People who commit suicide almost always have some form of mental illness, studies find. But mental illness alone doesn't provoke people to kill themselves, and the severity of a person's illness does not increase the likelihood of an attempt, studies find. Instead, people who commit suicide tend to be impulsive, aggressive and less able to handle the pain of their mental illness. Mann suggests that this inability to cope allows people to act on suicidal thoughts that otherwise would go unheeded. Scarce serotonin supplies may be the factor that lowers this coping threshold.
Studies find that serotonin systems in suicide victims and serious suicide attempters is impaired.
Anything from genetic factors to alcohol dependence to poor family support may affect the serotonin system, Mann believes. Both heredity and the environment can affect the serotonin system, as can many disorders associated with low serotonin. It's certainly too early to be talking about a pill for our social ills, agree the researchers. What this work says is that we might not have a problem if we attend to our children early in development,' believes Ferris.