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Comment by strawpeople | Hacker News Reader

> we are seeing things like declines in lifespans and increases in suicide, but I don't think mental illness is increasingly nearly as much as the stats would lead you to believe at face value.

This just seems like a flat out contradiction. How would suicides ‘skyrocket’ if mental illness is not increasing.

Agreed that 2012 may be irrelevant and we may not know the cause.

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It's not a contradiction, I'm saying that an underlying increase in mental illness plausibly explains some of the effect, but I'm unconvinced it explains the entire effect.

What could explain the increase in suicides if not mental illness?

I'm drawing a distinction between "mental illness" and "mental illness diagnosis" that I maybe didn't make entirely clear. I think the former is increasing, but the latter is increasing faster than the former.

I'm not sure suicides strictly are the result of mental illness. I, for example, have an uncle that killed himself. He may have been clinically depressed, but mainly, he was an alcoholic. I think it's likely what depression he had would have resolved if he successfully dealt with his substance abuse problem.

Did he die because he was mentally ill, or because drinking can be a pretty bad problem?

I guess it depends on whether you consider alcoholism to be a mental illness. It is listed as one in the DSM-V.

It seems like only around 10% of suicides are not associated with mental illness. So I agree it seems implausible that this 10% would account for the entire increase, but it could be some of it.

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