Bob Collins
The reality is it’s not OK to show people online you’re not OK. The missing discussion is how are we to change that fact? Read more →
MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
Tag: Suicide
Since December, nine people between 12 and 24 have taken their own lives. Many more have tried, but failed.
There are only six mental health counselors on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation, which is the size of Rhode Island and Delaware. Read more →
The court agreed with attorneys for Allina Health, who claim the health care workers at United Hospital who evaluated Kirk Lloyd are granted immunity under Minnesota’s Commitment and Treatment Act, reversing a district court ruling. Read more →
A Minnesota State University Mankato student shot himself to death in the university library Monday afternoon. He was a philosophy major. He was also a veteran of the war in Iraq. For the most part, the news was met with a shrug. Read more →
It’s not possible to find a sadder story today than the Star Tribune report on Kendrea Johnson, the 6-year-old girl who was found dead in her foster home in Brooklyn Park. Read more →
The St. Cloud Times profiles Debbie Larsen today as part of its series, ‘Scars of Service.’ After three family members took their own lives, she’s become a passionate advocate for suicide awareness and prevention.
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The issue of suicide is, indeed, a complex one without simple answers. But the sudden increase in suicide rates is less alarming than the fact too many people were already taking their own lives in the state which mostly shrugged about it.
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High schools in Minnesota are in a difficult spot when it comes to the suicide of students. As we’ve written many times, they’re concerned that if they acknowledge that students kill themselves, it will lead other students to take their own lives, too. But if they don’t say anything, they mute a very real health threat to our children.
The effect on the families of the students is painful; they often made to feel as if their children never existed if their deaths cannot be noted. Read more →
Oh, Canada! Cpl. Justin Stark, an infantry soldier with the Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada, killed himself in October 2011. He was just 22 years old. Stark had been on a a seven-month tour in Afghanistan that started in 2010, including patrolling Nakhonay, a village southwest of Kandahar city. Nobody really knows what pushed Read more →
What drives people to suicide? Some insight. Read more →
Six years ago, Jonny Benjamin climbed to the edge of the Waterloo Bridge in London intending to jump to his death. But a stranger told him it would be OK, and offered to buy him a cup of coffee if he’d climb down from the railings. He climbed down and lived to tell his story. Read more →
A suicide fails but the future is still grim. Read more →
Is there anything social networking can’t do? Since he took his own life, C.J. Twomey has sat in an urn in his home in Maine. His mother didn’t want him to remain there so she enlisted social networking sites to spread his ashes around the world. People volunteered to scatter the ashes, and his mother Read more →
The image of David Sedaris, the author and humorist, is taking a significant hit this week as the result of his October New Yorker article about the suicide of his sister. Read more →
The state’s assisted suicide law will apparently live intact for at least another week. The Minnesota Court of Appeals issued no decisions today at its regularly scheduled time. The Associated Press had earlier reported that a test of the state’s law was expected today. Update 11:23 a.m. The Court of Appeals issued an unpublished opinion. Read more →