Here is another article that shows how difficult and stressful it truly can be to be unemployed right now. The title is “Suicides in the downturn raise worries about recession’s real cost”, and this was posted on November 9, 2009.
This article is about the number of suicides that have happened in Elkhart County, Indiana, as a result of someone becoming unemployed, and the stress that comes from that experience. The writer, JoNel Aleccia, talked to John White, who was the coroner for Elkhart County, Indiana.
* “In more than a quarter of the cases, White said, distress caused by job loss or financial failure was cited as the last straw. “We have a real problem,” said White. “They left notes specifically stating that the reason they did this was because of the economy.””
There is an example given of a woman who sent her child to the store, and then shot herself in the head. She was struggling to pay her bills, and her house was heading towards foreclosure. She shot herself the day after collectors came and took the vehicle that she and her late husband purchased together.
The example of the suicide rate in Elkhart county, Indiana, is something like a microcosm of the suicide rate all across the United States right now.
* “While there hasn’t been a link between suicide rates and recent national recessions, which are declared based on many factors, there is a link with circumstances that come along with a recession, such as unemployment and home foreclosure, said John L. McIntosh, a professor of psychology at Indiana University at South Bend who researches suicide trends. Individually, people who’ve lost jobs commit suicide at rates two times to four times as high as those who are employed, the suicide association notes.”"
Read the article to hear more stories about individuals who have taken their own lives as a result of unemployment, and an excess of bills. It’s just sad!
One of the points of the article is that we all need to keep our eyes open, and check on our loved ones who are currently unemployed. It’s not always apparent just how depressed and stressed out a person truly is.
This is the time of year where people who get seasonal depression are most effected, as the days become darker. Christmas is coming up fast, and this is going to be a really tight year for many families. Not everyone has happy memories of Christmas in the first place, and when you add that to the stress involved in trying to find enough money to purchase the perfect presents for everyone in your family, well, this could prove to be too much to deal with for many people.
It’s easy tally up the numbers of jobs that have disappeared. It’s easy to count up the number of new cases of unemployed people, seeking assistance each year, each month, each week, each day. What is overlooked is how individual people are truly being affected by this barren economy that isn’t producing nearly enough jobs.
Take care of yourselves, and your loved ones, this holiday season, people. It’s going to be a rough one!