Utah Teen Suicides increasing at 6X the National Average

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Hagoth
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Utah Teen Suicides increasing at 6X the National Average

Post by Hagoth » Fri Mar 23, 2018 8:19 am

The Utah Department of Health (UDOH) observed a 141.3% increase in suicides among Utah youth aged 10-17 from 2011 to 2015, compared to an increase of 23.5% nationally.

https://health.utah.gov/featured-news/c ... ncreasing

This is absolutely horrifying.

The article says, "A team of Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) officers from the CDC was deployed to Utah to conduct an independent epidemiologic investigation." Gee, I don't recall a team of specialists ever being deployed to Utah to investigate anything like miraculous cancer recovery rate. What we should be reading is that Utah, home of God's mouthpiece, has an infinitesimally small teenage suicide rate and a team of experts has been deployed here to learn our secret.

Comments?
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Re: Utah Teen Suicides increasing at 6X the National Average

Post by alas » Fri Mar 23, 2018 10:26 am

Hagoth wrote:
Fri Mar 23, 2018 8:19 am
The Utah Department of Health (UDOH) observed a 141.3% increase in suicides among Utah youth aged 10-17 from 2011 to 2015, compared to an increase of 23.5% nationally.

https://health.utah.gov/featured-news/c ... ncreasing

This is absolutely horrifying.

The article says, "A team of Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) officers from the CDC was deployed to Utah to conduct an independent epidemiologic investigation." Gee, I don't recall a team of specialists ever being deployed to Utah to investigate anything like miraculous cancer recovery rate. What we should be reading is that Utah, home of God's mouthpiece, has an infinitesimally small teenage suicide rate and a team of experts has been deployed here to learn our secret.

Comments?
I keep thinking this has to be much more than just LGBT kids, but has to include straight kids too, otherwise it would be all the LGBT kids and I do know some who are OK. But we all know how shaming the church can be with licked cupcake lessons and the shame over normal sexual feeling, let alone normal sexual behavior. but that shaming has been around for as long as I can remember. Even with the LGBT issues, 50-60 years ago the feelings themselves were sinful, so shouldn't that be an improvement. So, what has gotten worse in Utah over the last few years?

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Re: Utah Teen Suicides increasing at 6X the National Average

Post by slavereeno » Fri Mar 23, 2018 2:31 pm

agreed, why the increase? wasn't toxic perfectionism a thing in the church in the 80s too?

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Hagoth
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Re: Utah Teen Suicides increasing at 6X the National Average

Post by Hagoth » Fri Mar 23, 2018 3:13 pm

Maybe the issues with LGBT kids have caused other kids to realize that they're in a really tough place in a church that doesn't accept people for who they are. Maybe they project that judgement onto their own personality traits and idiosyncrasies and feel like there isn't place where they can feel normal and accepted in either the the church or their LDS families.

Next question: what percentage of these kids are Mormon? That might tell us something whether it could something to do with feeling trapped in Mormon culture, or whether it might be associated with being made to feel less-than by that culture.

It might be tempting to blame it on social media or technological isolation or something, but then it would be consistent nationwide.
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Re: Utah Teen Suicides increasing at 6X the National Average

Post by Silver Girl » Fri Mar 23, 2018 4:55 pm

Hagoth wrote:
Fri Mar 23, 2018 3:13 pm
Maybe the issues with LGBT kids have caused other kids to realize that they're in a really tough place in a church that doesn't accept people for who they are. Maybe they project that judgement onto their own personality traits and idiosyncrasies and feel like there isn't place where they can feel normal and accepted in either the the church or their LDS families.

Next question: what percentage of these kids are Mormon? That might tell us something whether it could something to do with feeling trapped in Mormon culture, or whether it might be associated with being made to feel less-than by that culture.

It might be tempting to blame it on social media or technological isolation or something, but then it would be consistent nationwide.
The shaming and the abusive & condemning attitude about gays filters into the entire community with that many Mormons around. Even those kids who aren't Mormon could be influenced to question their sexuality or their normal urges. The church is the primary culture in many parts of the state. I don't think there's a way to dismiss it as a primary factor.
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Re: Utah Teen Suicides increasing at 6X the National Average

Post by RubinHighlander » Fri Mar 23, 2018 5:02 pm

Hagoth wrote:
Fri Mar 23, 2018 8:19 am
"A team of Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) officers from the CDC was deployed to Utah to conduct an independent epidemiologic investigation."
I hope they include in the study if the teens are active in a religion. Either it will reveal no statistical difference or show they are actually at higher risk. I mean, look at this awesome state in terms of it's outdoor opportunities and beauty. Quality of life seems on par and the economy fairs better than most. We get more sunshine on average than Florida. What could be the factors here in Utah that are causing the much higher than average rates?
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Re: Utah Teen Suicides increasing at 6X the National Average

Post by wtfluff » Fri Mar 23, 2018 9:15 pm

Hagoth wrote:
Fri Mar 23, 2018 8:19 am
Comments?
Where to begin? Let's just say that it's absolutely mind-blowing to think that the Q-15 basically ignore this issue, or brush it aside like it doesn't matter. It's as if these kids are just collateral damage. These kids literally don't matter, just like Laban.

Just more proof to me that they (Q15) don't have any communication with any sort of deity who gives a sh!t about human life.

Sorry, but this hits way too close to home...


RubinHighlander wrote:
Fri Mar 23, 2018 5:02 pm
I hope they include in the study if the teens are active in a religion.
Not just if the teens are active in a religion, but the parents also. Especially the parents.
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Hagoth
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Re: Utah Teen Suicides increasing at 6X the National Average

Post by Hagoth » Sat Mar 24, 2018 6:44 am

wtfluff wrote:
Fri Mar 23, 2018 9:15 pm
Where to begin? Let's just say that it's absolutely mind-blowing to think that the Q-15 basically ignore this issue, or brush it aside like it doesn't matter. It's as if these kids are just collateral damage. These kids literally don't matter, just like Laban.
You are absolutely right. This should be the only thing they're talking about until there is significant change. They should put the curriculum on hold and create a new ultra-high priority mission for the church: save our children. Forget about redeeming the dead for a while, they're not going to get any more dead in the near future, but apparently a lot of our kids are. How about if the theme of General Conference this year about opening your hearts, welcoming and loving everyone, regardless of sexual orientation an gender identity?

When I read those statistics my jaw hit the ground. I have never heard these numbers mentioned in any church meetings or publications. Everything I hear about young people has had to do with either indexing/baptisms for the dead/seminary/missions, or the policy to cleanse the church of potentially gay-sympathetic kids. There is something SERIOUSLY wrong her and the only thing that is significantly unique about Utah is the Mormon church.

Wait, I just remember that there was some mention of this problem in the news. The solutions were to have a church representative sit on a task force and a proposal to create a new pioneer trail state park to remind the kids that other people had it worse.

Whew, I guess the problem is solved after all.
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Re: Utah Teen Suicides increasing at 6X the National Average

Post by Red Ryder » Sat Mar 24, 2018 6:55 am

As the church member on the panel, I'll take a stab at it. (No pun intended)

What other statistics trend higher in Utah that may be correlated?

Anti-depressant use?
Online Pornography use?
Religious Perfectionism?
Indexing?
High Altitude?
Jello consumption?
School lunch?

What are the public schools feeding the kids these days?
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Re: Utah Teen Suicides increasing at 6X the National Average

Post by Red Ryder » Sat Mar 24, 2018 7:15 am

Here's the link to the Epi-aid final report:

https://health.utah.gov/wp-content/uplo ... EpiAid.pdf
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Re: Utah Teen Suicides increasing at 6X the National Average

Post by Red Ryder » Sat Mar 24, 2018 7:22 am

RubinHighlander wrote:
Fri Mar 23, 2018 5:02 pm
Hagoth wrote:
Fri Mar 23, 2018 8:19 am
"A team of Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) officers from the CDC was deployed to Utah to conduct an independent epidemiologic investigation."
I hope they include in the study if the teens are active in a religion. Either it will reveal no statistical difference or show they are actually at higher risk. I mean, look at this awesome state in terms of it's outdoor opportunities and beauty. Quality of life seems on par and the economy fairs better than most. We get more sunshine on average than Florida. What could be the factors here in Utah that are causing the much higher than average rates?
From the final report, additional data abstracted from the field section:
Of Utah youth aged 10-17 years who died by suicide during 2011- 2015:

 Approximately 40.4% of decedents with information were identified as being religious, with the majority affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

 Approximately 12.6% of decedents with information had family conflicts that were the result of or that resulted in technology use restriction.

 Approximately 47.3% had ever disclosed their intent to die by suicide.

 Approximately 20.5% had a history of intentional self- harm in the form of cutting or had evidence of recent cutting.
In regards to religiosity studied it looks like data was taken from obituaries. Here's there comment:
Additional information was therefore gathered to examine religious affiliation among decedents. The majority of the data on religiosity/religious affiliation came from obituaries. A major limitation in the use of obituaries to classify decedents or family as being religious or belonging to a religious body need to be noted. The fact that an obituary was held in a religious institution does not necessarily mean that the decedent or family belonged to or was a part of that religious body. Another limitation to gathering religiosity information overall is that attending a church or being affiliated with a church does not necessarily make one a religious.
Another interesting statistic:
Among decedents tested, 19.8% had one or more of the following substances in their system at the time of death: alcohol, cocaine, amphetamine,
marijuana, and opiate.
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Re: Utah Teen Suicides increasing at 6X the National Average

Post by Red Ryder » Sat Mar 24, 2018 7:54 am

alas wrote:
Fri Mar 23, 2018 10:26 am
I keep thinking this has to be much more than just LGBT kids, but has to include straight kids too, otherwise it would be all the LGBT kids and I do know some who are OK. But we all know how shaming the church can be with licked cupcake lessons and the shame over normal sexual feeling, let alone normal sexual behavior. but that shaming has been around for as long as I can remember. Even with the LGBT issues, 50-60 years ago the feelings themselves were sinful, so shouldn't that be an improvement. So, what has gotten worse in Utah over the last few years?
It appears that the sexual orientation data was limited and they didn't pursue it enough to be conclusive. Out of the 150 deaths by suicide, only 40 had identifiable information of which only 6 were identified as gay or lesbian (sexual minority).
Sexual Orientation
An attempt was made to identify sexual orientation of decedents using two criteria; sexual identity (if there was mention of the sexual identity of the decedents) or sexual behaviors (if there was mention of the sex of decedent’s intimate partner) from any of the source documents reviewed. This information was missing for the majority of decedents (72.6%, n=106). For the 27.4% (n=40) of decedents with available information, 15% (n=6) were identified as gay or lesbian (sexual minority) youth. Due to the small count of sexual minority youth identified from the documents reviewed, the analyses could not be stratified by any demographic characteristics, precipitating circumstances, neither was further analyses performed to explore other characteristics of the sexual minority decedents in this investigation as that could potentially reveal decedents’ identity.
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Re: Utah Teen Suicides increasing at 6X the National Average

Post by Red Ryder » Sat Mar 24, 2018 8:18 am

After quickly reading through the report I can't come up with any smoking guns that tie the increase directly back to Mormonism. It appears to me that it's a tough world out there for teenagers and overall mental health is a significant factor. I would like to see a more thorough investigation done specifically in relation to LDS youth but after reading through the report I can't come to the conclusion the church is any more to blame than other factors. Most likely due to the limitations of the investigation and the gaps in the data. The data doesn't necessarily capture the toxic aspects of the church. It also doesn't capture the relationship of the non-LDS decedents to those involved with the church. That might be a factor when considering how difficult it is to be a non mormon living in a mormon dominate culture.

One last thought on this before I go do yard work (without garments on for those wondering) is that the culture in Utah may play a role in the significantly higher rates. This is where the church would fit into this puzzle.

Thanks for posting this Hagoth!
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Re: Utah Teen Suicides increasing at 6X the National Average

Post by Corsair » Sat Mar 24, 2018 3:06 pm

I have a brother-in-law in Utah who recently began working as a counselor within the Provo school district. He has commented to me about how the suicide epidemic is a problem up there that a lot of people are trying to solve. His own opinion on the matter fell more in the camp of "ultra-high expectations from family". He is a strong LDS believer, but I see an honest goal of starting to address this problem.

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Re: Utah Teen Suicides increasing at 6X the National Average

Post by RubinHighlander » Sat Mar 24, 2018 7:26 pm

Red Ryder wrote:
Sat Mar 24, 2018 8:18 am
After quickly reading through the report I can't come up with any smoking guns that tie the increase directly back to Mormonism. It appears to me that it's a tough world out there for teenagers and overall mental health is a significant factor. I would like to see a more thorough investigation done specifically in relation to LDS youth but after reading through the report I can't come to the conclusion the church is any more to blame than other factors. Most likely due to the limitations of the investigation and the gaps in the data. The data doesn't necessarily capture the toxic aspects of the church. It also doesn't capture the relationship of the non-LDS decedents to those involved with the church. That might be a factor when considering how difficult it is to be a non mormon living in a mormon dominate culture.

One last thought on this before I go do yard work (without garments on for those wondering) is that the culture in Utah may play a role in the significantly higher rates. This is where the church would fit into this puzzle.

Thanks for posting this Hagoth!
Good digging there Red! Maybe a better study would be directly targeted to those kids whose parents are active in a religion, then compare the percentage of suicides of the variouse religions. Then you could see if the more fundamentalist faiths have higher or lower rates. But even then, without data as to the type of parenting, like how crazy strict or fundamentalist the parents are, would be really difficult to capture without pretty intrusive questioning and interviewing of all indivuduals in the home. I can tell you from personal experience years ago I had serious suicidal thoughts after my first marriage went to hell, discovering my X's affair. I wanted to burn my temple marriage cert, haning on the wall; I was blaming myself for her unhappiness and my failure as a patriarch to keep the eternal unit together. I figured I was damned anyway and the guilt and pain was too much. For me, all the LDS dogma just magnified the pain and the issues.
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Re: Utah Teen Suicides increasing at 6X the National Average

Post by wtfluff » Sat Mar 24, 2018 7:41 pm

Another touchy issue in Utah that we're not discussing here is how the theocracy controls law enforcement to the point that all suicides are not reported as suicides.

Sadly, the observed percentages in studies such as these may be on the low side.
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Re: Utah Teen Suicides increasing at 6X the National Average

Post by alas » Sun Mar 25, 2018 7:30 am

Red Ryder wrote:
Sat Mar 24, 2018 6:55 am
As the church member on the panel, I'll take a stab at it. (No pun intended)

What other statistics trend higher in Utah that may be correlated?

Anti-depressant use?
Online Pornography use?
Religious Perfectionism?
Indexing?
High Altitude?
Jello consumption?
School lunch?

What are the public schools feeding the kids these days?
The important other statistics that are higher than the national average are:

child sexual abuse
Child physical abuse
Children watching Mom getting smacked around

But these all corollate with and are caused by *depressed parents*

So, what are the pressures on parents that are higher than the national average?

Debt
Altitude
Smog


But back to what has changed, those factors have been there for years and years. I can't think of anything that has changed this significantly in the last twenty years, except that the church is so openly fighting SSM. But the church's condemnation of gay feelings/behavior has not changed for the worse. In fact the church is less condemning of gay feelings, even saying the feelings cannot be helped and are not sin. Back when I was in highschool, being gay was such a horror that it was not really talked about, but was still made clear that any such feeling was worse than murdering someone. I remember once at a party we got into my gay friends bedroom and someone found library books. One of the friends never associated with any of us again, she as so aghast about a book on the subject. No, the church's stand is much softer and it has to be much easier to come out today than it was in 1970.



Aren't the "supper high expectations" the same nationwide? Or is Mormon perfectionism and "you are a chosen generation" somehow making the expectations more overwhelming. That has actually been toned down since I grew up and is even lower than the "Saturday's Warrior" time frame....so, I am thinking that high expectations from parents is not really higher in Utah.

Families with fewer children tend to put all their expectations onto the few kids, but the fewer children in higher outside of Utah.

So, I am still stuck coming up with anything except Utah's pollution problem has gotten worse and pollution in the air has been shown to cause birth defects, depression, and all kinds of stressors.

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Hagoth
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Re: Utah Teen Suicides increasing at 6X the National Average

Post by Hagoth » Sun Mar 25, 2018 3:12 pm

Red Ryder wrote:
Sat Mar 24, 2018 7:22 am
 Approximately 40.4% of decedents with information were identified as being religious, with the majority affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
This information is of limited value since, as all of us here can attest, you don't have to be religious to be affected or influenced by a religion. You don't have to be religious to be persecuted by a religion. That's kind of like suggesting that only white people can feel persecuted by white people.
“The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.” -Mark Twain

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Re: Utah Teen Suicides increasing at 6X the National Average

Post by FreeFallin » Tue Mar 27, 2018 8:19 am

What sad news. And even more unfortunate is that it happens in an LDS environment where people can't consider the possibility that they may be wrong about something and then make healthy adjustments.

One thing I've noticed is how hateful and angry my mormon friends and family have become on facebook. As someone who has changed political ideologies significantly, I feel the sting of so many comments, which are dismissive of differing opinions, hateful, blaming, and full of outright name calling put-downs (kinda childish). I think the young people of today are generally significantly different than the adult population in basic liberalness, like accepting people who are different.

Imagine you are a young person who loves his or her gay or transgender friends in Utah: Your parents and community hate you - you're a snowflake!

Imagine you are a young person who believes in equality for women: Your parents and community hate you - you're a sheep.

Imagine you are a young person who hopes that gun laws can be changed so the unstable creep who just graduated doesn't get a hold of one and gun down your classroom: Your parents and community hate you - you're an idiot!

Imagine you are a young person who doesn't like church and doesn't agree with what is being taught: Your parents and community hate you - you're an apostate!

Imagine you are sexually active and worried about pregnancy: Your parents and community hate you - either you're an evil abortionist (because you know you couldn't go through with pregnancy) or an exposed evil sex-haver.

So many conservative people have (in my opinion) become extremely hateful. Our young people are hearing and seeing through social media how much their truth, where it differs from the conservative culture, is hated. They probably haven't learned yet to adequately hide themselves and it simply is *NOT* safe to be yourself in any way that falls outside of a very narrow set of rules and regulations. And if their parents haven't figured out anything about authenticity and self-acceptance, they are not able to offer their children any kind of effective coping skills for the current environment.

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Re: Utah Teen Suicides increasing at 6X the National Average

Post by slavereeno » Fri Mar 30, 2018 1:58 pm

My TBM friend says its a mixture of the "culture" that, of course the brethren are trying soooo hard to fix, and disaffection. So according to the TBM hardline, its the exmos and toxic unauthorized culture that are to blame. If we'd just listen to the Q15 everyone will be super happy. :roll:

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