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I haven't read an specific studies on suicide profiling, but what you're talking about sounds an awful lot like killer profiling, or looking at the method used to identify the killer. Knives and multiple stab wounds indicate rage and personal relationship. Placement of the body, particularly post-mortem dressing and making the victim look "nice" often indicates remorse. And then there's organized/disorganized killers. Organized often plans everything and shadows victim, disorganized tends to be more of a crime of opportunity, more emotional, possibly a little sloppier.
It sounds like your victim has a lot of rage about his identity. Identity about himself as a man, as a son, as a person. It depends on what the state of mind is when he kills himself. Is it a grief filled, "I can't take this anymore," impulse, and by impulse, I mean impulse. A bridge is there and he drives off the side. He gets drunk and winds up on the roof...he walks out into traffic, stuff like that. Is he looking for a way to end his pain
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So not really BS then... hm, thanks for clearing that up. And even though most of the methods you mentioned aren't available to him (as I said in the post, he's in prison), you've really helped me a lot with your thoughts on his motivation and feelings; and with choosing a method from his limited range. Thank you very much for your help!
I"m a Psych major, I recently took a class that dealt with suicide, I personally have never seen any research that showed a connection between methods of suicide and personal issues, so I'd say chances are, even if it's true, right now that information isn't coming from the scientific community. It's also an extremely difficult study to conduct given that you can't analyze someone in retrospect AND to be taken seriously a study needs ot be reproduced many many times.
There is data however that methods of sucide differ stastically between women and men, and there are theories about why that is, but it's not segregated by personal issue, but by gender.
Having said that, I think any method of suicide in a fictional narrative can be made to seem 'appropriate' - hanging yourself cos you're asheamed, shooting yourself cos you're ashemaed and don't want to have recognizable remains left, slashing your writsts cos you wanna suffer for your shame as long as possible, etc.
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It sounds like your victim has a lot of rage about his identity. Identity about himself as a man, as a son, as a person. It depends on what the state of mind is when he kills himself. Is it a grief filled, "I can't take this anymore," impulse, and by impulse, I mean impulse. A bridge is there and he drives off the side. He gets drunk and winds up on the roof...he walks out into traffic, stuff like that. Is he looking for a way to end his pain ( ... )
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And even though most of the methods you mentioned aren't available to him (as I said in the post, he's in prison), you've really helped me a lot with your thoughts on his motivation and feelings; and with choosing a method from his limited range. Thank you very much for your help!
Reply
There is data however that methods of sucide differ stastically between women and men, and there are theories about why that is, but it's not segregated by personal issue, but by gender.
Having said that, I think any method of suicide in a fictional narrative can be made to seem 'appropriate' - hanging yourself cos you're asheamed, shooting yourself cos you're ashemaed and don't want to have recognizable remains left, slashing your writsts cos you wanna suffer for your shame as long as possible, etc.
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