On Thursday the 14th, an 11 year old boy jumped from the platform at a station in Osaka killing his self. He left his bookbag on the platform and in it a note begging the school to forgo the closing of their school and the merging with another school. Prior to jumping he had sent an email to his mother stating: "Thank you for everything. I love you all very, very much."

Press:
http://mainichi.jp/select/news/20130215k...6000c.html
http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/wor...6579065644

Depression and bullying are one thing, and easier to understand why they would drive someone to commit suicide, but this case flies in the face of reason. I can't help but wonder if there hasn't been enough done to spread a message that there are other options besides killing yourself, or maybe that the constant coverage of suicide events in the news has given the act some kind of voice in the culture (ie: legitimized it).

[Zgarbas]

That's so many levels of wrong I'll just pretend there's a better reason for his suicide and he wrote about the school closing down to keep the real reason hidden.

Suicide gets in the news&media everywhere, but not all countries get such a ridiculous suicide rate. If anything Japan just has a few centuries of idealizing suicide behind it, but that still shouldn't leave much of an impact.

What I can't get my mind across is why there aren't more instances of the bullied killing the bullies instead of or including killing themselves. The recent Dormer case (the policeman who attempted to expose corruption in the LAPD) is a step in the right direction, apart from the killing of innocents.

For this case, maybe it has less to do with suicide and more to deal with the importance of schools and education in Asian countries, and the boy obviously felt strongly enough to do something about the closure of his school. If nothing else, at least this suicide was interesting and a break from the usual boring bullying suicide stories.

As for suicide in the news, you'll have to define how much is too much before entering the realm of legitimacy.

Zgarbas Wrote:That's so many levels of wrong I'll just pretend there's a better reason for his suicide and he wrote about the school closing down to keep the real reason hidden.

Interesting. Maybe the boy was killed on purpose and his death made to look like a suicide because he saw something he should not have seen.

Follow the money as they say: who stands to financially gain from the school closure and subsequent merging?

^ Um there are cameras at these stations. If this was a murder, I'm pretty sure it would have been freaking obvious.

Killing someone in Japan is a lot harder than in other countries like the US. With guns not being easily acquirable in Japan, that tends to leave knives as the only usable method. The only murder case that I can think of in the past decade by a kid was the Sasebo case where a 11 year old girl slit the arms and throat of a fellow classmate using a razor knife. She left her body in the class (during lunch) and returned to the lunch room covered in blood. She became famously known as "Nevada-chan" on the net.

There have been other murders I'm sure but they are so uncommon and the above case wasn't one of bullying but one of hate. I really doubt you'll ever see a bully victim attack their bully with a knife. There's often a severe power structure here. This is really why guns are the go to weapon for victims in the US because they tip the scales. It doesn't matter how powerful you are strengeth-wise, a bullet will kill you just as easily as anyone else; where as using a knife, the victim could get overpowered by the bully by their (perceived) strength.

====

As to hidden causes. 2ch reacted to the story, and most of them were saying that it seemed odd or impossible for a 5th grader to conceive of something like this. Personally I think they under estimate the mind of a 5th grader but that's me. I think we'll find out in coming days if there was anything else going on. The police are going to come down on the school, as usual.

[Zgarbas]

Was thinking more around the lines of was abused or had other issues and simply didn't want others to know. More keeping face than conspiracy. Or maybe he just read too much Chikamatsu.

It's just nonsensical to me; I love my former highschool and if it were to get shut down I would take action (petitions, appealing to the Ministry, whatnot), but commiting suicide just to prove such a point would be... not really something I'd imagine anyone doing.

qwertyytrewq Wrote:Follow the money as they say: who stands to financially gain from the school closure and subsequent merging?

I'll address this as a separate post. School mergers have become far more common these days in Japan. One of the middle schools I work at is merging with the main middle school in town, this year. The reason is because of falling student levels. The school only has 30 students total across 3 years, and after the 3rd years graduate this semester, the school pop will drop to ~20, even with the incoming 6th graders.

Schools merge because it makes no sense to keep schools open that are this small. This is going to continue to be a problem in many rural areas in Japan because the population in these areas continues to fall every year.

I don't know, but I think part of the reason countries like Japan, Korea and China have high suicide rates comes from an upbringing influenced by Confucianism. There is strong societal pressure to live in a prescribed way, be a good little pleb and serve the hierarchy. And in way this kind of system does provide most people within the society a reasonably happy and stable life. The problem comes when someone who has been taught to go along with the system and everything will be alright somehow falls through the cracks. If they have never had to think for themselves, figure out their own desires and figure out how to achieve their own happiness they may feel they are in a hopeless situation. Worse yet if society actively prevents this and/or expects all it's citizens to be/act the same.

One thing I've always wondered about suicidal people is why they don't just go on some big adventure at the end of their lives. If you're gonna kill yourself anyway, you may as well use whatever is left in your bank account to do something crazy.

It seems to me that this is in the tradition of the noble suicide, or suicide as an honourable act rather than this little boy falling through the cracks or there being anything more sinister involved. That's the cultural message he inherited, and he's applied it in his own way. It's absolutely unacceptable though, obviously. I have no idea how you go about discrediting such a tradition though...

nadiatims Wrote:One thing I've always wondered about suicidal people is why they don't just go on some big adventure at the end of their lives. If you're gonna kill yourself anyway, you may as well use whatever is left in your bank account to do something crazy.

i imagine this is because a.) it's generally enough trouble for a seriously depressed person to drag themselves to a train station to jump, let alone go on holiday, and neither would such a holiday be particularly fun in that state for them to want to bother with it in the 1st place, and b.) a significant proportion of suicides are caused by financial hardship, especially in Japan. The suicide rate jumped 35% after the bubble broke and Japan's economy became depressed, and 57% of all suicides are made by unemployed people.

vix86 Wrote:She became famously known as "Nevada-chan" on the net.

Oh yes, I remember her, I saw a few Nevada chan cosplays before which was how I found out about it.

nadiatims Wrote:I don't know, but I think part of the reason countries like Japan, Korea and China have high suicide rates comes from an upbringing influenced by Confucianism. There is strong societal pressure to live in a prescribed way, be a good little pleb and serve the hierarchy. And in way this kind of system does provide most people within the society a reasonably happy and stable life.

That's funny because the exact same thing (plebs serving their masters) can be said about Western societies like the US, and to a lesser but still significant extent, a libertarian society (which you support), in my opinion.

Though granted, our suicide rates aren't as high as Japan's but still high enough (war veteran suicides etc).

Icecream Wrote:It seems to me that this is in the tradition of the noble suicide, or suicide as an honourable act rather than this little boy falling through the cracks or there being anything more sinister involved.

Yeah. I wasn't commenting on this specific case, but rather suicide in Japan in general.
This case to me is pretty bizarre. It's hard to imagine a kid being that upset about a school merger unless he was somehow picking up on and channeling anger about the situation from parents or teachers or something.

qwertyytrewq Wrote:That's funny because the exact same thing (plebs serving their masters) can be said about Western societies like the US, and to a lesser but still significant extent, a libertarian society (which you support), in my opinion.

Sure, i never said this is unique to east asia. I do think though that in east asia (and perhaps other very homogeneous societies) there is a stronger expectation to follow certain paths through life. Women are often quite desperate to marry before they're 30. Many people feel they're too old to do post graduate study or travel abroad. There may be tacit agreement that an OL quits her job after marriage. A woman beyond a certain age is supposed to retire and take care of grand kids etc etc. Kids don't repeat or skip grades. Deviating from certain norms is viewed as odd or suspicious. All this results in less options for someone finding themselves in a difficult situation or falling outside of the boxes assigned to them.

Suicide is the ultimate solution to everything, though.

Neuroscience student here.
When I started learning Japanese and hearing some cultural differences, I noticed an interesting trend.
It may be just courtesy thing, but Japanese (as I heard it said) direct the fault into self rather than others. Such behavior is called "internalizing the responsibility".
According to some studies (that I cannot find at the moment but it is under wikipedia article on "learned helplessness", I think), those who internalize the responsibility tend to be more prone to depression than those who externalize the responsibility.
Of course, depression is linked to attempted suicides.

As a nation, Japanese culture may be prone to depression and suicide attempts.
Just a thought.

lhong1987 Wrote:Neuroscience student here.
When I started learning Japanese and hearing some cultural differences, I noticed an interesting trend.
It may be just courtesy thing, but Japanese (as I heard it said) direct the fault into self rather than others. Such behavior is called "internalizing the responsibility".
According to some studies (that I cannot find at the moment but it is under wikipedia article on "learned helplessness", I think), those who internalize the responsibility tend to be more prone to depression than those who externalize the responsibility.
Of course, depression is linked to attempted suicides.

As a nation, Japanese culture may be prone to depression and suicide attempts.
Just a thought.

For whatever value anecdote adds, as a person living with/have lived with depression for most of my life, and could well be described by such "internalizing the responsibility" behaviour; for most of my life I have for many reasons unaware of at the time and still unexplainable reasons, have felt and still feel a sort of empathetic understanding towards at lot of the social pressures, commonly found problematic thought processes, and certain underlying values in respect to many of the self-inflicted "solutions" many Japanese citizens have found themselves with.

In Australia, where I live, most of the highlighted internalization and responsibility issues, aren't something which is anywhere as cultural relevant, and has added to a certain sense of isolation I have felt and feel within the general social hierarchy within.

It would be interesting to see how many similarities people not living in Japan and being exposed to such a social environment, yet still displaying similar interpersonal issues, with those Japanese living in Japan, finding themselves in such social positions (freeters, unemployed, 引き籠もり, NEETs, etc.) which have shown statistically prone to suicide, depression, etc. Even just for a sense of correlation.

Personally, I don't think it is so much as a Japanese phenomenon as it is a common psychological phenomenon within first world nations, though is provided with greater stimuli within contemporary Japan due to the sheer population density and overall higher standard of living, and less to due with the pre-modern 武士 caste or Neo Confucianism. Though I have no real hard evidence to base this on.

Marumaru Wrote:Suicide is the ultimate solution to everything, though.

Single generation solutions are ultimately myopic, in respect to fiscal and social matters. For the individual, though, it may be the ultimate solution to everything, if everything were a problem applicable on an individual level. Equations need to be balanced before they can be solved.

Marumaru Wrote:Suicide is the ultimate solution to everything, though.

I hope you are trolling.
That's like saying a solution to a chess problem is flipping the game board.

Abandoning a problem and solving a problem is two different things.

There was a 2002 Japanese movie called Suicide Circle ("Suicide Club" is the English title).

IceCream Wrote:i imagine this is because a.) it's generally enough trouble for a seriously depressed person to drag themselves to a train station to jump, let alone go on holiday, and neither would such a holiday be particularly fun in that state for them to want to bother with it in the 1st place, and b.) a significant proportion of suicides are caused by financial hardship, especially in Japan. The suicide rate jumped 35% after the bubble broke and Japan's economy became depressed, and 57% of all suicides are made by unemployed people.

Think about it this way, say: If I were a depressed person who see no hope in life and is willing to commit suicide and erase my pain, then I have noting to lose; social image, money, time, responsibilities, etc.., so I'm a free person, I can do whatever I wish and not face the consequences because at ANY time I can JUST commit suicide! Brilliant! (Unfortunately, I have a name for suicide in this thought, it's called plan B, but if a person reaches this point and returns to a semi-healthy/healthy mental state, it becomes a liberating experience!)
But maybe not all people can make this logical conclusion when thinking about taking their own lives :/

lhong1987 Wrote:It may be just courtesy thing, but Japanese (as I heard it said) direct the fault into self rather than others. Such behavior is called "internalizing the responsibility".
According to some studies (that I cannot find at the moment but it is under wikipedia article on "learned helplessness", I think), those who internalize the responsibility tend to be more prone to depression than those who externalize the responsibility.
Of course, depression is linked to attempted suicides.

As someone who used to internalize the responsibility, I find it absurd that they don't teach teenagers or maybe even children how to handle this topic as school! If one does internalize the responsibility it leads to depression, but if he doesn't include his role with dealing with his life difficulties, whether personal, learning, in school or work, while externalizing the responsibility, he will ALWAYS blame external sources for his miserable life, and not be proactive about his position in his life!

EDIT: On topic, I wouldn't completely exclude the probability of the kid being influenced by his culture's history and "die for honor", because unless he's lying about the cause, it sounds silly (sorry) to kill himself to solve the problem (?!), and his message to his mom give the idea that he knew what he was doing.

undead_saif Wrote:Think about it this way, say: If I were a depressed person who see no hope in life and is willing to commit suicide and erase my pain, then I have noting to lose; social image, money, time, responsibilities, etc.., so I'm a free person, I can do whatever I wish and not face the consequences because at ANY time I can JUST commit suicide! Brilliant! (Unfortunately, I have a name for suicide in this thought, it's called plan B, but if a person reaches this point and returns to a semi-healthy/healthy mental state, it becomes a liberating experience!)
But maybe not all people can make this logical conclusion when thinking about taking their own lives :/

Except, generally, depressed people who see no hope in life don't have the energy or will to do anything. They're not going to have the desire to go out and live it up and do whatever they want. The thought of even going out and living it up as the last big hurrah isn't something that even crosses their minds. When a person reaches the point where they don't want to live anymore, they're tired. Of everything.

undead_saif Wrote:

IceCream Wrote:i imagine this is because a.) it's generally enough trouble for a seriously depressed person to drag themselves to a train station to jump, let alone go on holiday, and neither would such a holiday be particularly fun in that state for them to want to bother with it in the 1st place, and b.) a significant proportion of suicides are caused by financial hardship, especially in Japan. The suicide rate jumped 35% after the bubble broke and Japan's economy became depressed, and 57% of all suicides are made by unemployed people.

Think about it this way, say: If I were a depressed person who see no hope in life and is willing to commit suicide and erase my pain, then I have noting to lose; social image, money, time, responsibilities, etc.., so I'm a free person, I can do whatever I wish and not face the consequences because at ANY time I can JUST commit suicide! Brilliant! (Unfortunately, I have a name for suicide in this thought, it's called plan B, but if a person reaches this point and returns to a semi-healthy/healthy mental state, it becomes a liberating experience!)
But maybe not all people can make this logical conclusion when thinking about taking their own lives :/

The act of taking ones own life is not a logical decision (like most human behaviour), however, and has a person with personal experience in attempting suicide, and living with the related depression, guilt, etc. I can say verily so: people depressed enough to contemplate suicide generally don't think about it this way. Social image, money, time, responsibilities, etc., are often not enough of a pull to draw you out of the mindset contemplating suicide. I think your response is a common response people have to suicide which highlights a general misunderstanding of depression itself and related acts people go through as a form of punishment/ease, etc. for whatever related guilt, paranoia, phobia, etc., issues manifest.

That feeling of freedom and personal liberation often comes from embracing life for what it is, which is oft opposite to the negative feedback loop those living with suicidal thoughts.

quark Wrote:

undead_saif Wrote:Think about it this way, say: If I were a depressed person who see no hope in life and is willing to commit suicide and erase my pain, then I have noting to lose; social image, money, time, responsibilities, etc.., so I'm a free person, I can do whatever I wish and not face the consequences because at ANY time I can JUST commit suicide! Brilliant! (Unfortunately, I have a name for suicide in this thought, it's called plan B, but if a person reaches this point and returns to a semi-healthy/healthy mental state, it becomes a liberating experience!)
But maybe not all people can make this logical conclusion when thinking about taking their own lives :/

Except, generally, depressed people who see no hope in life don't have the energy or will to do anything. They're not going to have the desire to go out and live it up and do whatever they want. The thought of even going out and living it up as the last big hurrah isn't something that even crosses their minds. When a person reaches the point where they don't want to live anymore, they're tired. Of everything.

Exactly. It's not so much about there being nothing to lose, as there being nothing to gain. And if you didn't have that feeling of there being absolutely nothing to gain from carrying on existing, you probably wouldn't be suicidal in the first place.

IceCream Wrote:

quark Wrote:Except, generally, depressed people who see no hope in life don't have the energy or will to do anything. They're not going to have the desire to go out and live it up and do whatever they want. The thought of even going out and living it up as the last big hurrah isn't something that even crosses their minds. When a person reaches the point where they don't want to live anymore, they're tired. Of everything.

Exactly. It's not so much about there being nothing to lose, as there being nothing to gain. And if you didn't have that feeling of there being absolutely nothing to gain from carrying on existing, you probably wouldn't be suicidal in the first place.

It not really that they will actually go out and do something, because as you said they have no energy, but this thought gives hope, and allows them to through the outer unessential layers of life and appreciate life in some sense.
It gives hope because if the person tried to be rational (which isn't easy to achieve that point) he can see that being dead will not bring him anything, no harm and no good, but being alive he can actually (even if theoretically at that point) gain him something contrary to being dead. Notice that this isn't what might spontaneously be in his mind, but some effort into thinking about it can bring him to this, maybe it's the instinct of survival or maybe the stubbornness to not admit defeat by allowing the mind to accept the complete desperateness.
About the bold sentence, it not necessary. Depression can be seen as thinking that no good will come to one's life, but not necessarily in life in general.

chamcham Wrote:There was a 2002 Japanese movie called Suicide Circle ("Suicide Club" is the English title).

ahh that movie is quite twisted. there's also the Virgin Suicides in the states, which i think packs a deeper (different kind of?) punch despite the relative lack of gore.
i wondered while watching if S.C. if it were irresponsible to make such a movie, but maybe it'd be irresponsible to not make the movie just because it's an elephant in the room or it's too extreme.
on my way to work there is this graffiti that is small and kinda out of direct view, i always forget it's there until i see it. it just says "kill" in this kinda demented commanding script. it always kinda cheers me up because idkwhy but it brings me a chuckle.
today, i noticed someone wrote "don't" over the word "kill" and i thought it was really lame and i realized the reason i liked it is because it is absurd to think that graffiti has power. it's pedantic and patronizing to write "don't" as if someone were really going to read that graffiti and follow it like an instruction.
so i guess my point is that it's not the media, and even to a certain degree it's not society so much that leads to one ending his/her life, but something more like what uisukii is touching on. something i've never understood since i've never been honestly suicidal, but my friend did herself in and i've never really wrapped my head around it, but i trust it's something i couldn't understand. of course if she had asked me, in some logical way, "should i kill myself or go on a binge of living life to the fullest with no regret" i'd have told her i'd never forgive her for choosing the former, but like others have said, i don't think that it's a logical process.
even in Suicide Club, the kids kill themselves because they are hypnotized in some way, it's not logical or calculated.

what about the monks who perform acts of self-immolation as a form of protest in Tibet? The other day marked the 100th such act: http://www.myrepublica.com/portal/index....s_id=49896

uisukii Wrote:The act of taking ones own life is not a logical decision (like most human behaviour), however, and has a person with personal experience in attempting suicide, and living with the related depression, guilt, etc. I can say verily so: people depressed enough to contemplate suicide generally don't think about it this way. Social image, money, time, responsibilities, etc., are often not enough of a pull to draw you out of the mindset contemplating suicide.

I didn't say those would draw that person out, I meant that person would completely disregard those things, which can lead to a different perspective toward life.

uisukii Wrote:I think your response is a common response people have to suicide which highlights a general misunderstanding of depression itself and related acts people go through as a form of punishment/ease, etc. for whatever related guilt, paranoia, phobia, etc., issues manifest.

Just wanna tell you that you thought wrongly

uisukii Wrote:That feeling of freedom and personal liberation often comes from embracing life for what it is,

Exactly!

uisukii Wrote:which is oft opposite to the negative feedback loop those living with suicidal thoughts.

That why I said AFTER getting back to semi-healthy/healthy mental state.

I think I just realized that what I said before requires some sort of high self-awareness and having the ability to observe oneself, i.e looking from the outside or thinking about thinking, so it probably isn:t the general case, unfortunately, but it happened

EDIT: Notice that the way out of the negative feedback loop that I wrote before make use of the extremely negative state of mind, it like finding a dot of light in the immense darkness, someone who went through that chain of thoughts used his very negative outlook to life to get it back! Its more like being desperate about getting out of that state of mind (survival instinct or stubbornness against defeat maybe?) to use it own products against it, again because there no real positive thoughts. Try to read it again to see what I:m trying to say, sorry, I:m a bad at expressing myself!

undead_saif Wrote:It not really that they will actually go out and do something, because as you said they have no energy, but this thought gives hope, and allows them to through the outer unessential layers of life and appreciate life in some sense.
It gives hope because if the person tried to be rational (which isn't easy to achieve that point) he can see that being dead will not bring him anything, no harm and no good, but being alive he can actually (even if theoretically at that point) gain him something contrary to being dead. Notice that this isn't what might spontaneously be in his mind, but some effort into thinking about it can bring him to this, maybe it's the instinct of survival or maybe the stubbornness to not admit defeat by allowing the mind to accept the complete desperateness.
About the bold sentence, it not necessary. Depression can be seen as thinking that no good will come to one's life, but not necessarily in life in general.

There's definitely a level of suicidality in which this is the case, but the thing is, i very much doubt that anyone who is in that state would actually kill themselves.

What you are describing just isn't the level at which someone would kill themselves, it's the level at which they would think exactly what you've presented. The natural will to live is very strong. The state where people actually commit suicide is qualitatively different to the one you're describing (for depression).

It doesn't have a lot to do with being irrational, imo. In fact, eventually, depression will strip you so bare of all meaning that even this potential for there to be something, or life, or some future happiness itself seems meaningless. To me, suicide is the rational position from that state.

tbh, i think the feeling of meaning, and that of happiness, are more illusory than the reality in which you find yourself honestly wanting to die. It's impossible to find any meaning if you are truly outside those states, even in the idea of those states. And so, suicide becomes rational. Of course, rationally, i would choose the illusion, always, and once you have it, things are meaningful again. But if you're in a position from which you've tried everything to find your way there and reality won't budge, that's the end of it, really.

I guess it's almost impossible to understand if you've never been in that state though, only the state where those ideas do still hold enough meaning for you to be able to find meaning in your own stubbornness.