Suicide: “Easy Death” or “Protest Action”? A Sociological Analysis of Coping Strategies Against Suicide Attempts Among Youth in Pakdasht
Subject Areas : Research on Iranian social issues
1 - Ph.D. in Sociology of Iranian Social Issues, Payam Noor University Graduate Education Center, Iran.
Keywords: Suicide, Lived Experience, Youth, Easy Death, Protest Action.,
Abstract :
Suicide: “Easy Death” or “Protest Action”?
A Sociological Analysis of Coping Strategies Against Suicide Attempts Among Youth in Pakdasht
Ardeshir Bahrami*
Suicide, particularly among young people in Iran, has become a significant public health concern. This study focuses on Pakdasht County (where 62 cases of suicidal ideation and suicide attempts were recorded between 1397 and 1400, based on Social Emergency Unit statistics) and aims to explore the lived experiences of youth who have attempted suicide. The research is qualitative and employs interpretive phenomenology as its methodological approach. Data were collected through in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 10 young individuals who had attempted suicide and were analyzed until theoretical saturation was reached. The study was guided by two main research questions: What is the phenomenological description of language, emotion, and action associated with suicide? What coping and confrontation strategies do young people adopt in response to this tendency? The findings indicate that participants’ lived experiences take shape across three interrelated levels: at individual level: including emotions such as alienation, a “betrayal-tainted” mind, shame, guilt, anger, fear, feelings of worthlessness, hopelessness, and the suppression of emotions and desires. At family level: rooted in factors such as child marriage, the lack of effective communication, and experiences of violence. And finally, at social level: including the absence of social support and empathy, social pressure through “what people say,” living in crime-prone neighborhoods, and social exclusion. The results further show that suicide-related action within this group cannot be fully explained within a strict binary of “easy death” (a pure desire to end one’s life) and “protest death” (the construction of a new understanding of life). Instead, this action unfolds in a field of lost meaning and disrupted lifeworld, where the individual neither fully intends to end life nor has been able to actively construct a new path for living. Accordingly, the study highlights the necessity of intervention strategies centered on the recovery of meaning and the rebuilding of social cohesion.
Keywords: Suicide; Lived Experience; Youth; Easy Death; Protest Action.
Introduction
Suicide is the second leading cause of death among young people aged 20 to 24 (Hoyert & Xu, 2012: 44). Each year, more than 700,000 people worldwide lose their lives to suicide (World Health Organization, 2022). According to statistics from the Pakdasht Social Emergency Center, a total of 62 cases of suicidal ideation and suicide attempts were recorded between 2018 and 2021 (1397–1400 in the Iranian calendar) .This article is presented with a phenomenological approach aimed at understanding the lived experience of suicide attempts in Pakdasht County. The main research questions were: 1. What is the phenomenological description of the concepts of language, emotion, and action related to suicide.?2. What coping and confrontation strategies do young people employ in response to this inclination?
Research Background and Theoretical Discussions
Parvin et al. (2019), in a qualitative study of youth in Pakdasht, examined the social contexts of suicide attempts (intentional drug poisoning) and reached the following findings: At the macro level: weakened temporal integration, generational poverty, and social exclusion, At the interpersonal level: group-based emotional tensions, unfulfilled sexual desire, unstable family boundaries, and immature relationships. Bahrami et al. (2023), in their study titled “Examining the Contexts of Youth Suicide Attempts in Varamin,” found that “disordered family boundaries, fear of subjectivity and instrumentalized perception, a skeptical self-concept, regressive marriage, and blockage in sustaining the continuity of the self” constitute causal conditions for suicide. Meng (2020), in “Rebellion and Revenge: The Meaning of Suicide among Women in Rural China,”demonstrated that suicide is understood as an act of revenge .Keeley et al. (2022) examined “The Role of Perceived Social Support among Youth in Explaining Suicidal Behavior.” A review of the literature indicates that Iranian studies have extensively focused on structural factors (poverty, family, tradition) and feelings of powerlessness associated with youth suicide. Some international studies, however, have emphasized the retaliatory and protest-oriented meanings of suicide.
Adopting a meaning-centered approach, the present study seeks to understand the internal mechanisms and lived experiences of young people who have attempted suicide in Pakdasht. Inspired by Douglas, emphasis is placed on understanding the inner world and the individual and social meanings associated with suicide attempts. Mead’s perspective views suicide as a social reaction produced through interactions between the individual and society. Finally, Frankl’s theory considers the fundamental motivation of human beings to be the “will to meaning,” interpreting suicide attempts as a potential response to a “loss of meaning” and existential emptiness, or as a protest-driven effort to recreate meaning.
Research Method
This study is qualitative in nature and was conducted with an applied objective. The theoretical approach was interpretive phenomenology, focusing on the lived experiences of individuals related to suicide in order to understand their perceptions, meanings, and subjective interpretations. Sampling was conducted purposively. Data were collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews with 10 young individuals who had attempted suicide. The data were analyzed until theoretical saturation was achieved.
Findings
The findings of this article are analyzed along two main axes:
- 1. Personal narratives, language, behavior, and actions at the time of suicide attempts;
- 2. The strategies adopted by young people in confronting suicidal tendencies.
Personal Narratives, Language, Behavior, and Individual Actions at the Time of Suicide
The lived experiences of individuals who attempted suicide are presented as follows:
- Individual characteristics (emotional, cognitive, behavioral): A sense of powerless existence; self-alienation; a mind wounded by betrayal; feelings of shame, guilt, and anger; fear; social withdrawal; anxiety of loneliness; feelings of worthlessness; feeling like a burden; indifference; hopelessness; suppressed emotions and desires; fatalism; desire to die; sexual objectification; feeling imprisoned; surrendering to life.
- Family characteristics and conditions: Child marriage; forced marriage; marriage as an escape from poverty and depression; emotional neglect; lack of dialogue; violence; controlling family dynamics; family disintegration.
- Social conditions: Lack of social support; absence of empathy; labeling and stigmatization; absolute deprivation; spatial displacement; delinquent peers; living in high-crime neighborhoods; lack of welfare.
Strategies and Strategic Actions
Strategies and strategic actions refer to the set of measures that social actors employ in order to cope with difficult life conditions. In this study, these strategies are presented in four categories.
Suicide as an easy death: This is a passive strategy adopted in response to harsh and difficult living conditions. This category refers to ending one’s life through suicide because the individual has lost resilience, the capacity to endure life, and the power to change their living conditions.
Repairing and compensating for inadequate relationships: This is an active strategy in which the individual attempts to bring an end to deficient relationships and interactions by adopting a positive approach and compensating for them through efforts such as remarriage, forming more friendships, cleansing the past through socially desirable behavior, and engaging in collective participation and responsibility.
Breaking neighborhood ties: This is an active, coping-oriented strategy. The individual actively distances themselves from others and continues with their life. This category is constructed from statements referring to neighbors’ jealousy, stigmatization, baseless accusations, and the false or intrusive interventions of surrounding people.
Spectatorship and the meaninglessness of the status quo: This is a passive strategy arising from surrender to the existing situation as though it were destiny or fate. Here, the participants find themselves in a state of existential suspension due to a lack of motivation. The individual neither truly intends to end their life nor actively enters the cycle of life in order to construct a new understanding of it for themselves. As a result, they adopt indifference as a way of being and, from time to time, attempt suicide as a means of making themselves visible to others.
Conclusion and Discussion
The present study, conducted with the aim of exploring the lived experiences of young people who had attempted suicide in Pakdasht County, showed that this phenomenon extends beyond an individual psychological impasse and is instead the product of the intersection between “structural blockage” and “meaning suspension” in the lifeworld of the subjects.
Four distinct strategies—easy death, repair and compensation, breaking ties, and spectatorship and the meaninglessness of the status quo—were identified as individuals’ responses when confronting the experience of a “powerless and ineffective existence.” Each strategy represents a different lived interpretation of the loss of agency:
-Active action (repair and breaking ties): an attempt to reconstruct the world of meaning and redefine the self through action and limited responsibility.
-Ultimate action (easy death): the elimination of suffering by ending lived experience, arising from a complete loss of access to meaning in everyday life.
-Absolute inaction (spectatorship): the opposite of action, indicating a deeper collapse of meaning and the arrival at existential suspension and total numbness.
References
Bahrami, Ardeshir; Danesh, Parvaneh; & Mohammadi, Zahra. (2023) A study of the contexts of suicide attempts among youth in Varamin County. Quarterly Journal of Social Sciences, 30(100), 221–258.
Parvin, Sattar; Akhlasi, Ebrahim; & Nazari Adriani, Seyed Mehrdad. (2019) Intentional drug poisoning as suicide: Social contexts and consequences . Iranian Journal of Social Issues, 10(1), 217–240.
Roshanpour, Amin; Naghdi, Asadollah; Kordalivand, Sohaila; & Norouzi, Sara. (2025) Quarterly Journal of Social Work, 13(49), 56–65.
Legal Medicine Organization of the Country. Statistical Yearbook of the Legal Medicine Organization, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022.
Anbari, Mousa; & Bahrami, Ardeshir. (2010) Examining the effects of poverty and violence on suicide rates in Iran: A case study of villages in Poldokhtar County. Iranian Journal of Social Issues, 1(2), 1–30.
Ghaseminejad, Abouzar; & Vesali, Saeed. (2018) A study of the data from the Marginalization and Social Development Foundation (identifying intervening conditions, strategies, and the consequences of the failure to achieve social development in Pakdasht). Social Development, 14(2), 93–126.
Berman AL. Estimating the population of survivors of suicide: Seeking an evidence base. Suicide Life Threat Behav. 2011; 41(1): 110–116. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1943-278X.2010.00009.x PMID:21309829
Emma Evans 1, Keith Hawton, Karen Rodham (2004) Factors associated with suicidal phenomena in adolescents: a systematic review of population-based studies, Affiliations Expand, PMID: 15533280 DOI: 10.1016/j.cpr.2004.04.005
Erlangsen, Annette Bo Runeson, James M Bolton, Holly C Wilcox, Julie L Forman, Jesper rogh, M Katherine Shear, Merete Nordentoft, Yeates Conwell (2017) Association Between Spousal Suicide and Mental, Physical, and Social Health Outcomes: A Longitudinal and Nationwide Register-Based Study, JAMA Psychiatry,. 2017 May 1;74(5):456-464.
doi: 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2017.0226.
Matthew K Nock 1, Jennifer Greif Green, Irving Hwang, Katie A McLaughlin, Nancy A Sampson, Alan M Zaslavsky, Ronald C Kessler (2013) Prevalence, correlates, and treatment of lifetime suicidal behavior among adolescents: results from the National Comorbidity Survey Replication Adolescent Supplement, JAMA Psychiatry, . 2013 Mar;70(3):300-10. doi: 10.1001/2013.jamapsychiatry.55.
World Health Organization (2014) Suicide Prevention Retrieved from http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/suicideprevent/en/ on 4 July 2014.
World Health Organization. (2022) Suicide prevention. https://www.who.int/health-topics/suicide#tab=tab_1.
* Ph.D. in Sociology of Iranian Social Issues, Payam Noor University Graduate Education Center, Iran.
ابوالمعالی، خدیجه و فاطمه ساداتآل یاسین (1395) «بررسی معنای زندگانی از دیدگاه امام علی(ع) و مقایسه آن با دیدگاه ویکتور فرانکل»، نشریه علوم تربیتی از دیدگاه اسلام، سال چهارم شماره 1 (پیاپی 6، بهار و تابستان).
https://www.magiran.com/p1569060.
باختر مرضیه و محسن رضائیان (1395) شیوع افکار و اقدام به خودکشی و عوامل خطر مرتبط با آن در دانشجویان ایرانی: یک مطالعه مروری منظم. مجله دانشگاه علوم پزشکی رفسنجان، ۱۵ (۱۱)، صص 1061-1076.
http://journal.rums.ac.ir/article-۱-۳۴۲۸-fa.html.
بهرامی، اردشیر و پروانه دانش و زهرا محمدی (1402) «مطالعه بسترهای اقدام به خودکشی در بین جوانان شهرستان ورامین»، فصلنامه علوم اجتماعی، سال سی¬ام، شماره 100، صص 221-258.
https://doi.org/10.22054/qjss.2023.75891.2694.
بخارایی، احمد و ابراهیم میرزایی (1393) فراتحلیل مطالعات خودکشی در استان ایلام. فرهنگ ایلام، دوره 16، شماره 47-47، صص 115-134.
پروین، ستار و ابراهیم اخلاصی و سید مهرداد نظری آدریانی (1398) «مسمومیت دارویی عمدی بهمثابه خودکشی: زمینهها و پیامدهای اجتماعی»، بررسی مسائل اجتماعی ایران، سال دهم، شماره 1، صص 217-240.
https://ijsp.ut.ac.ir/article_76174_2e04960b1f3e0eaacff48e752d706d51.pdf.
پناهینسب، صادق و صیاد خردمند (1404) «زیست پروبلماتیک و اقدام به خودکشی (مطالعه کیفی در میان شهروندان 18 تا 40 ساله استان کهگیلویه و بویراحمد)»، مسائل اجتماعی ایران، سال شانزدهم، شماره 1، صص 41-82.
http://dx.doi.org/10.61186/jspi.
روشنپور، امین و اسدالله نقدی و سهیلا کردعلیوند و سارا نورزی (1404) «فصلنامه مددکاری اجتماعی»، سال سیزدهم، شماره 49، صص 56-65.
https://iranjournals.nlai.ir/handle/123456789/1173509.
سازمان پزشکی قانونی کشور، سالنامه آماری سازمان پزشکی قانونی کشور 1397، 1398، 1399، 1401.
شفیعینژاد، اکبر و مجتبی زارع شاه آبادی و جواد مداحی (1396) «اقدام به خودکشی بین زنان آبدانان: انگیزهها و شرایط» زن در توسعه و سیاست، (3) 15، صص 427- 446.
doi: 10.22059/jwdp.2017.229631.1007164.
عنبری، موسی و اردشیر بهرامی (1389) «بررسی آثار فقر و خشونت بر میزان خودکشی در ایران (مورد مطالعه: روستاهای شهرستان پلدختر)»، بررسی مسائل اجتماعی ایران (نامه علوم اجتماعی)، سال اول، شماره 2، صص 1-29.
SID. https://sid.ir/paper/155298/fa.
فرانکل، ویکتور (1394) انسان در جستجوی معنا، مترجمان: نهضت صالحیان و مهین میلانی، درسا.
قاسمینژاد، ابوذر و سعید وصالی (1397) «مطالعه دادههای بنیاد حاشیهنشینی و توسعه اجتماعی (شناسایی شرایط مداخلهگر، راهبردها و پیامدهای عدم تحقق توسعه اجتماعی در پاکدشت)»، توسعه اجتماعی، سال چهاردهم، شماره 2، صص 93-126.
https://doi.org/10.22055/qjsd.2020.15402.
کوچکیان، زینب و علیرضا کلدی و علیرضا محسنی تبریزی (1395) «خودکشی؛ به مثابه عبور از امر مسکوت مانده (موردمطالعه: افراد اقدام کننده به خودکشی در شهر تهران»، فصلنامه پژوهشنامه مددکاری اجتماعی، دوره 3، شماره 10 ، دی 1395، صص 1-39.
https://doi.org/10.22054/rjsw.2016.9370.
وزارت بهداشت، درمان و آموزش پزشکی کشور (1401) «وضعیت اقدام به خودکشی در کشور از 1394 الی1400».
Berman AL. Estimating the population of survivors of suicide: Seeking an evidence base. Suicide Life Threat Behav (2011) 41 (1): 110–116. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1943-278X.2010.00009.x PMID:21309829.
Douglas, Jack D. (1967) The Social Meaning of Suicide, Princeton: Princeton University.
Erlangsen, Annette Bo Runeson, James M Bolton, Holly C Wilcox, Julie L Forman, Jesper rogh, M Katherine Shear, Merete Nordentoft, Yeates Conwell (2017) Association Between Spousal Suicide and Mental, Physical, and Social Health Outcomes: A Longitudinal and Nationwide Register-Based Study, JAMA Psychiatry, 2017 May 1; 74 (5): 456-464.
doi: 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2017.0226.
Evans, Rhiannon & White, James & Turley, Ruth & Slater, Thomas & Morgan, Helen & Strange, Heather & Scourfield, Jonathan, (2017) "Comparison of suicidal ideation, suicide attempt and suicide in children and young people in care and non-care populations: Systematic review and meta-analysis of prevalence," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 82 (C), pages 122-129.
Evans Emma, Keith Hawton, Karen Rodham (2004) Factors associated with suicidal phenomena in adolescents: a systematic review of population-based studies, Affiliations Expand, PMID: 15533280.
DOI: 10.1016/j.cpr.2004.04.005.
Haw, C., & Hawton, K. (2008) Life problems and deliberate self-harm: Associations with gender, age, suicidal intent and psychiatric and personality disorder. Journal of Affective Disorders, 109(1-2), 139-148.
Hoyert, D.L. and Xu, J. (2012) Deaths: Preliminary Data for 2011. National Vital Statistics Report, 61.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr61/nvsr61_06.pdf.
Kushner Howard., PhD and Claire E. Sterk, PhD (2005) The Limits of Social Capital: Durkheim, Suicide, and Social Cohesion, Am J Public Health. 2005 July; 95(7): 1139–1143.
doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2004.053314.
Kelli, D., Helen, M., & Jodi, Q. (2022) Perceived Social Status and Suicidal Ideation in Maltreated Children and Adolescents. Res Child Adolesc Psychopathol. 2022; 50(3): p.p 349–362.
Iserson, K. V. (2000) Notifying survivors about sudden, unex- pected deaths. The Western Journal of Medicine, 173(4), 261–265. https://doi.org/10.1136/ewjm.
Niederkrotenthaler, T., Floderus, B., Alexanderson, K., Rasmussen, F., & Mittendorfer-Rutz, E. (2012) Exposure to parental mortality and markers of morbidity, and the risks of attempted and completed suicide in offspring: An analysis of sensitive life periods. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 66 (3), 233–239.
https://doi.org/10. 1136/jech.2010.109595.
Meng, L. (2020) Rebllition and reveng: the meaning of suicide of women in rural China, International Journal of Social Welfar, 11 (4): 300-309.
Nock Matthew K, Jennifer Greif Green, Irving Hwang, Katie A McLaughlin, Nancy A Sampson, Alan M Zaslavsky, Ronald C Kessler (2013) Prevalence, correlates, and treatment of lifetime suicidal behavior among adolescents: results from the National Comorbidity Survey Replication Adolescent Supplement, JAMA Psychiatry, 2013 Mar;70(3): 300-10.
doi: 10.1001/2013.jamapsychiatry.55.
Ormiston CK, Lawrence WR, Sulley S, et al. Trends in Adolescent Suicide by Method in the US, 1999-2020 JAMA Netw Open. (2024) 7 (3): e244427. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.4427.
Runeson, B., & Asberg, M. (2003) Family history of suicide among suicide victims. American Journal of Psychiatry, 160 (8), 1525–1526. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.160.8. 1525.
Tidemalm, D., Runeson, B., Waern, M., Frisell, T., Carlström, E., Lichtenstein, P., & Längström, N. (2011) Familial cluster- ing of suicide risk: A total population study of 11.4 million individuals. Psychological Medicine, 41(12), 2527–2534.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291711000833.
Van Bergen, D., Eylem Van Bergeijk, O., & Montesinos, A. H. (2021) Attempted suicide and suicide of young Turkish women in Europe and Turkey, A systematic literature review of characteristics and precipitating factors. PloS one, 16 (8), e0253274.
World Health Organization (2014) Suicide Prevention Retrieved from http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/suicideprevent/en/ on 4 July 2014.
World Health Organization. (2022) Suicide prevention. https://www.who.int/health-topics/suicide#tab=tab_1.