28
votes
Finland used to have one of the highest suicide rates in the world – how the country halved it and saved countless lives
Link information
This data is scraped automatically and may be incorrect.
- Title
- The Finnish miracle: how the country halved its suicide rate - and saved countless lives
- Authors
- Miranda Bryant
- Published
- Feb 22 2024
- Word count
- 2167 words
The big fear is method substitution. If women move to more lethal methods their rates of death by suicide will increase a lot.
It's an unsolved problem that's troubling for people working in suicide prevention.
Another reason it's a problem is that women's suicidal distress can be disbelieved -- "you've had multiple attempts but you're still alive, why should I believe you this time?". People need support, and people have different ways of presenting when they need that support but services often have weird stereotypes that they use to allocate support.
I wonder if it's a case of making it through this expected "dark" time of winter and then as the sunlight comes back, they're still not feeling better leading to greater senses of hopelessness.
Similar to starting a new antidepressant... You still feel horrible, but now you have more energy to do something about it.
Yeah absolutely!
And your post reminded me that if anyone is in that state currently, it's absolutely worth reaching out to talk to someone. (DM me for local hotlines/helplines or ask your search engine of choice. Or you know, just to chat)
Unfortunately a similar attitude can still be seen 50 years later. The translation came out a bit clumsy, but I tried condensing it as best I could: An inpatient hospital ("Halikko Hospital", named after the municipality it's in) in Turku is currently being relocated to a new building, closer to the city centre and metropolitan area. The hospital project manager says that the name "psychiatric hospital" would have been "too stigmatizing". So through a poll they settled on.... "Compass Hospital" (Kompassisairaala). "Compass is a neutral name, and doesn't have an association with illnesses of the mind. We want a psychiatric hospital to be like a bank or bureau, that is, a place where you receive service.", he said.
"Some patients are afraid of admitting they've been to the Halikko Hospital because of the stigma associated with the name.[...]In psychiatry, it's important that the name of the hospital is abstract." He also wants to apply similar naming conventions to the names of the individual departments in the hospital, saying "We have psychosis unit, mood disorder unit and addiction department. I've spoken with patient organizations, and these names are seen as quite stigmatizing. They could be something else." When questioned about whether the stigma could eventually reform around the new name, he handwaves it, saying "I think the location will play a big part in this. The new hospital is close to the central hospital, but there are other nearby services like offices and a new hotel."
To me, he is participating in the same type of stigma he claims needs to be avoided. A suicidal person isn't lost and in need of some directions, their mind is ill and needs treatment. Trying to hide these difficult issues behind new names will only enforce the idea that they shouldn't be talked about. With some personal experience of actually being mental ill, to me this feels like downplaying the illness and infantilizing the patient.
Im glad there's some progress in the hospital names. A family member has had mental health issues all her life. When I was a kid, 50 years ago, I remember kids in my neighborhood mocking because she was at the "funny farm" also known as the "nut house" because she was "crazy". No, she was depressed and suffering but we were all pretty ignorant back then.
Didn't help that the place was indeed kind of creepy. 80 years before she was there the place was named the Asylum for the Insane and then renamed the Hospital for Mental Diseases. Finally it was renamed the Mental Health Centre which it remains today. Only took about 130 years.
Yet another case of the Euphemism Treadmill...
A couple thoughts, a suicidal person doesn't always have an underlying MH diagnosis. Sometimes things just seem that hopeless or people feel that helpless. My own internal experience with suicidal thoughts is not always correlated with depression.
But also, I don't think Compass was implying needing direction other than at some basic marketing level, it's just removing the words that society keeps using to stigmatize mental health. I'm saying it's a symptom of the stigma not the cause.
Because if people won't come to Town Mental Health Clinic, City Behavioral Health, or Local Psychiatric but will come to Compass then that's what matters. As he noted, Compass isn't isolated so going there feels like going to the main hospital complex. Those are all good stigma reducers.
There are fewer places but in my area/state they do exist through crisis programs or hospitals. The crisis program I worked with was more "home" or "dorm" like than hospital, and one of our two hospitals in town has a psychiatric floor where someone could go to the ER and try to get help. That said, it isn't always a good experience, and there are definitely hospitals that will provide you with very different care based on your insurance. But we also have a free mental health "urgent care" sort of place and a nearby city has a psychiatric hospital as well.
Its just that if you don't meet the level of care needs it can be difficult to get admitted.
So kind of yes, community programs get gutted too often, including residential crisis care, but I still see supports in the community I'm in. But blue state makes a difference there too.