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Suicides in the Spring
Eight years ago, when I first learned that Québec suicide rates were known to rise in the spring, I was in a state of disbelief. I’d just moved to Montreal, and my very first Canadian winter was coming to an end. I’d endured half a year of being stuck indoors during the work week in order to enjoy half a year of weekends snowboarding — a trade-off I’d be thrilled to be able to make for the remainder of my life, given the choice — but everyone around me had made it abundantly clear that having anything positive to say about a season that effectively keeps them imprisoned for almost nine months of the year established my status as a member of a tiny minority.
And don’t get a Canadian started on the topic of which nine months are winter, because they all seem to have different memories and expectations of when winters end each year. As an outsider I can state unequivocally that nobody really knows, no matter how confident everybody seems to be.
I’ve subsequently learned that this seasonal peak suicide rate is a global phenomenon, and that the rates climb higher the further from the equator one lives. While I’ve continued to think about this subject quite often since returning to sunny South Africa, I recently (yesterday) read this interesting article and followed up with some googling, and I’ve collected the following four theories together in what I hope may provide some…
