---
title: "Let’s Talk About The Rise In Passive Suicide"
source: "https://medium.com/@ossiana.tepfenhart/lets-talk-about-the-rise-in-passive-suicide-0f196561f394"
author:
  - "[[Ossiana Tepfenhart]]"
published: 2024-10-12
created: 2024-10-29
description: "Being the child of a pair of professors gives you a very unique look into what people are thinking about. Lately, I overheard two professors bemoaning how passive and “dead-eyed” their students are…"
tags:
  - "clippings"
---
## “It’s not that I’m actively planning, but if I die, I’m okay with it.”

[

![Ossiana Tepfenhart](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fill:88:88/1*-HRsnXCsoRUAg61Kc5OK_Q.jpeg)

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![](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:700/0*oaJRrKgoXxn6CaoD)

Photo by [Anthony Tran](https://unsplash.com/@anthonytran?utm_source=medium&utm_medium=referral) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=medium&utm_medium=referral)

Being the child of a pair of professors gives you a very unique look into what people are thinking about. Lately, I overheard two professors bemoaning how passive and “dead-eyed” their students are.

This is not a new complaint. It’s just been getting more pronounced as years go by. The days of the bright-eyed, bushy-tailed student are long gone, replaced by days of passive students who seem to just exist rather than think.

If you take a look around, you might notice that a lot of the wildness and liveliness associated with you kind of…vanished. It’s been a slow vanish, but now it’s visible.

## The lack of passion you see in people is often a major symptom of “passive suicidality.”

Passive suicidality is on the rise, and it’s an attitude that we see in many people. Unlike active suicidal ideation, passive suicidality doesn’t mean you’re an immediate threat to yourself. You’re not actively planning to off yourself.

Rather, you just don’t really care about yourself. You’re more or less just giving up on life. You don’t have that spark, that feeling of being motivated to change your life’s direction.

Passive suicidality is that attitude that comes with giving up on life, but not not actively doing anything in life. It’s the “lay down and rot” of living. You might notice it if any of the following are true in someone you know:

- **They do not try to better their situation.** This is not a matter of laziness. It’s a sign that they tried what they *think s*hould have worked, only to have it not work out. For example, a person who applied to 2,000 jobs in their field might stop applying if they were constantly rejected. It’s not that they don’t want a job. It’s that they don’t feel they have a chance anymore.
- **“I don’t want to hurt myself, but I don’t particularly care what happens to me.”** If you hear something along those lines, that person is passively suicidal.
- **“There’s no point in me trying again.”** Suicidal ideation often happens because people have tried to fix problems, but to no avail. Passive suicidality is no different. The person lost hope. So, rather than try to better their situation, they do nothing. It’s a form of learned helplessness.
- **They are addicted to the online world.** Being online is a fast and easy way to escape reality. If your current situation is so grim that you can’t even try changing things, being terminally online starts looking good. This often results in gaming addiction, porn addiction, or becoming a mod on Reddit.
- **“I wish I was never born.”** If you hear stuff like this or hear someone say they want to die in their sleep, they’re passively suicidal.
- **Getting them to go out and meet people is harder than ever before.** People who become shut-ins are generally not happy people. Self-isolating is a warning sign that something isn’t going right in their lives.
- **They’ve gotten prone to incel, conspirational, or otherwise irrational thinking.** People who are passively suicidal tend to be more prone to unrealistic expectations of life. They also might escape through bizarre conspiracies.
- **They seem to be just trying to pass the time from one day to another rather than actually *live*.** They don’t tend to have things to look forward to. Instead, they are more interested in just being there. There’s no spark in their eyes.

## If this sounds like a lot of people you know, you’re not alone.

Active suicidal ideation and deaths of despair have been increasing for the better part of two decades. Most recently, a study from [PewTrusts](https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2023/03/03/youth-suicide-risk-increased-over-past-decade) noted that suicides have been increasing in high schoolers for the past ten years.

It’s clear deaths of despair are on the rise — and so is the desire to die. However, no one is entirely sure how many people are passively suicidal. A lot of people with this particular disorder are never diagnosed, nor do they bother to seek help.

With that said, here’s what [Life Skills South Florida](https://lifeskillssouthflorida.com/mental-health-blog/passive-suicidal-ideation-signs-risks-help/#:~:text=Additionally%2C%20nearly%2050%25%20of%20these,at%20some%20point%20in%20life.) had to say about this:

> “Approximately 33% of individuals in psychiatric populations currently experience passive suicidal thoughts. Additionally, nearly 50% of these individuals have had passive suicidal thoughts in the past. Rates amongst the general population are also alarming, with 5% of people experiencing passive SI in a given year and 10% experiencing passive SI at some point in life.”

[NIH](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7024002/) had similar estimates, with 5 to 10 percent of all people experiencing passive suicidal ideations within their lifetimes. That’s one out of every ten people. That’s a shockingly huge number. Statistically, that means that you probably know someone who is passively suicidal.

## Why is this happening?

So, there are a lot of reasons why people are just giving up on life — even when they’re young. A lot of them are pretty obvious to anyone who hasn’t lived under a rock:

- **Fewer social connections.** It’s no secret. Gen Z is now the loneliest generation in history. Our society makes it hard for people to meet up as friends. Humans are social animals. We cannot be healthy without our own social network.
- **A brutal, mostly rigged economy.** Upward mobility is not as likely as it once was. Even getting a job is a discouraging, if not downright heartbreaking procedure. It’s not unusual for people to send in hundreds or even thousands of applications without a single hire.
- **The gamification of dating.** I’m not going to mince words. Tinder hurts our society more than it helps. We shouldn’t view people as just a swipe away. There is a human behind that screen — at least in most situations.
- **Rage-inducing propaganda on social media**. If social media has been making you feel hopeless, you’re not alone. Social media use has been tied to worsening mental health and anxiety. When you look at all the incel content online, it’s not surprising.
- **Regular loss and rejection.** Whether we want to admit it or not, having near-constant rejections hurts us — both in the business world and the personal world. Yet, it’s normalized in our society. The truth is that our brains don't seem to be wired for hundreds of rejections. After a while, that fight feels futile.
- **Little to no sense of agency.** Do you feel like you don’t have much control over your life? You’re not alone. A lot of people feel like they’re at the mercy of corporations these days — as if their votes, businesses, and needs don't matter.

To put it bluntly, things look grim for most of us. Many of us are realizing that we can’t pursue our dreams or even find friends to commiserate with. That’s a rough realization.

It’s hard to look forward to a future when you’re convinced that the future will be worse than what you’re dealing with today. If you’ve tried, tried, and tried without any form of success, chances are high that you might become passively suicidal.

## How can we curb the spike in passive suicidality?

Honestly? We need a societal overhaul.

==We need to be able to give people hope for the future. We need to stop worker exploitation and corporate price-gouging. We need to make it possible for people working a state minimum wage to afford a 1-bedroom apartment.==

Oh, and we need to make it possible for people to have hope again. That’s kind of hard to do in today's society. At best, the

There’s only so much any of us can do to change our fates on an individual level and it’s time we recognize we need one another.

If you *are* feeling that way, the best thing you can do is call 988 and reach out for help. Things can get better, but only if you let them get better.