Bridgend Swingers Club

[maryportfuncity 10,646]

Bridgend in the news again. Up there with Kate and whatsisname as an elephant in the DL living room. These young death statistics ain't exactly normal and for all the blather from the mustered experts nobody seems to be able to explain or stop it.

 

Or maybe the massed mega-minds of the DL'ers know summat that might enlighten us all.

[themaninblack 2,112]

You'd have to be bloody good at your research to second guess who will be next!

[maryportfuncity 10,646]

Samaritans suggesting that the young 'uns don't ring them soon enough.

 

As a matter of interest, do any of our Welsh posters know if you have to be bilingual - i.e. English and Welsh - to be a Samaritan in Wales?

[Handrejka 1,904]

Website is available in both languages

 

http://www.samaritans.org/rhyl/welsh_pages/whome.htm

[Guest Guest]

Another one bites the dust.

[themaninblack 2,112]

This getting serious. What the bloody hell is going on? Some sort of cult?

[Anubis the Jackal 77]

My opinion.

 

Not a cult, internet pact, outbreak of ergot posoining or anything like that. Merely the creation of a localised environment where the idea of suicide as a solution to the problem to normal adolescent angst coupled with a fairly gloomy national and regional psyche has allowed an out break of suicides to flourish.

 

Just as people who have lost relatives to suicide are far more likely to commit suicide themselves, so those who have seen people of a similar age to them in the same environment, even though they may not know them personally, end their own lives would be more likely to do the same given psychological triggers that may elsewhere not lead to such an extreme outcome.

[The Miser 18]

My opinion.

 

Not a cult, internet pact, outbreak of ergot posoining or anything like that. Merely the creation of a localised environment where the idea of suicide as a solution to the problem to normal adolescent angst coupled with a fairly gloomy national and regional psyche has allowed an out break of suicides to flourish.

 

Just as people who have lost relatives to suicide are far more likely to commit suicide themselves, so those who have seen people of a similar age to them in the same environment, even though they may not know them personally, end their own lives would be more likely to do the same given psychological triggers that may elsewhere not lead to such an extreme outcome.

 

So the place is such a dump that suicide looks like a good way to go? I'll scratch it off my list of places to visit.

[Cowboy Ronnie 78]

Didn't Richie out of the Manic Street Preachers go missing out that way? Maybe he was like a Pied Piper, or Jim Jones, to all these kids.

[Guest Syd]

.

Or maybe the massed mega-minds of the DL'ers know summat that might enlighten us all.

Where's the dashing and suave Professor Self-Topping when we need him?

[Godot 149]

I would like to see some figures that compare the Bridgend suicide rate with national figures. I'm not saying there isn't a blip there but I'm suspicious of media frenzies and we have one just now over this so-called cult with very little proof for it as far as I can see.

[maryportfuncity 10,646]

Jenna Parry is the latest, d'ya think it's those 'mosquito' high frequency devices that drive them to suicide or the fact that the police keep 'probing' them?

[Paul Bearer 6,102]

I would like to see some figures that compare the Brigend suicide rate with national figures. I'm not saying there isn't a blip there but I'm suspicious of media frenzies and we have one just now over this so-called cult with very little proof for it as far as I can see.

 

I think she makes number 17 so far

 

[edit] - it does

Edited February 19, 2008 by heaven can wait

[Godot 149]

I would like to see some figures that compare the Brigend suicide rate with national figures. I'm not saying there isn't a blip there but I'm suspicious of media frenzies and we have one just now over this so-called cult with very little proof for it as far as I can see.

 

I think she makes number 17 so far

 

[edit] - it does

Yes but is this so very different from the suicide rate in other areas?

[Paul Bearer 6,102]

I would like to see some figures that compare the Brigend suicide rate with national figures. I'm not saying there isn't a blip there but I'm suspicious of media frenzies and we have one just now over this so-called cult with very little proof for it as far as I can see.

 

I think she makes number 17 so far

 

[edit] - it does

Yes but is this so very different from the suicide rate in other areas?

 

Looks like the records only go up to 2004

[DevonDeathTrip 2,358]

I think we should do a welfare check on all of our Welsh members.

 

welshman, are you feeling OK?

[Banshees Scream 110]

Just as people who have lost relatives to suicide are far more likely to commit suicide themselves, so those who have seen people of a similar age to them in the same environment, even though they may not know them personally, end their own lives would be more likely to do the same given psychological triggers that may elsewhere not lead to such an extreme outcome.

 

Life's an influence. In life people live up to standards set by people who have lived before them, right or wrong. A priority's value is measured by human beings upon 'how much it is advertized' and by how much it is generally accepted by society around them. The common example might be 'Go to school - get a real job - make money - look good - find hot chicks - grow an ego - and drift off into the sun set. The problem in this world is people don't know how to set realistic priorities. They search for the improbable and they push themselves so hard eventually everything becomes impossible. Suicide could possibly be a result of an 'influential solution' for failed expectations 'but' you also have to have the grapefruits to pull it off. Influence doesn't tell it all.

[Godot 149]

Based on those figures for 2000-2003 you could roughly expect about 15 suicides a year in Bridgend (population about 132,000), so it's not far off. (Just edited original post because of duff info I had).

 

In fact, since the so-called cluster is from the beginning of 2007 that would make the number about average. So no cluster, no connection, no story.

[DevonDeathTrip 2,358]

Based on those figures for 2000-2003 you could roughly expect about 15 suicides a year in Bridgend (population about 132,000), so it's not far off. (Just edited original post because of duff info I had).

 

In fact, since the so-called cluster is from the beginning of 2007 that would make the number about average. So no cluster, no connection, no story.

 

But isn't it making the news because seventeen people of in their late teens/early twenties have killed themselves in Bridgend, over and above the more average numbers of older inhabitants who ended their lives? No connection but definite cluster, hence the story.

[Godot 149]

Based on those figures for 2000-2003 you could roughly expect about 15 suicides a year in Bridgend (population about 132,000), so it's not far off. (Just edited original post because of duff info I had).

 

In fact, since the so-called cluster is from the beginning of 2007 that would make the number about average. So no cluster, no connection, no story.

 

But isn't it making the news because seventeen people of in their late teens/early twenties have killed themselves in Bridgend, over and above the more average numbers of older inhabitants who ended their lives? No connection but definite cluster, hence the story.

Rats. This always happens when I try to be clever. Hadn't spotted that flaw in the argument. I still think that it's media hype and I would bet (note the new element of uncertainty) that most suicides are from that age cohort.

[harrymcnallysblueandwhitearmy 1,689]

London's been undergoing its own Youth Death epidemic for a while now, one which doesn't seem to attract quite as many column inches. Hmm, wonder why that could be...

[Mortalcoil 1]

Meanwhile, Welsh Assembly member Carwyn Jones said that, in analysing recent statistics, people were confusing Bridgend, the former mining town, with the larger Bridgend county.

 

'We are talking about suicides in a county of more than 130,000 people, not just the town of Bridgend. What we're looking at here, it seems, is a number of unrelated suicides. And it's worth emphasising that Bridgend is not way, way ahead of others,' he said.

 

Recent research at Swansea University shows that the county had only the sixth highest rate for suicides in Wales, and local coroner Philip Walters has reviewed recent deaths and concluded there is no evidence of the internet playing any direct part.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/feb/17/wales

[Paul Bearer 6,102]

Based on those figures for 2000-2003 you could roughly expect about 15 suicides a year in Bridgend (population about 132,000), so it's not far off. (Just edited original post because of duff info I had).

 

In fact, since the so-called cluster is from the beginning of 2007 that would make the number about average. So no cluster, no connection, no story.

 

There was something on the radio this morning that stated the average suicide rates in Wales for age group 15 - 19 (?) was 3 in 2004 and 2005 (I could have the years wrong, it could have been 2005/6)

[Alphonsin 1]

Based on those figures for 2000-2003 you could roughly expect about 15 suicides a year in Bridgend (population about 132,000), so it's not far off. (Just edited original post because of duff info I had).

 

In fact, since the so-called cluster is from the beginning of 2007 that would make the number about average. So no cluster, no connection, no story.

 

But isn't it making the news because seventeen people of in their late teens/early twenties have killed themselves in Bridgend, over and above the more average numbers of older inhabitants who ended their lives? No connection but definite cluster, hence the story.

Rats. This always happens when I try to be clever. Hadn't spotted that flaw in the argument. I still think that it's media hype and I would bet (note the new element of uncertainty) that most suicides are from that age cohort.

 

Most suicides are much older than that. Of course there are different ways of coming to an average, but if you look into it you'll find that however you do it you'll be looking at something from late forties upwards. Old people topping themselves doesn't have the same news appeal, though.

On that media front, I remember when I was at university there being a big deal in the press about several undergraduates topping themselves and how this was all to do with high pressure, etc etc. However, if you looked into it the student suicide figures were no higher than the youth suicide rate among "townies" but people just thought it made a good story.

 

Added: While the Bridgend thing is quite interesting, we're talking about very small data sets. The Texas sharpshooter fallacy is worth bearing in mind.

That said, it's not unreasonable to suppose that suicidal kids are more likely to kill themselves if they're aware of others having done it. A friend of mine in Yugoslavia had a classmate who killed herself. In the next short while two more of her schoolmates killed themselves -- in each of the three instances by hanging themselves from a doorknob.

[Monoclinic 39]

Has anyone checked to see if Heathers had been in the bargain bin at Woolies, Bridgend?