Comments on: New Orleans Suicide Rate Up…Needs Better Sample, but if True It’s Called Anomie

By: Blue

Blue — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 19:54:11 +0000

Rachel,
I’ve had those thoughts too.

By: Rachel S.

Rachel S. — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 18:02:52 +0000

Blue,
Those are some good points. I mused very early on about how many people would have difficulty evacuating because of psychiatric and physical disabilities, but the treatment of these populations afterward is probably a hidden disaster. Part of the reason the elderly population is so vulnerable to these disasters is related to ableism.

The pessimist in me thinks that many people with mental health issues and psychiatric disabilities weren’t getting adequate treatment before Katrina, after it I can imagine that it has gone from bad to worse.

By: Blue

Blue — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 01:54:22 +0000

This report from the American Psychiatric Association details the discriminatory treatment of evacuees with psychiatric disabilities.

Among many things that may impact gathering of statistical data is the fact that because shelter administrators weren’t trained in accommodating people with psychiatric disabilities, many were jailed, put in nursing homes or other institutions, or simply turned away.

I wondered about this: Were evacuees allowed to self-administer medication while in shelters? If, for example, an epileptic was not allowed to keep their drugs (which may be barbituates) and a shelter wasn’t set up to lock the drugs up safely and still help the evacuee get them, that otherwise functional person might have ended up in some institution they still can’t get free from.

Not the people with epilepsy have psychiatric disabilities or are prone to suicide, but if this sort of obstacle was faced by most evacuees with psychiatric disabilities who sought help from shelters, than that significantly skews the statistics of who is even available in New Orleans right now to be having suicidal tendencies.

By: Elizabeth

Elizabeth — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 19:55:52 +0000

The researcher just looked at raw numbers and didn’t bother to attempt any kind of per-capita calculation? The raw number of suicides in New York is higher than the raw number of suicides in Portland, ME but you can’t form any conclusion whatsoever until you convert it into per-capita.

By: Rachel S.

Rachel S. — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 23:07:56 +0000

Thanks for sharing that proud to swim home. I think it really highlights the importance of combating anomie as a way to help people with mental health. All the pills in the world ain’t gonna rebuild the city.

I feel you.

By: proud to swim home

proud to swim home — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 20:47:41 +0000

sorry about that everybody.
can ya tell today ain’t one of the better days?

By: proud to swim home

proud to swim home — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 20:45:16 +0000

while tracking the diaspora across the US is hard to do, it isn’t hard to expand your search to parishes like jefferson, st. tammany, & east baton rouge where so many evacuees have gone while in the process of actively rebuilding their homes. politicians all over the place down here (esp. nagin) are fond of “orleans parish only” data sets. but when i look around, none of the data match what my eyes see. that’s because there’s this uber-rush-hour every day as people pour into the city from where they’re staying with family and friends in the metro area.

personally, let me tell you the mental health situation here stinks. you want happy pills, it’s not hard to find a doctor who will give them to you. problem is, they don’t really work on the underlying PTSD & consequential disorders. they just mask symptoms. and then they stop working so the doc switches you to a different pill which works for another few months. and so on and so on.

there is no such thing as psychiatry or psychology anymore. just psychopharmocology. i have been trying to get therapy for my post-katrina problems for months now. the pills aren’t working. and there is no therapy situation available. the few community resources are only for drug addicts, alcoholics, criminals, and the severely psychotic. and even then, they suck and are over-taxed. so if you’re just depressed, near-suicidal, dealing with nightmares, roaring bouts of uncontrollable unpredictable rage, and just generally losing your fuckin’ mind, it’s “here, have another pill! hope this one works for you! come back in three months if it doesn’t!”

so you walk around so sedated that you’re falling asleep in front of the monitor during the middle of the day or you’re falling asleep while changing a frickin’ diaper and thankfully your head is resting on the edge of the changing table so the damn baby doesn’t fall off. so then you stop taking your pills during the day because you need to be awake so your kids don’t kill each other while you’re sleeping and so that you don’t have a car accident while picking them up from school. but then, well, if you’re not on the pills, they can’t make you happy, huh? and so you start to have these panic attacks and rage attacks and nightmares and depreession pits where nothing matters.

well-meaning friends who aren’t here say things like “you need to get yourself some help” and “talk to someone about it” but there isn’t anyone to talk to or get help from. nothing but another pile of pills. people who are here don’t say anything. just “how’s it goin?” and when you go “uh-huh” they know exactly what you mean and don’t ask any more ’cause they’re in the same boat or worse.

but i’m telling you right off, i know more than 11 people personally that have committed suicide in the past year. only one was actually listed on the death certificate as a suicide.

By: silverside

silverside — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 16:37:01 +0000

I think the critics miss the point. This is not a comprehensive, fully-funded study. It’s a quick, back-of-the-napkin calculation which simply points out that there may be a problem here that needs to be looked into a little further. That suicides very likely went up after Katrina is not rocket science, or some earth-shattering revelations without precedent. I think Ratard’s calculation is intriguing. It’s definitely conservative, in that it doesn’t even attempt to deal with the aftermath of Katrina for people who settled somewhere else. But it’s a start. And in the absence of real data, Ratard came up with something.

Data isn’t free. It costs somebody something to track changes and get numbers. Why certain things are counted effectively on a month-to-month basis and other things are scarcely counted at all is a very good introduction to basic political priorities. Since the powers that be can’t even be bothered to house people very well, is it any wonder that nobody will provide the funds to measure the “human capital” costs?

By: Jane Galt

Jane Galt — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 16:10:41 +0000

Another big problem with suicide rates is that there is considerable latitude in what gets counted as a suicide. Coroners have to make judgement calls about things like single car accidents, falls out of windows, and even gunshot wounds. For example, the town of Beachyhead in England, where the British famously go to throw themselves off cliffs, famously slashed its suicide rate in half in a single year . . . by hiring a new coroner. He ruled falls off the cliff accidental unless there was strong evidence for suicide, such as a note or clothes left neatly folded in a pile by the site of the jump.

It seems easily possible that New Orleans has replaced some of its medical examiners, or lost some of the more conservative ones, or that for some other reason they have gotten looser about ruling in favour of suicide. That is not to say that the suicide rate hasn’t gone up . . . it seems intuitive to me that it would (although suicide rates actually tend to drop in the immediate aftermath of a disaster). Just something to consider.