The Homeless Commit Suicide Twice as Often as the Housed

Not many people feel comfortable enough to ask about how I wound up at a mental health clinic for the homeless, or the feelings of suicide that got me there. But last week someone did and I've been thinking about it ever since. I've been thinking about how we as a society feel about suicide. For one, we don't begin to understand it, especially when it happens to the rich and famous. We think we understand when it happens to the homeless. "Poor bastard. I'd kill myself too if I lived like that."

What people don't realize is that suicide is not always about mental illness, or poverty, or the conditions you're living in. It's a lot about resources. In many cases it's about whether you have the emotional, mental, physical or financial resources to deal with the situation you're in — whether it's fame or poverty. Mental illness, undiagnosed or untreated schizophrenia, PTSD, addiction, drugs and the isolation of the homeless in general all contribute to suicide among the homeless.

According to the CDC, suicides accounted for 1.4 percent of all deaths in 2006. A study of the causes of death among New York City's homeless population, however, found that 2.9 percent of that city's homeless deaths were due to suicide. Researchers acknowledge that more research is needed.

According to many suicide prevention centers, otherwise healthy and functioning but suicidal people are generally feeling one of two things: more pain (emotional or physical) than they can handle, or more overwhelmed by things, emotions and situations than they have the resources to cope with. After being on the streets long enough, many people without a drug or alcohol problem will turn to drugs or alcohol to self-medicate and cope with the pain. It makes a bad situation worse, but it feels like a solution at the time.

I came from a family of alcoholics and made the decision a long time prior to the darkness in the van that alcohol wasn't a solution for me. Given enough time and loss of resources — such as the van or work — I think I might have reconsidered. But for me the pain went from being bad to being too much to cope with — and thus the feelings and thoughts of suicide. I was lucky and found an ad on Craigslist for a study on depression. Meeting with the Boulder psychiatrist conducting the study both helped and hurt. He happened to volunteer at a homeless clinic and sent me there for medication. The medication didn't work and I had a reaction, driving me deeper into depression and thoughts of suicide. I knew it was the medication talking and was able to ride it out by telling myself that. Others haven't been so fortunate.

According to National Association of School Psychologists, the suicide rate among homeless males aged 18 to 24 is 10.3 times higher than the national average.

The conclusion of many of the studies is that "feeling trapped, hopeless and helpless" is part of what drives the homeless to suicide. In 2006, the first year I was in the van and suicidal, the National Institute of Mental Health said suicide was the 11th leading cause of death in the U.S. (the 7th for males and the 16th for females).

The whole point of this is that feelings of suicide can shift in an instant in many cases — once the person is provided resources for coping with the overwhelming issues, with the problems, with the pain. New resources won't cure clinical depression or mental illness. But for the people teetering on the edge simply trying to escape the pain, answers and resources can literally mean the difference between life and death.

Photo credit: pareeerica