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Can we stop the suicides in Bridgend?

By Elsabe Smit

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 19Sep2008 Word count: 1303 Viewed: 276 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

There is a village in Wales in the UK, between Cardiff and Swansea, where 17 young people have committed suicides. The facts are not consistent - when did this start? If Natasha Randall was the twelfth victim in thirteen years, as one newspaper claims, who was the first, and exactly when did the first suicide occur? Did seven more people from the area commit suicide since 2006, or was it closer to twelve more?

But the speculation is consistent - certain websites are to be blamed, there are suicide pacts, there is nothing else to do in Bridgend and so on - nothing proven, but then who needs proof if the story is juicy enough?

And the Assistant Chief Constable of Bridgend was quoted as saying that similar spates of suicide had taken place in the US and Ireland in the past.

Malcolm Gladwell wrote a fascinating book called The Tipping Point in which he describes social epidemics. This book is really worth reading but I will only explain some of his ideas.

Gladwell says that an epidemic has three key attributes. The first is that it is contagious - like yawning. Have you ever yawned and then noticed people around you yawning as well, for no reason? An epidemic does the same - it just spreads for no particular reason.

The second attribute is that a little cause has a massive effect. To give you an idea of this, take a reasonably sized piece of paper and fold it over. Then fold it over again, and continue to repeat this until you have folded the paper 50 times. How high would the piece of paper now be? You would not believe this - it will cover the distance between the earth and the sun. And it all started with just one fold that was repeated.

The third attribute of an epidemic is that there is one boiling point, the moment of critical mass where the balance is so disturbed that it tilts over. A dramatic example of this is where Lake Nyos in Cameroon turned red overnight and started emitting toxic gases that killed over 1700 people and all animals within a 15-mile radius.

It may be that this is what happened in Bridgend. One person was I such despair that suicide seemed the only option, the community was shocked, the facts stuck in the mind of another person who them also took his/her own life and so on, until it became a practice that people could associate with and regard as an option out of their misery.

One of the residents of Bridgend was quoted as saying "It's become like a bit of an everyday thing. When the first one happened I was shocked but now it just seems normal, fashionable almost."

The book The Tipping Point describes a fascinating study on suicide that was done by David Phillips, a sociologist at the University of California in San Diego, USA. He found a definite correlation between the number and timing of newspaper reports on suicides, and increased numbers of similar suicides in the area. His theory is that the newspapers contributed significantly to the contagious effect of the suicides, simply by reporting on the details so regularly.

When people that are living with pain read these media reports, they, in a way, get "permission" to consider suicide as an option to relieve the pain. And the more "instructions" the media provide by means of detailed and regular reporting, the more people that are vulnerable to suggestion accept the "instructions" and take their own lives. Especially when the media reports are about someone the community looked up to. The reasoning is that "if suicide is good enough for that person who is worth so much more than I am, then suicide is good enough for me. I will imitate the important person and get the same relief."

And of course at some point individual events add up and form a critical mass, and the tipping point is reached. Is this what had happened in Bridgend in 2006, when the number of suicides suddenly increased?

There is complete balance in the Universe, but when the scale tilts to one side, we are so shocked and fascinated that we forget to look for the other side of the coin that will restore the balance.

This is the case with the Bridgend suicides as well. Everyone is focused on the suicides, and no-one is looking for the births or people who recovered from serious illness in the same families that were affected by the suicides, that will balance out the loss.

What can we do about this, apart from reading the gory details in the media?

This same book, The Tipping Point, describes the six degrees of separation. We can use this method to help the people of Bridgend without physically getting near the village.

The six degrees of separation is based on the premise that we are all bound up in an interlocking web. A man called Stanley Milgram did an experiment to prove this. He identified a group of people living in Nebraska, USA, and asked them to send a parcel to a man in Massachusetts on the other side of the USA, by means of a human network.

The people in Nebraska did not know each other or the recipient of the parcel. They had a destination address and their instruction was to find friends, relatives, old colleagues or anyone else the personally knew to send the parcel to until it reached the man in Massachusetts. The network of people also did not need to know one another. All they had to do was add their own addresses to the parcel on the way and find a next person of their acquaintance in this human chain to send the parcel to until it reached its destination.

In each instance the parcel was handled by a maximum of six people before it reached the man in Massachusetts.

We can use the six degrees of separation to send a letter of unconditional love to the people in Bridgend. Simply address the letter to The Mayor, Bridgend, Wales, UK. The mail system in the UK is excellent and the letter will reach its destination. We can forward this letter from one kindred spirit to the next until it reaches the families in Bridgend. Each person that forwards the letter simply adds his or her name (and address if you so wish, or at least the town and country where you live) to the letter. And if you want to, add a copy of this article as a means of explanation to the letter. Of course each one of us can simply send a letter straight to Bridgend, and that is better than doing nothing. However, I believe that the effect will be so much stronger when more people are involved and aware of what we do.

Will your letter make any difference to the population of Bridgend? Even if only one person realises that the world is actually full of love and that there is hope, it will make a difference. That person may reach out and ask for help, and then help others in a similar position, and the wave of positive change will have started.

If you read this and you do not live in the UK, I am sure you know someone who does live in the UK, or even someone who lives geographically closer to the UK than you do, who may know someone in the UK. And if you are willing to write such a letter from your heart stating your belief in unconditional love that will give someone else hope in this world, show me the person that will not feel the same and pass on the letter. What are you waiting for?

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