Last year will be written in black letters in the history of Budva, when nine young people took their own lives. The number of suicides last year disturbed the community and set off an alarm for the entire social community and institutions, which had been dormant for years, to wake up and start talking openly about this problem, which is becoming more and more alarming.
Budva, which has doubled the number of its citizens in the past two years, is still considered a city where people come to make easy money. Unfortunately, more and more young people cannot cope with the temptations and challenges brought by social turmoil, and are losing the battle with the problems and obstacles they face.
According to the statistics of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which was provided to "Vijesti", the number of suicides last year tripled compared to the period before that. According to the report of the Budva Security Department, there were two suicides in 2022, and three the year before.
On this occasion, the informal group of citizens, which is in the process of being formed, the NGO "Sačuvajmo život" was the first to speak out, pointing out the growing problem of suicides in the city.
"A trend that resembles an epidemic has gripped the city, and the city is silent, there is no response from institutions and adequate systemic support," said a group of citizens who then organized several workshops on mental health.
In addition to depression, personal circumstances also lead a person to commit suicide.
Primarius dr Jovo Đedović, a specialist in psychiatry, told "Vijesti" that it is necessary to draw attention to how important it is to talk about mental health and work on your own mental health.
"The definition of the World Health Organization says that health is not only the absence of disease, but a state of complete physical and mental well-being. What should be mentioned is the impact of stress, negative life events, mechanisms of combating stress, because it is usually considered that stress is a kind of straw that overflows the glass to later lead to mental illness. Suicidology, a special branch of psychiatry or psychology that deals with the study of suicide, roughly posits the following concept - the main role in the genesis of a suicide, in addition to mental health, depression or the presence of a certain psychiatric illness, is certainly played by the person's personal, social, life situation. If that personal situation in conjunction with depression leads to a person at one particular moment thinking that suicide is the only possible logical choice to solve the situation he is in, then in those circumstances, unfortunately, it happens. That is why it is very important when dealing with suicide or with a patient who has the possibility of suicide, in addition to the treatment of mental illness, to focus your work precisely on the personal circumstances in which they find themselves", stated Dr. Đedović.
Mental pain
He stated that he is one of the most important suicidologists in North America Edwin Schneidman came to the conclusion that something called psychic pain is the most important characteristic.
"If personal life circumstances lead to an extremely strong feeling of hurt for that person, the appearance of misery, torment, shame, sometimes even shame, murderous murderous rage in him, feelings of loneliness, which can certainly be amplified by depressive symptoms, the whole conglomeration of everything that happened will at some point, fluctuating over time, lead to a situation where that person can no longer endure such a thing. It is generally a theoretical concept of what is something that pulls a person towards suicide. What are the personal circumstances in our time, the transition period as we usually call it, and what all of that influenced in Budva that an increased number of people decided to commit suicide at one point, probably a sociologist would say better than me. Due to circumstances, I work in the hospital in Dobrota and I do not know any of the patients who committed suicide in the previous period. There are many things that they could probably talk about, they could speculate, but they are definitely sensitive topics that should be touched with a lot of caution, especially where it is fresh where it happened," Đedović pointed out.
For example, as he stated, 15 to 20 years ago in Canada, large-scale research was conducted on a sample of eight million people.
"Three percent admitted that they tried to take their own life at some point in their life, which is as many as 240 thousand people, while ten percent had suicidal thoughts. In general, this tendency to lose strength at some point, to want to end everything that is happening, can be strong and inconvenient. Thank God that in a rare number of cases it ends in the worst way, suicide. Statistics show that only five percent of uncompleted suicides are attempted or committed again. The data that 95 percent of them gave up is said by a person who found himself in a difficult situation at one point and has the impression that it is unbearable, that the pain is too strong, the feeling of being hurt, humiliated, everything that could lead him to attempt suicide. Already at a later point in life, everything fluctuates, every person who has suicidal ideas always has a degree of ambivalence, doubts about those ideas. That is why it is said that some reduction measures that prevent access to places from which it is easy to commit suicide, such as the installation of fences on tall buildings, have effects because of the impulsive momentary act and how they can act", emphasized Đedović.
According to him, suicide attempt is a rather broad term and it can be a reflection of a pure suicidal desire, a tendency in that person, but it can also be what is called an appeal phenomenon in the literature - drawing attention to the problem in which he is currently and an alarm to the environment that something is wrong.
"It is a parasuicidal phenomenon or someone uses it, I would say that it is an ugly expression, a pantomime of death," Đedović pointed out.
Self-harm in children
Speaking about self-harm in young people, psychotherapist Tatjana Mitrović states that very often in therapy, children and adolescents can be quite upset when they want to explain how they do it.
"You should always approach this with special caution. Parents should open their eyes wide, to see when a girl or a boy wears long-sleeved shirts in the summer, when the child is pale, when he does not go outside, is constantly locked in the room, has a constant tendency to withdraw, which indicates a serious problem. Such a child who is not noticed by the parents who are occupied by the big work, by the current way of life, by the dynamics we are surrounded by, that child has one last cry before doing something. Most often, someone close to him calls the therapist and never or rarely confesses at the beginning of therapy, usually when mutual trust is gained, then the child is able to reveal his scars or injuries that are the only contact with himself. He inflicts pain on himself in order to unwittingly punish his parents for not seeing him, not noticing him, not respecting him, belittling everything that makes him unhappy. Very often these children show their chest with their hand that their soul hurts".
Mitrović says that one should pay attention to the words that are spoken.
"People in the house often say that I'm going to kill myself, I'm not ready for this kind of life anymore, this kind of life means nothing to me," emphasized Mitrović.
After the suicide of a member, the family often blames itself.
"The family always wonders if they could have prevented it, predicted it. That feeling of remorse, suffering they later live in and general shame, not talking about it and avoiding those around them to ask, is an additional burden that destroys families. In those situations, systemic family therapy is suggested," she stressed.
Asking for help is courage, not cowardice
Representative of the NGO "Sačuvajmo život", humanist Luka Vuckovic states that interaction with nature is important for the human psyche.
"I practice swimming in open water, swimming in rivers, lakes and seas. My love is swimming in the sea. This symbiosis of man with nature is a feeling of well-being. That feeling of salt and sea current, that open sea, solitude, depth of the sea gives a completely sublime feeling. It is something that a person should experience, he should not be cocooned in some social frameworks that, in my opinion, are wrong... I mean technology here. Social networks and television programs cannot be blamed for this situation, but we have to look for the culprits within ourselves, whether we can and want to help ourselves and find a way to become stronger. To become stronger for the sake of our family, friends, society as a whole. A lot of my friends committed suicide, some because of gambling debts, some because of their sexual orientation, some because of the expectations that were directed towards them. Again, this is not a reason to take your own life," emphasized Vučković.
He points out that last year they organized humanitarian swimming marathons, one of which they swam under a green ribbon, as support for mentally ill people.
"Thus, we gave support to those people, and to families whose members have mental problems. Because, here in our society, to be mentally ill, to be crazy and to be labeled as trash. Unfortunately, this is the reality of this society. The families who are facing them also have problems and they need the help of professionals, because it is difficult when you watch a loved one wither away.
Unfortunately, my father died of Alzheimer's disease. For seven years we fought as hard as we could, we had a psychiatrist who followed him and helped us. There is always that regret of whether you could have done something more. Unfortunately, we did not have an understanding of the environment, there were ugly comments. When you're young, comments hurt you, only when you've gone through life's thorny path, because each of us has had such a path, you Google it, but you feel bad that someone else is facing such things that you went through. The help of a psychiatrist means a lot and my appeal is, to seek help is courage, not cowardice", Vučković said.
An integral part of depression is loss of self-confidence, pessimism
Psychiatrist Đedović reminds that the famous Viennese psychiatrist Viktor Frankl wrote a short but quite impressive book "Why didn't you kill yourself".
"Sometimes a person finds himself in a situation where suicide is the most logical choice, so it doesn't happen again. Frenkl is a Jew whose entire family perished in concentration camps and where he himself was for several years and miraculously survived. And that extreme deprivation of social dignity, living conditions and everything else certainly generates suicidal tendencies in some people. What is talked about in the book and something you will find in Dostoyevsky's novels is that sometimes a person can find the meaning of his life in suffering, in carrying his own cross. In general, an existential dilemma, especially at certain ages, can very often be a strong motive and driver and something that will result in moodiness, a drop in work dynamics and all that we psychiatrists call depression. People don't kill themselves just because of the troubles and problems they are in. Those problems that lead to depression or other mental disorder additionally color the whole situation and the way they look at that situation. An integral part of depression is loss of self-confidence, pessimism. What we see can realistically be a problem, ten times more it seems in depressing circumstances. Other things also contribute to this, the homosexual crisis, gambling debts, a failed job, infidelity in marriage, many other things can trigger problems in people who normally have a tendency to depression. Unfortunately, when you introduce all these factors together, when they happen in one place, then you have a tragic outcome," Đedović pointed out.
Inevitable suicides, example Hemingway?
Đedović points out that he is interested in the question of whether there are suicides that are inevitable, if there was no help for that person.
"Certainly, in clinical practice, you have situations when you analyze all the circumstances that led to suicide, and ask yourself if anything could have been done. One example that is often cited as a typical example of inevitable suicide is the writer Ernest Hemingway. You have families in which there is a strong tendency or an excess of suicides, as is the case with Hemingway, where four members of the family committed suicide (his father, brother, sister and granddaughter). Then Ernest went through the full treatment for depression at the clinic, including full-dose electroconvulsive therapy, full-dose medication, and six days after being released from the hospital, he committed suicide by shooting himself with a hunting rifle. In addition, there was cognitive decline, he stopped writing, and if you look at all the circumstances in this particular case, the question is whether anyone could have done anything differently. What I encounter in clinical practice is that there are people who have three or four cases of suicide in their families, and we take these circumstances extremely seriously and always proceed with maximally invasive treatments," he said.
The missing national strategy for the fight against suicide
During the last year, the police registered 116 suicides in Montenegro, which, as stated by the Police Administration, reinforces the worrying balance of suicides in Montenegro.
"Namely, during 2022, 126 suicides were registered, 2021 suicides in 111, 2020 suicides in 109, and 2019 suicides in 100. In just the previous five years, 562 people took their own lives in Montenegro," the police announced.
Of that number, 29 suicides were registered in Podgorica, 11 in Nikšić, nine each in Pljevlja, Bijelo Polje and Budva, five in Herceg Novi, four each in Kotor and Berane, in Danilovgrad, Andrijevica, Bar, Tivat, Žabljak and Cetinje each. three, two each in Rožaje and Plužine, and one each in Tuzi, Mojkovac, Petnjica, Kolašin and Ulcinj.
According to the Police Administration, Montenegro is the country that, according to the data of the World Health Organization (WHO), leads in the last decade in terms of the number of registered suicides in relation to the number of inhabitants.
"The causes or triggers are different, but mostly it is about serious health conditions, socio-economic problems, traumatic experiences, unsettled family relationships, etc. Although at first glance every suicide looks like a personal act, destroying one's own life, a person who takes his own life calls into question the fundamental value of society - human life that cannot be replaced, which makes this phenomenon a serious social problem, especially considering the scale it takes in to Montenegrin society", the announcement reads.
The police announced that in cases of suicide, they can only record statistics because it is a fait accompli, and that, unfortunately, Montenegro does not have a national strategy for the fight against suicide, nor a national body that would take synchronized steps in the fight against the perpetrators of suicide.
Bonus video:
