Teen-Age Suicide
In July 2004, U.S. Senator Gordon Smith, a Mormon from Oregon, promoted a bill in the Senate to provide money for counseling teen-agers at risk of suicide. The Salt Lake Tribune reported that Senator Smith’s son, Garrett Lee Smith, “ended his own life the day before his 22nd birthday in September, 2003, following a struggle with bipolar disorder.” During the Senate discussion, Utah Senator Orin B. Hatch noted that “teen-age suicide among young men was higher in Utah than any other state.”
The Mormon Church quickly responded that these statistics did not reflect on the Mormon Church. In fact, research has shown that the incidence of suicide among Mormon men who are active in their church, that is, young men who have followed the prescribed path and have received the “appropriate priesthood calling for their age” — is lower than any place in the country. (See my video critique of this very dishonest study: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aXvuECd9dI & http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VxnB64oEEY )
Those who do not follow the prescribed course are most at risk: those who question the validity of the Mormon commandments; those who dare step outside the behavior mandated by the church. The statistics reveal that 551 suicides were committed among ten to thirty-four-year-old Utah males during 1991-1995. Six in ten were committed by Mormon Church members. Fifty percent of suicides of young men in this state are committed by inactive Mormons — 275 deaths were young men who, for one reason or another, did not follow the strict mandates of the Mormon Church. My heart weeps for the pain implied in these numbers.
See this link from the LDS Church owned Deseret News Daily news paper: Teen Suicide in Utah – Deseret News
Depression in Utah
On July 9, 2005, Utahans began their day with the following headlines:
“Got the blues? You’re not alone in Utah; SLC rates among the unhappiest places, but maybe we’re just more honest about it”
According to Men’s Health magazine, Salt Lake City “is one of the most depressing places to live.” An article reported a local psychiatrist, Michael Measom, who explained: The high ranking might be related to the cultural acceptance of depression here and financial pressure due to large families and lower wages.”2
One would expect that a community which is seventy percent Mormon — a church claiming to be led by God himself through a living prophet — would be wholesome and healthy. This is the impression promoted through advertising and news stories. And yet, in addition to the sensational events just mentioned, several national studies about the health of Utahans speak of the dis-ease in Zion. An article in the LA Times quoted a national study released the summer of 2001 and confirmed in January 2002, reporting that antidepressant drugs are prescribed twice as often in Utah than any other state, including three times more often than New York and New Jersey.3
In the above article, Dr. Curtis Canning, president of the Utah Psychiatric Association, said he had “some hunches” which may explain why Utah ranks so high “despite the fact that seventy percent of its residents are Mormon…In Mormondom, there is a social expectation — particularly among the females — to put on a mask, say ‘Yes’ to everything that comes at her and hide the misery and pain. I call it the ‘Mother of Zion’ syndrome…I think the cultural issue is very real. There is the expectation that you should be happy, and if you’re not happy, you’re failing…Because Mormonism ‘requires perfection and the public presentation of a happy face, whatever may be happening privately,’ many try to hide their struggles and are therefore in need of the mood-altering drugs.”
Dr. Canning quotes a seventy-one-year-old woman who explains how easy it is to get prescription drugs. She admitted she was addicted as were her three grown children. She explained that “Most men here would just as soon their wives take pills than bother to delve into the problems” that cause their need. Another Utah woman said she quit the drugs after 15 years of use. ‘It’s like Happy Valley here. Everything is always rosy. That’s how we got ourselves into this mess—we’re good at ignoring things.”
The article further reports that “besides the high usage of antidepressants, Utah also leads the nation in the use of narcotic painkillers such as codeine and morphine-based drugs.”3
Mental Illness – 10.97 Percent
A federal report printed in the Salt Lake Tribune in February, 2005, showed that “Utah has the nation’s lowest rate of illegal drug use and binge drinking among American youth but one of the country’s highest rates of serious mental illness.”
The U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found a total of 10.97 percent of Utahans age eighteen and older have a diagnosable mental, behavioral or emotional disorder that substantially interfered with one or more major life activities. Only Rhode Island had a higher rate of serious mental illness, 10.98 percent, according to the report.
Also see this: Utah No. 1 for Prescription Drugs – Deseret News
Financial Problems
On June 22, 2004, the Mormon Church-owned Deseret News reported that for the twelve months ending March 31, “one of every 36.5 Utah household filed for bankruptcy, being the highest household-per-filing rate in the nation.” The national average was 71.8 or nearly double the Utah figure. This is the second year in a row that Utah has led the nation in bankruptcies.5
When my husband and I financed our new condo, our banker told us in passing that Utah was known as the “fraud capital of the U.S.” I checked his statement on the internet and leaned that this distinction was awarded Salt Lake City in a page one Wall Street Journal article on February 25, 1974.6
This downward trend continued to be noticed and ten years later, in 1984 Newsweek wrote, “Utah, the land of the Mormons, has earned itself another name: the Stock-Fraud Capital of the Nation.”6
The Ogden Standard Examiner, in August 1989 explained that “The cultural emphasis in the Mormon Church that equates financial success with spiritual success, and an unquestioning allegiance to authority figures, may partly explain why 10,000 Utah investors have been swindled out of more than $200 million during the past decade.”6
These facts may illuminate the recent bribery charges linked to the 2001 Salt Lake City Olympic Games.
Rape
Added to this disturbing picture of young men in Utah leading the nation in suicide and women using anti-depressant drugs and narcotic painkillers far above the national average, plus having the second highest rate nationally of serious mental illness, plus a reputation for being the “fraud capital of the nation,” a 2003 study reports that one in five Utah women have been raped at some point in their lives.
According to statistics compiled by the FBI, Salt Lake City had 5.78 rapes per 10,000 population in 2002. That rate is higher than Boise, at 4.78; Phoenix, at 2.92 and New York City, at 2.09. However the article attempted to reassure citizens that “the number and rate of rapes reported in Salt Lake City has dropped each year for at least the past 12 years. I wonder what it was when I was a growing up in Utah?!!
