Flirt with Suicide
The life of David Woods was the stuff of an Australian boy’s dream. He played professional rugby league football in a country that treats athletes as idols. At 29, he had a loving family, a girlfriend, a 3-month-old baby, plenty of money, everything to live for. And for inexplicable reasons, nothing to live for. On New Year’s Eve, Woods called his mother to announce that he had signed a new contract with his team, Golden Coast, recalls his elder brother, Tony. The next morning,, he ran a hose from the exhaust pipe to the window of his Mitsubishi sedan (轿车) and gasses himself. His family still has no idea why.
The death of David Woods came as a wake-up call to Australia, which is often voted as the ideal place to bring up kids. But the sun, the beaches and the sporting culture are the cheery backdrop to a disturbing trend: Young Australian men are now killing themselves at the rate of one a day — triple the rate of 30 years ago. Though most Australians aren’t particularly suicidal, their boys are. In 1990 suicide surpassed car accidents as the leading cause of death among males aged 15 to 24. Fun-loving Australia is now far worse off than Asian nations known for strict discipline. The yearly suicide rate for young Australian males is 2.5 times higher than in Japan, Hong Kong, or Singapore.
Possible Causes for Suicide
Why boys A nation of wide-open spaces and rugged individualism, Australia still idolizes the film star Gary Cooper model of masculinity: the strong, silent type who never complains, who always gets the job done. In recent years schools and social institutions have concentrated on creating new opportunities for equality for girls — while leaving troubled boys with the classic command of the Australian father: pull yourself together. It’s past time to take a much closer look at the lives of young men, some researchers argue. "People think, ’My kids aren’t doing drags, my kids are safe at home’," says psychiatrist John Tiller of Melbourne University, who studied 148 suicides and 206 attempts in the state of Victoria. "They are wrong."
The Haywards, a comfortably well-off family in Wyong, north of Sydney, figured they were dealing with the normal problems of troubled teenhood. Their son Mark had put up a poster of rock star Kurt Cobain, a 1994 suicide victim, along with a Cobain quote: "I hate myself and I want to die." "From the age of 12, Mark had his ups and downs — mood swings, depression and low self-esteem," says his father. The Haywards sent Mark to various counselors, none of whom warned that he had suicidal tendencies. By last year Mark was 19, fighting bouts (回合) of unemployment and a drug problem. He tried church, struggling to do the right thing. Last September he dropped out a detoxification (戒毒) program, and apologized to his parents. "I’ve let you down again." A few days later, his mother found Mark’s body in bush-land near their home.
In retrospect, Mark Hayward’s struggles were far from uncommon. The number of suicides tends to keep pace with the unemployment rate, which for Australians between 15 and 19 has risen from 19 percent in 1978, the first year data were collected, to 28 percent last year. Suicide is especially high among the most marginal: young Aboriginal (土著的) men, isolated by poverty, alcoholism and racism. As in other developed countries, Australian families have grown less cohesive in recent years, putting young men out into the world at an earlier age. Those who kill themselves often think "it’ll make it easier for the parents by not being there".
The deeper mystery is why the universal anguish of growing up should have such particularly devastating effects in Australia. One answer is that the country allows easier access to guns than most other developed Asian countries. (One exception is neighboring New Zealand, where guns are as easy to find, and the suicide rate among young people is worse.) Australian boys tend to end their lives violently — by shooting or hanging. Girls, by contrast, often take an overdose of drugs, and are more often rescued.
Efforts to Tackle Suicide Problem
Educators now hope to teach adults to recognize youths troubled by suicidal depression. That is no easy task in a society that generally avoids introspection (反省). "Good services do exist in Australia," says child psychiatrist Marie Bashir, but "the Australian philosophy is: pull your socks up. Get out and play some sports."
To get Australia’s attention, psychiatrist Tiller wants the government to sponsor a shock advertising campaign, similar to one that portrays the pain and guilt felt by survivors in drunk-driving accidents. The ads should make people aware of the threat, and urge them to get help for young people at risk.
The rising death toll has just begun to force suicide onto the nation’s political agenda. Suicide now takes more lives than murder or AIDS. Brendan Nelson, a physician and backbencher in Parliament, recently called for the creation of a National Office for Young People to report to the prime minister on youth concerns. Slowly, Australians are overcoming the old fear of talking openly about a problem that has long been considered taboo. "We have one young person every day ending his life and possibly another four who are not reported as suicides but are killing themselves," says Clyde Begg of the Australian Community Research Organization. "Now, if we don’t talk about that, we are neglecting our duties."
Tony Woods is talking now, but he wasn’t always. The brother of the football player who gassed himself to death, Woods says he tried to take his own life at the age of 17 by slashing his wrists with a carving knife after breaking up with a girlfriend. Woods has made it his own mission to warn other boys that they may find themselves on the same dangerous path taken by his brother, David. Among other things, he plans to bring professional football players into schools to urge boys to seek counseling for their personal problems. "Boys can’t communicate what they feel," says Woods. "They are socialized to be hard, tough, independent men who don’t show their feelings. We need to tell them: You’re worthwhile. Seek help... We need to teach boys to express themselves. We need to pick them up at 5 years old to prevent a problem in 15 years." It is the kind of simple advice, Tony Woods now believes, that his brother never heard.
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Australian schools and social institutions may have contributed to the problem of suicide among boys by focusing on giving girls more opportunities while leaving boys on their own.