Point Clusters and Adolescents

I came across the Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides while searching for old books to read and this book immediately got into my radar once I searched for books that gave off the same feel as Nabokov‘s Lolita. I didn’t get to read the book but I did watch the movie. It’s about how the Lisbon sisters’ lives changed and deteriorated after the suicide of their youngest sister, Cecelia. The sisters, after Cecelia’s death, were isolated in their house by their parents and soon killed themselves, two months after Cecelia’s death. I thought of the Lisbon sisters and wondered about their family and how it came to ruin. Can a family environment influence cluster suicides of adolescents?

Point cluster suicides occur in different intervals in a short amount of time and usually occur geographically close to one another. Once one youth commits suicide in one community, in a short span of time there’s a possibility that another young person from the same community kills his or her self and it might happen to another person as well. The closer the person is to the youth who committed suicide, the more susceptible they are to commit suicide as well or to act out suicidal behaviour.

Now think if the influence is something closer to the people like their families. Wouldn’t it have the same effect? Maybe even worse?

In a family, a person has the possibility of having the same influences, same views in life, and even have the chance of sharing familial psychopathology, meaning they may be suffering from an undiagnosed mental disorder together (e.g. depression). Most familial bonds are strong within the family so the impact of a suicide of a family member must seriously affect others within the family, those who are related biologically have a connection that researchers can’t clearly explain just yet.

The Lisbon sisters, after their youngest sister’s suicide, were isolated within their house by their parents in order to prevent bad influences from affecting them as they believed and that it would help them cope from Cecelia’s suicide. They were shut off from social interaction and were left to cope with their sister’s death by themselves. They had each other but all of them were affected by their sister’s suicide. Research shows that young people have a harder time coping with a suicide within the family. The oldest sister became rebellious and started getting behavioural problems while the other sisters were withdrawn and quiet for the two months after their sister’s suicide. They didn’t have the proper social support from their parents and so they fell into depression, resorting to suicide soon after as well.

Studies say that family members are the most negatively affected when there is a suicide within the family. Adolescents’ psychopathology level increases, especially behaviour problems, prior to the death of the family member and anxiety and behavioural symptoms increase as well after the first few months following the suicide. Such symptoms might lead to the suicide of others in a short time span from the time of the initial suicide.

Some studies say that point cluster suicides occur worse within families, some studies say the opposite. Provided that each family member is actively involved in each other’s lives, their social support for each other is shared with each other and intensified when they are in mourning. Increased social support may offset the family’s risk of additional suicides among the remaining family members.

I don’t think that suicide can be caused by contagion, it’s not a “disease” that a person can just catch from others. I think that it can be influenced by people closest to them. It depends on how well the young person can cope with the suicide of a family member and how well his or her social support is. The stronger relationships the young people have with others, the less chances they are to kill themselves following the suicide of a family member. When a family member commits suicide, the family should support each other and help each other recuperate from the impact of the suicide. Postvention is prevention.

Cerel, J., Jordan, J. R., & Duberstein, P. R. (2008). The Impact of Suicide on the Family. Crisis: The Journal
of Crisis Intervention and Suicide Prevention, 29(1), 38.

Brent, D. A., & Mann, J. J. (2006). Familial Pathways to Suicidal Behavior—Understanding and Preventing      Suicide among Adolescents. New England Journal of Medicine, 355(26), 2719-2721.

Mann, J. J. (2002). A current perspective of suicide and attempted suicide. Annals of Internal Medicine, 136(4), 302-311.

Jr., T. E. (1999, June). The Clustering and Contagion of Suicide. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 8(3), 89-92. Retrieved May 8, 2015, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20182569

Baldessarini, R. J., & Hennen, J. (2004). Genetics of suicide: an overview. Harvard Review of Psychiatry, 12(1), 1-13.

Zai CC, de Luca V, Strauss J, et al. Genetic Factors and Suicidal Behavior. In: Dwivedi Y, editor. The Neurobiological Basis of Suicide. Boca Raton (FL): CRC Press; 2012. Chapter 11. Available from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK107191/

Group 3-- SocSci10-Z

Nunez, Vanessa Janine R.

Red, Ramces Brayalle T.

Ojos, Kevin H.

Alabin, Glassyl R.

Moraleta, Raniella