In the best of all possible worlds, society would be ordered in a way that ensured acts of suicide were rare tragedies. Each individual would be relatively unstressed psychologically, would have a good and open cohort of trustworthy friends with whom communications would be open and empathetic, would enjoy good self-esteem and be readily aware of various social support mechanisms with easy access for distressed individuals in search of assistance.
Few, if any, citizens of the world today can live in such a Utopia, and few, if any, communities on this planet exist free of the tragedy of suicide in their midst. Such tragedies affect not merely the one who commits suicide, but his or her family and friends who are faced with the often unanswerable question of why it happened (a question which is usually attended by unwarranted feelings of personal guilt) and the community at large which will often question itself as to why one of its number should choose to opt out of it in such a distressful manner. Some communities have chosen not to acknowledge the problem at all either by failing to record it in their national statistics or by making discussion of suicide a taboo.
The Irish community has, in the past, taken both of these routes to an avoidance of what can indeed be a very difficult problem to face. But in recent years, thanks largely to the activities of voluntary agencies such as the Irish Society of Suicidology - largely made up of the experts whose task it is to confront suicide on a day-to-day basis - and the community-based support group, Aware, the discussion of the individual and communal problems of suicide on this island has become wider, more informed and more cogent. That this discussion is diverse, and that the problems are complex, has been made evident in the three-part series on suicide published in this newspaper, concluding today.
There seems now to be a scientific consensus that, in the vast majority of cases of suicide, there is some psychiatric disorder, most frequently depressive illness, which produces the disordered thinking that can go into the making of the decision to take one's own life. In a significant number of cases there will also be some substance abuse (usually of alcohol) involved. And there is a multiplicity of other factors, from the social through the psychological to the genetic, which have their own contributions to make to the final fatal outcome. Ultimately, the fatal outcome is the only fact that each and every case of suicide has in common with any other.
But the series also revealed at least the possibility that, within the coming decade, further specific research into the functioning of that most complex electro-chemical organ, the brain, may elucidate the substances and pathways that are integral to the chain-reaction that can lead to suicide, at least in most cases. The substance under scrutiny is a neurotransmitter (a kind of chemical "messenger" in the brain) called serotonin. A quarter of a century ago, it was noted that levels of serotonin in the brains and spinal cords of those who had committed suicide were reduced below normal levels. Much further research has been undertaken since then and it may be that the full elucidation of serotonin's function could provide quite precise prevention treatments. Hope is growing. Meanwhile, the very complex social and psychological and chemical interactions and symptoms which seem to signal a threatening suicide must be assiduously and personally sought in each instance. Utopia is still some way off.