What if mental health antistigma campaigning increased the suicide and homicide rate?

This is the kind of stuff that people don't like to think about. What
can go wrong when the intention is do to good and what are the
unintended consequences?

The homicide rate by persons with a pre-existing mental health diagnosis
in the UK has gone up recently. It is only in 1 year and may represent
an anomaly. I'll have to check the data to see when that was and if it
was during the second or third year of Time to Change.

This thought comes from thinking about people opening up about suicide.
1 in 6 people experience suicidal thoughts in their lifetime in the UK
and I wonder if the true figure could be higher than that. In my perfect
world it is irrational not to be able to talk about it, however I wonder
if people could talk about it then would it lead to more suicides.

Let's assume that 5 in every 6 people in the UK never think about
suicide in their lifetime. An antistigma campaign gets people talking
about suicide more. The talking spreads the idea of the suicide and it's
okness to the 5 in 6. More people consider it and more people do it.

According to a neurobiological model of mental illness this effect
couldn't happen however I think that it could because there is rational
sucide, i.e. where a person makes a decision to take their life
irrespective of mood or unshared experience of consciousness
(psychosis). People can be influenced, for example cults and mass
suicides. It is possible therefore that opening up about suicide could
make more people suicidal.

1 in 6 experience suicidal thoughts. The completed suicide rate is far,
far, far lower than 1 in 6. About 6000 people a year kill themselves.
It's a decimal point percentage of the population.

The attempted suicide rate is higher than the completed suicide rate.
All the research I've read points to the availablity of high lethality
methods and the local culture to be the highest determining factor in an
increased completed suicide rate, for example the completed suicide rate
is Sri Lanka is several times the rate in the UK but that's mainly due
to the availability of organophosphates and lack of medical training and
antidotes. (Something that interested me was the civil war reduced the
male suicide rate but increased the female suicide rate).

So there are many other factors involved other than thinking about suicide.

Extending this ramble to homicide is also possible. I've read at least
one story of a killer justifying his actions on grounds of mental
illness and I think the article reported the individual saying "I did it
because I'm a psycho." Would mental health antistigma mean that more
killers would feel ok about what they do? At a guess I'd say that most
killers don't really care what people think. Some do.

Bah. I'm tired.