Tis the season?

[termofart]

For killing your family and then yourself, apparently.

Anyone else noticed the trend?

(And anyone have access to stats that would let me know if it's actually OMG SO MUCH WORSE THAN USUAL THIS YEAR???)

Comments

[brigid]

well i know in the past at least the whole suicides go up around the holidays was a fallacy. i think it's more the news gets attached to stories of a like nature. remember a couple years ago they were calling it "shark attack" summer and reporting the hell out of shark attacks? it turned out that the average was actually -down- that year

[termofart]

Sure, but NOT suicide.

Murder-suicide.

And you have to remember that I don't watch the news, so the stuff seeps into my world slower. And I'm finding some crazy stuff now that I've started googling local incidents.

Suicide? Meh. Killing your wife and kids and then yourself? Totes not the same thing.

[brigid]

well in general it seems like once something hits the news there are lots of copycat responses. it happened over the summer with gay kids killing themselves over bullying.i remember reading a really compelling article somewhere about the whole dilemma of reporting the news while not adding to the hype. i don't know that we've had any murder/suicides here, but i'm also pretty bad at watching local news

[termofart]

Again, suicide is just not the same thing.

Yes, it's contagious. That's pretty much a given (particularly with young people for some ungodly reason). But, also again, I'm talking about people killing their wives and/or kids and then themselves...

Not that same thing at all. Different pathology if you will.

[sweetbaboo]

Don't worry. I promise if I catch it, I'll start with other people's families.

Chock full of the milk of human kindness I am.

[shu_al]

I commented recently, can't remember if it was to someone else or just idly to myself, that I couldn't imagine the desperation that drove a man (because it seems to be isolated to men) to kill his wife/girlfriend and in some instances other family members. And in thinking about it, I don't recall other years being seemingly as bad as this one but I'm honestly too lazy to go hunt the stats if they exist.

I think there may be some correlation between "this time of year" and the desperation - financial and family pressures seem to be exacerbated once the merry holiday season is upon us.

[mizdarkgirl]

Yep.. I googled & found these depressing statistical data

[niteraptor]

i was noticing how many children being murdered by their parentals of many types. financial s bring out the depression and psychosis in so many.