BY TANYA BRICKING
The Cincinnati Enquirer
National statistics over the past 20 years debunk a holiday myth: December is not the worst month when it comes to suicides.
Spring is when suicides surge, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.
"There is something to people feeling blue or down during the holidays," said Robert Gebbia, director of the New York-based American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. "Maybe that's how the myth got started. The truth is that spring is by far when the highest number of suicides take place."
David Phillips, a sociologist at the University of California at San Diego, studied demographic trends in suicide and found that there actually is a drop during the holidays. December records fewer suicides than any other month, national statistics indicate. Those who study suicides have different theories.
Dr. Lucy Davidson, a private consultant in forensic psychiatry, has written about the link between suicides and bipolar disorder. She suggests changing seasons affect brain chemistry and could explain the seasonal fluctuation in suicides.
Another theory is that depressed people endure the winter and feel even worse when their depression doesn't go away in the spring, said John McIntosh, a psychology professor at Indiana University's South Bend campus.
Suicide prevention organizations are quick to point out that suicide has no true slow season.
About 30,000 Americans kill themselves each year, making suicide the nation's ninth-leading cause of death. It is more common than homicide.
A person commits suicide about every 15 minutes in the United States, but a suicide attempt is made about once a minute, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
In Hamilton County, suicides have averaged eight a month this year. January was unusually high with 13. Spring and summer reflected the national trend of a surge in suicides.
Last year, April was a high month for suicides in Hamilton County, with 11. But July surpassed it with 16 suicides.
Across the country, 75 percent of suicides are white men. About 60 percent of people who kill themselves use a gun.
Local statistics reflect that pattern. This year, the typical suicide victim in Hamilton County was a white man in his 40s who shot himself.
The oldest person to commit suicide was an 84-year-old white man who shot himself in the chest in June.
The youngest was a 14-year-old black boy who died in a hanging in April. Nationally, the suicide rate for black males ages 15 to 24 has risen by two-thirds over the past 15 years.
Those who dispel the holiday suicide myth are not out to suggest that there's any decrease in holiday depression, Mr. Gebbia said. "It's just that suicides are tied more to the ebb and flow of the seasons than of the holidays."
