1 in 6

This was shot in a shoe shop window a couple of nights ago in Central
London.

Its the number of people in the UK that think about killing themselves
at some point in their lifetime and comes from the Adult Psychiatric
Morbidity Survey.

5/6 would probably say thats a terrible thing. Of the 1 in 6 there would
be many who are surprised its not higher.

There could be two things taken from this information:
1) lots of people consider suicide and its normal
2) there's a real problem with the mental health of the nation because
so many people think of killing themselves.

Its worth noting that most of those wishes never turned to attempts. In
fact the number of attempts in the UK is a tiny fraction of that number.

As always there's this question of what is normal and what is illness.
It could be possible to make up a disorder called Suicide Risk Syndrome
where a person who is having suicidal thoughts is immediately treated.
The expectation is that it would decrease the suicide rate and that's a
healthcare objective.

The suicide rate is a terrible thing and its worse when its noted that
its 6 times the murder rate in the UK. I'm not so sure suicidal thoughts
should be immediately considered as disorder. As a person who has lived
with suicidal thoughts for a long time and for different reasons I
understand that a person can become resilient and often its limited what
a society can do, or perhaps should do. There are rational suicides.
Suicidal thoughts can also be a coping mechanism and for some
parasuicdial behaviour a form of help- or attention-seeking. The
important thing is action and its clear that most of the 1 in 6 never
attempt suicide so it makes no sense to medicalise vast tracts of the
population.

I'd be interested to know what that figure means to you?