming a billionaire, Dr. Dre selling Beats to Apple for $3 billion, and a few Fortune 500 Black CEOS, black doctors, lawyers, and entrepreneurs,\u201d Darn\u00e9 said. \u201cAlthough racism is still alive, it\u2019s impossible to deny the fact that the rise of a Black upper middle class and an increase in Black millionaires (contributes to others having lower self-esteem). The irony is the more Black success that someone sees in various industries could make a person start to wonder about what\u2019s wrong with themselves. Depression and lack of fulfillment can cause people in a rich country to consider suicide \u2026 when there\u2019s a huge gap between one\u2019s expectations and their reality, life can seem miserable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Next in this series: Possible solutions for those contemplating suicide<\/em> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s no secret that African-Americans \u2013 particularly teens \u2013 are committing suicide at record levels. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide rates have increased by 30 percent since 1999 and nearly 45,000 lives were lost to suicide in 2016 alone. A June 2019 study conducted by the Journal of Community Health […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1243,400,1547],"class_list":["post-2493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-african-american-2","tag-black-community","tag-suicide","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2493"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2494,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2493\/revisions\/2494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}