Suicide and Aspergers

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Do they have higher rates of suicide?


I do think of suicide a lot as I get older and see how hopeless and I am and opportunities lost but I don't think I would actually do it. I look at life as a prison sentence -eventually everyone is released - some sooner, some later. Suicide is an escape attempt.

I've tried it before. It was a serious attempt, too. They pumped my stomach where I stayed in an acute hospital for 2 days then they transferred me to a psych hospital where I stayed for 2 months. I guess I'd reached that point where I said, 'Screw this. Life just isn't worth it. Too much headache. Is life better now? Well, I have me health. I'm not sick. I'm still not where I want to be, but hey, you can't win 'em all.

I tried it when I was a lot younger, thought that was mostly due to bullying because I was different from the other kids. The only reason i didn't was because I knew how much it would tare my family up , and they were the only goof thing in my life. I do still think about it today, and sometimes I get depressed to the point where I think I've had enough of this life, and that there is no future for me, but then my stubborn pride kicks in and I think, I've made it this far, hell if I give up now. Yay for a Cardinal Sin!

I haven't seen any actual studies on it, but I would suspect that the answer is "yes".

But this doesn't mean that Asperger's causes suicide. Many other environmental factors raise the risk of suicide. For example, gays have a higher suicide rate, despite being on average as mentally healthy as straight people in similar environments. There are a lot of theories about why, but most of them center around the prejudice and isolation that many gay people experience--i.e., they tend to be exposed to more negative environments than straight people, thus more stress, thus vulnerability to suicide.

While we won't know for sure until autistic people are truly accepted and prejudice against disability fades out of our society, I'd be willing to bet that a higher suicide rate in Asperger's people is a similar phenomenon--not related to Asperger's directly, but to the environment that Asperger's people tend to be exposed to--the usual array of anti-disability prejudice, bullying, abuse, and increased difficulty in finding education, employment, and friendship.

There are, thankfully, a lot of protective factors that can help people in high-risk groups avoid suicide; for example, having at least one mentor who treats you as a valuable person, learning to base one's concept of self-worth on one's own standards rather than on the reactions of others, and being conscious of and able to make coherent arguments against the biased beliefs of those around you.

What you say makes sense Callista. I would be shocked if there wasn't a higher suicide rate. Extreme social isolation --> suicide.

I will probably end up committing suicide because lately I believe that everybody comes back as someone else after we die. Well, except that you're not you, so technically we DON'T have another life, we die and then be born looking through eyes of another body, whether it's a human, an animal or an insect, and we have a different soul too, so we're oblivious of our previous lives. So this body I am moulded into now is probably the 15, 0000, 00000th body I have been in, and at the same time the only body I have been in.....ohh, it's so complicated to explain, but I know what I mean! (By the way I have no idea what that big number actually is what I wrote, but we all know it's a large number so let's just leave it at that).

So basically I will probably hope for the best that I will be a really confident, pretty NT in my next life, will good things happening to me and just having a happy, healthy life. Might not happen, I might come back as someone worse off, but there's more chance that a baby is born NT, in a healthy body, so I will hopefully just fall into the expected.

My stance on this topic is that Aspies do have a higher suicide rate. The reason for that it because of the proverbial s**t on a rusted platter that the NTs in our lives enjoy dishing out at us. Our parents, peers, siblings, relatives and teachers have a hard time accepting us as we are and what our happy places are. They want to make us into their clones. Fathers want their sons to grow up to be like them and share their interests. Mothers want their daughters to grow up to be like them and share their interests. Most people resonate with their same sex parents.

Aspies don't always have people in their families that they can resonate with, because their same sex or maybe even both of their parents might not accept them as they are. I know that this has been the case with me. My mum doesn't accept me as I am. She wants her happy place to be my happy place. I want to retreat to my cave, I mean happy place which resembles Swinging London and Carnaby Street in many ways. I'm female, but I have the mind, thoughts and the soul of a man. I have Gender Identity Disorder. My mum wants me to live my life through her eyes. I just want to be myself and do my own thing, being myself. My way of being myself is making myself happy by dressing like The Kinks and living my life the way I want to. I can't resonate with my mum and I don't really have a relationship with my dad. As a result, I've picked the person that I resemble the most and decided to resonate with him. I resonate with Mick Avory of The Kinks and I think that pisses my mum off, because she wonders why she can't be my role model. Those old and familiar feelings came back just two days ago. I've reminded myself that I'm Pro-Life and my personal life is going quite well. I even have a CD coming in the mail, so my personal life can't be all that bad. That's why I've had a few brushes with suicide in my lifetime.

Don't many on the spectrum have depression / other mental health problems?

I have been there and was very close to trying. And would have done if the police hadn't turned up.

In my case, the depression has been caused by people expecting me to live my life through their eyes and be normal, not accepting me as I truly am. You can take a look at my post above yours for a reference. A lot of us have anxiety and depression, but the attitudes of many NTs are the cause of those things. If the people that we're supposed to trust the most are intolerant towards us, of course we're going to feel that way. Autism leads to intolerance and lack of acceptance, which leads to anxiety and/or depression which can lead to suicide in some cases.

I sure know a lot about suicide for someone who's Pro-Life.

When you boil it down, humans are innately social creatures. We aspies speak a different "social language" altogether, so we get deprived of satisfying this intrinsic drive to be part of social groups and belong. It doesn't surprise me at all that a lot of us just "want out."

with depression being the most common co-morbid diagnosis in autistic adults (ADHD being the most common in kids) increased suicide in autistics seems obvious.

It's actually one of the things that really resonates with me about AS. In fact, right now I am going through a period of severe depression with suicidal ideation due to my profound sense of loneliness and the universal rejection I have experienced from the few times I made an attempt to find someone of the opposite sex to have a date with. This recent depression is being brought on by one such rejection that happened recently as well as my last friend of my age range moving away. It's not healthy for me to be alone but yet it is the hand that life has dealt me.

i once read an english paper, stating that 8% attempted suicide…