Suicide rates during the pandemic

[PuzzledObserver]

It has been asserted many times on here that suicide rates have increased/will increase because of lockdown.

That's a reasonable assumption, because the impact of lockdown hon mental health has been profound.

However, initial evidence shows the assumption to be unfounded.

www.medscape.com/viewarticle/949590?src=wnl_newsalrt_uk_210420_MSCPEDIT&uac=51603FG&impID=3322501&faf=1

That is the worry yes. But the principles remain for all their analysts

Housing is why I've considered suicide. I'd happily choose suicide now if assisted suicide was allowed. I'd rather be dead than homeless or more bad housing. I've also felt suicidal because I'd rather do it myself than die from covid and I'm glad we had lockdowns.

Mental health has been seized upon by the anti-lockdown brigade in their desperate attempts to defend their odious views.

The fact that statistics are unavailable only aids their cause. Nobody can turn around and state categorically that mental health issues HAVEN'T increased during lockdown and anyone attempting to downplay the exaggerated claims of others, is easily portrayed as uncaring.

However, out of everyone I know, the only people who are suffering mentally are 3 nurses which is understandable given what they've had to deal with. I think THIS is going to be the biggest consequence yet to come from the covid years - a lot of NHS staff are exhausted, demoralised, traumatised and feeling totally unvalued by the government. They'll leave the service in droves over the next few years.

Something that started to cross my mind during the third lockdown was going on hunger strike. The outcome of this wouldnt have been good
Not all protests involve going on a march.

@elliejjtiny.

I think there is a trade off; between people who can’t cope with the World and are less likely to commit suicide during Lockdown, because they don’t have to deal with the World, and those who are made stressed by Isolation and are more likely to take their own lives during Lockdown.
I was always sceptical about suicide rates increasing,
But I have seen the disastrous effect that Lockdown has taken on my own teens’ general health and happiness, I think that is where the Lockdown takes its toll!

@Temp023

I think there is a trade off; between people who can’t cope with the World and are less likely to commit suicide during Lockdown, because they don’t have to deal with the World, and those who are made stressed by Isolation and are more likely to take their own lives during Lockdown. I was always sceptical about suicide rates increasing, But I have seen the disastrous effect that Lockdown has taken on my own teens’ general health and happiness, I think that is where the Lockdown takes its toll!

Life can be bloody tough and stressful at the best of times. While stress and anxiety have levels have risen massively with a lot of people during this, they've gone down substantially with others, as they've perhaps lived a much calmer life over the past year. To some extent it's balanced out, even among people individually.

However, as I posted before the furlough scheme has insulated a lot of people so far, as well as things like the ban on evictions for people behind on rent.

For many the last year has been the calm before the storm as we have to do deal with the fall out of all this and pay as a society for the damage.

Without a doubt it has been a stressful year and the impact will be felt for a long time however all the threads on mn announcing suicide was as bigger risk as covid and people's mh should trump keeping a pandemic under control with restrictions were always questionable.

There is some really good work on comparing MH statistics during the pandemic to the last depression and it suggests that having 'active labor market' programmes and social safety nets which were much more widely deployed during the pandemic than they were during the depression (when we made a pivot to austerity) may have had something to do with this. If you like this kind of thing, then this is a really good paper looking at the effect of these active labor market programmes.
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19589588/

@NearlyAlwaysInsane

Suicide is a very complex issue and as others have posted, it may take years for the full impacts of lockdowns to trickle through. Job losses, long-term uncertainty, not seeing family, continued anxiety and media stoking fears, etc. - all these will have impacts. In an ideal world the government would increase funding to MH services to forestall this, but the reality will be very, very different.

Another issue though is that using suicide as a proxy for mental health is crass and incredibly limited. Suicide is the worst outcome - but there are plenty of other forms of mental health suffering that will not show up in official data. Anxiety, depression, phobias, OCD, etc. are all difficult to track. And don't tell me that addictions - to alcohol, drugs, medications, overeating, internet-based (from pornography to gambling to gaming) have not been impacted - there is no data on these, or very little apart from referrals (and these are the tip of the iceberg), so ignoring this is a bit like the passengers on the Titanic saying 'Who cares about the ice cube over there, look at that starry sky!'

On the other hand, it would be good to see an assessment of the positive MH impacts of lockdown - I know personally that I have benefited from less crowds and rushing around, more exercise, and more time to do things like cook food and spend time with the kids (with obvious caveats).

Great post.

@bookworm1632 let's take a good long hard look at what you wrote.

Mental health has been seized upon by the anti-lockdown brigade in their desperate attempts to defend their odious views.

Really? I think I have seen less of that, and a lot more concern voiced by those who have serious concerns and worries about the effect on mental health of repeated harsh lockdowns and uncertainty and the neverending gleeful climate of fear that has been around for far too long.

And what I have seen, however, is a tendency by some to label anyone who expresses any concern around lockdowns 'lockdown deniers' or 'Covid deniers', in an effort to shut them up perhaps?

The fact that statistics are unavailable only aids their cause. Nobody can turn around and state categorically that mental health issues HAVEN'T increased during lockdown and anyone attempting to downplay the exaggerated claims of others, is easily portrayed as uncaring.

Yes, that is true. Just like when at the start of the Covid crisis, those who were saying Covid was not a problem as there was no data on it yet could have been depicted as uncaring.

However, out of everyone I know, the only people who are suffering mentally are 3 nurses which is understandable given what they've had to deal with.

As well all know, one single individual's experience cannot be generalised to the whole country. I have had one close friend commit suicide years ago - but in the past 2 months a neighbour did it, and I had to report someone who was in immediate danger to the emergency services. I could easily say that that was the effect of the lockdown, and I am tempted to, but at the end of the day I can't generalise. But the fact that there is no data yet does not mean there will not be soon. Mental health effects tend to show up a while after traumatic events such as lockdowns. Because that is what lockdowns are: traumatic.

I think THIS is going to be the biggest consequence yet to come from the covid years - a lot of NHS staff are exhausted, demoralised, traumatised and feeling totally unvalued by the government. They'll leave the service in droves over the next few years.

Sure. But this is not about NHS staff alone. They have suffered but so have a much wider swathe of the population. And some have not even started suffering yet (those on furlough come to mind). That is the point about MH - the effects are long term and difficult to track and record data on.

First hand experience.

Being stuck in lockdown with a toddler drove me to the edge. I was prescribed anti depressants.
The side effects were too much, I stopped taking them. Tried to phone my doctor for about 5 days with no luck.
There was an incident which I wont get into. So I had to call 111 and sit on hold for 40 minutes and demanded a call from GP.

There are many many people out there who are really struggling but are not going to the doctors, and those who want help, cant get through.

People can conjure up their statistics all they like and sugar coat it but lockdowns have drove people to suicide and mental health.

Great Post @NearlyAlwaysInsane. Bookworm whilst there are no clear statistics yet I can say that the frontline mental health work I do every day has changed considerably this year. Higher acuity, more serious psychosis, more first time presentations. My experience may not be representative of the whole country but I think its probably more representative of your experience and of other posters here

I'm suicidal and I've tried to kill myself before. I'm glad we had lockdowns. I don't want to die from Covid and at one stage I even planned to commit suicide if I had a positive Covid test. I know I'm not the only one because I've seen news about people who killed themselves to avoid dying from Covid. I want to do it myself instead of letting a virus kill me in a worse way. I want to kill myself anyway because of bad circumstances not to do with covid but won't because I can't risk it not working or being too painful. There is no help but there wasn't any help before Covid. I've been trying to get help for several years. I wish assisted suicide was available here.

In my role in mental health, I have seen a lot more crisis directly related to lockdown, resurgence of self harm and suicidal ideation as a by product of lockdown and restrictions, particularly in terms of reduced access to mental health support in person. Crisis services where I live all went online/telephone which I think is scandalous, that should absolutely be a frontline service. Staff in actual crisis services have been sat around doing nothing because fewer people want remote services or they are inaccessible to the kind of people who will use them. Lack of access to stable internet, inability to use the technology, lack of privacy, disabilities and communication issues, all been cited as reasons people wouldn’t use what was on offer. The voluntary sector and NHS have badly let mental health service users down in this pandemic. No parity of esteem. Waiting lists for face to face support are off the charts. The staff in one service I know of have consistently blocked the return to in-person work, continuously coming up with nitpicking minor whinges about things that will “put us at risk” while simultaneously lining up for their vaccines with all the other healthcare staff like they haven’t been working from home in their pyjamas for the past year and wanting to drag that out for as long as possible. It’s just been a grim time to work in mental health. I have continued to offer in person support in private settings, as my work specialisms are PTSD and AS and there are very clear reasons those patients might need face to face, but obviously that’s only been an option for those who can pay, or have family who can help.

@safeornotsafe

I'm suicidal and I've tried to kill myself before. I'm glad we had lockdowns. I don't want to die from Covid and at one stage I even planned to commit suicide if I had a positive Covid test. I know I'm not the only one because I've seen news about people who killed themselves to avoid dying from Covid. I want to do it myself instead of letting a virus kill me in a worse way. I want to kill myself anyway because of bad circumstances not to do with covid but won't because I can't risk it not working or being too painful. There is no help but there wasn't any help before Covid. I've been trying to get help for several years. I wish assisted suicide was available here.

Not to invalidate how you feel at all.. because it sounds awful.. but your anxiety is severely overplaying how dangerous Covid is. For the vast majority of people who get it, it is like a mild cold, if that... and we keep getting told that 1 in 3 people do not even know they have it. I hope you manage to get some help and peace. Lockdown has been a blessing for some, but also pure hell for others.

Yorkie that is terrible. In the Trust I work for Crisis services and most Community services remained face to face .

I an NHS clinician working in mental health. I think firstly it is important to note those figures only go up to October last year. I also think there was sort of a delayed reaction to all of this. The first couple of months (March/April) last year I think there was such a sense of disbelief at what was happeneing. We did in fact expereince a reduction in calls ect probably until around May. I think what was unfolding was just so big and unprecendented that is sort of "foze" a lot of people, including those with mental health difficulties. Everything felt sor of suspended for a bit.
And then things began to change as you would expect. The realisation that this thing was going to last way onger than people thought, the effects of restrictions, people loosing access to a lot of their MH support all began to take their toll.
Anecdotadly we are now way, way busier than ever. There has been a massive increase in new referrals, There is a daily crisis in inpateint beds as the rates of admissions have sky rocketed. Suicidal attempts , or ideation has massivley increased, even if completed acts are not yet showing the same trend (thankfull)
This is only going to get worse, for many years now proabably.

This will have to be carefully looked at and the information is only going to be as useful as that actions are taken as a result.

Mh support has been woeful for years, I also believe the school system (plus social media) isn't helping the younger generation.

All the talk of 'catch up' for younger years when all they really want is time to play with mates. That's all my own son wants, some of his best mates are in a different bubble at the moment. That's what they need for MH.

Complete anecdata; the only suicide I know of was actually due to a pre pandemic conspiracy theory; Covid and restrictions put in place was the "evidence" it was true and the individual couldn't cope being here when it happened.

I'm concerned that health anxiety will increase as well as fear of medical treatments, vaccines especially. And among some children/ teens, though my own are now willing to get as mucky as possible and hand washing is getting harder to implement!

Very sane colleagues have expressed the fear of the vaccine to me. Though most don't get the yearly flu vaccine. I've either had no issue with that or been quite ill in the past. So I can rationalise that a bit better.

I will be interested to hear about PND rates once there is data on that. I had a baby during the first lockdown and there was none of the low-level catch-all stuff (baby groups, HV in person, toddler groups, contact with friends and family) that keeps a good proportion of women’s heads above water in those early days. The majority of women I know who had babies at the same time have been diagnosed with PND, which is only anecdotal, but it wasn’t the same when I had my first several years ago. This kind of thing has an impact down the generations.

@HuaShan wow sounds like your trust/area much more enlightened than where I am.

Yorkie They have been excellent throughout the pandemic and also supported staff. I feel lucky to work for them.

I was left alone with my thoughts with all my usual coping mechanisms taken away/illegal.

^this.. And I'm so sorry

For me, there was only online contact with friends and totally limited for properly getting out into nature. Tramping around the streets is not the same. I started having panic attacks. I'd never had them before. This was caused by the constant threats of being plunged back into a similar situation to the first time and the constant leaking of news, then it being announced, then waiting to see what the legal details said.
Even if lockdowns were inevitable, this bit had been disgracefully handled.
There will be many of us who have never had mh problems now struggling to pull ourselves back up.

No one cares about those of us whose mental health would be worse without lockdowns. Why are we told we're irrational to fear covid even if we're clinically vulnerable but other people aren't irrational to not want virtual support. I prefer virtual support and was left without help before covid because I couldn't do face to face. There isn't any real support anyway but it's not new. It's been bad where I live for years. It's not changed. I had some really distressing experiences trying to get help several years ago. It hasn't got worse where I am because it was already bad. Maybe people think it's got worse because some people are actually being believed about not getting help and before covid no one cared or believed them.