Flirt With Suicide
The life of David Woods was the stuff of an Australian boy's dream．He played professional rugby league football in a country that treats athletes as, idols．At 29, he had a loving family, a girlfriend, a 3-month-old baby, plenty of money, everything to live for．And for inexplicable reasons, nothing to live for．On New Year's Eve, Woods called his mother to announce that he had signed a new contract with his team, Golden Coast, recalls his elder brother, Tony．The next morning, he ran a hose from the exhaust pipe to the window of his Mitsubishi sedan (轿车) and gasses himself．His family still has no idea why.
The death of David Woods came as a wake-up call to Australia, which is often voted as the ideal place to bring up kids．But the sun, the beaches and the sporting culture are the cheery backdrop to a disturbing trend: young Australian men are now killing themselves at the rate of one a day--triple the rate of 30 years ago．Though most Australians aren't particularly suicidal, their boys are．In 1990 suicide surpassed car accidents as the leading cause of death among males aged 15 to 24．Fun-loving Australia is now far worse off than Asian nations known for strict discipline．The yearly suicide rate for young Australian males is 2.5 times higher than in Japan, Hong Kong, or Singapore.
Possible Causes for Suicide
Why boys? A nation of wide-open spaces and rugged individualism, Australia still idolizes the film star Gary Cooper model of masculinity: the strong, silent type who never complains, who always gets the job done．In recent years schools and social institutions have concentrated on creating new opportunities for equality for girls--while leaving troubled boys with the classic command of the Australian father: pull yourself together．It's past time to take a much closer look at the lives of young men, some researchers argue．'People think, 'My kids aren't doing drugs, my kids are safe at home',' says psychiatrist John Tiller of Melbourne University, who studied 148 suicides and 206 attempts in the state of Victoria．'They are wrong.'
The Haywards, a comfortably well-off family in Wyong, north of Sydney, figured they were dealing with the normal problems of troubled hood．Their son Mark had put up a poster of rock star Kurt Cobain, a 1994 suicide victim, along with a Cobain quote: 'I hate myself and I want to die.' 'From the age of 12, Mark had his ups and downs--mood swings, depression and low self-esteem,' says his father．The Haywards sent Mark to various counselors, none of whom warned that he had suicidal tendencies．By last year Mark was 19, fighting bouts (回合) of unemployment and a drug problem．He tried church, struggling to do the right thing．Last September he dropped out a detoxification (戒毒) program, and apologized to his parents．'I've let you down again.' A few days later, his mother found Mark's body in bush-land near their home.
In retrospect, Mark Hayward's struggles were far from uncommon．The number of suicides tends to keep pace with the unemployment rate, which for Australians between 15 and 19 has risen from 19 percent in 1978, the first year data were collected, to 28 percent last year．Suicide is especially high among the most marginal: young Aboriginal (土著的) men, isolated by poverty, alcoholism and racism．As in other developed countries, Australian families have grown less cohesive in recent years, putting young men out into the world at an earlier age．Those who kill themselves often think 'it'll make it easier for the parents by not being there'.
The deeper mystery is why the universal anguish of growing up should have such particularly devastating effects in Australia．One answer is that the country allows easier access to guns than most other developed Asian countries．(One exception is neighboring New Zealand, where guns are as easy to find, and the suicide rate among y