Is there any evidence linking genetics and suicide?!


Question: It seems that often sibllings tend to commit suicide, might there be a biological explanation?


Answers: It seems that often sibllings tend to commit suicide, might there be a biological explanation?

There might be - a lot of studies tend to come back as inconclusive. We know that people with parents or siblings who commit suicide are more likely to do so themselves, but these individuals are also less likely to have supportive or protective factors, more prone to depression, and less likely to have been taught / develop coping strategies for life's difficulties. I have met many people who are at risk of suicide because their mother committed suicide - rather than a genetic link there might be complex reasons - never taught to be optimistic, left with a depressed father, father may have contributed to the suicide. There are also many risk factors (such as serious or painful illness, jobs, social isolation) which can also be linked within families.

Tricky question.

If the suicide was because of a hereditary illness, then it's possible that the sibling will have the same illness and the same propensity toward suicide.

On the other hand, there is a phenomenon known as "copycat suicide" or "suicide contagion." This is where people who hear about the suicide recognize it as a way to escape their own pain.

In either case, siblings are more vulnerable to a sibling's suicide than unrelated folks who didn't hear about the suicide.

I think it's possible in that people can have predispositions to clinical depression.

But if two siblings grow up in similar difficult circumstances, and then one kills themself, the other probably has a higher chance of doing the same, either as a copycat, or out of desperation/anguish.

No. Its chemical : depression

i could ask my brothers but they're dead !





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