A sui­cide pact is a mu­tu­al agree­ment be­tween two or more peo­ple to die at the same time and usu­al­ly at the same place. This is a rare phe­nom­e­non and are there­fore dif­fi­cult to study. De­spite their rar­i­ty and the fact that sui­cide pact vic­tims gen­er­al­ly choose non­vi­o­lent sui­cide meth­ods, sui­cide pacts are gen­er­al­ly lethal and the chances of sur­vival are low.

Sui­cide pact com­mon­al­i­ties

Sui­cide pacts have some com­mon char­ac­ter­is­tics. The sui­ci­dal peo­ple have a close and ex­clu­sive re­la­tion­ship, of­ten free of sig­nif­i­cant bonds to fam­i­ly or friends. The iso­la­tion can be caused or ex­ac­er­bat­ed by a re­cent re­tire­ment, loss of work, dis­ease, or so­cial re­jec­tion-for ex­am­ple, two lovers or two friends who are not per­mit­ted to be to­geth­er.The sui­cide pact is of­ten trig­gered by a threat of sep­a­ra­tion of the dyad, death of one of them, or so­cial and fa­mil­ial re­stric­tions on see­ing each oth­er. The fear of los­ing the re­la­tion­ship with the oth­er per­son mo­ti­vates the ma­jor­i­ty of sui­cide pacts.

The dyad is gen­er­al­ly com­posed of a dom­i­nant per­son who ini­ti­ates the sui­cide pact, and con­vinces a more sub­mis­sive per­son to agree to this plan. The dom­i­nant mem­ber is usu­al­ly the most sui­ci­dal mem­ber and the de­pen­dent per­son is the most am­biva­lent. In most cas­es, the male plays the dom­i­nat­ing role. How­ev­er, there are no in­di­ca­tions that some­one can be­come sui­ci­dal on­ly due to the sug­ges­tion of an­oth­er per­son.

Most sui­cide pacts use poi­son­ing. This non­vi­o­lent method al­lows the syn­chro­ni­sa­tion of the deaths and, at the same time, al­lows the pact mem­bers to change their minds. It ap­pears that when the pact is abort­ed it is fre­quent­ly be­cause the pas­sive mem­ber changes his or her mind and saves the in­sti­ga­tor, some­times against his or her will. How­ev­er, some re­searchers claim that the de­pen­dent mem­ber may ask the dom­i­nant one to kill him or her in or­der to not sur­vive and be left alone.

Sui­cide pacts and men­tal health

The preva­lence of men­tal dis­or­ders is low­er in sui­cide pacts than in in­di­vid­ual sui­cides. How­ev­er, re­searchers have found that at least one mem­ber of the dyad usu­al­ly suf­fers from de­pres­sion, bor­der­line or an­ti-so­cial per­son­al­i­ty traits, or sub­stance abuse. Phys­i­cal dis­eases are fre­quent­ly ob­served, par­tic­u­lar­ly in old­er sui­cide pact vic­tims.

Of­ten, at least one pact mem­ber has at­tempt­ed pre­vi­ous­ly or has been ex­posed to the sui­cide of a close rel­a­tive.This has led some re­searchers to sug­gest that sui­cide pacts are re­lat­ed to sui­cide clus­ters (a se­ries of sui­cides in the same com­mu­ni­ty) be­cause there is a con­ta­gion ef­fect. Be­sides these com­mon­al­i­ties, some im­por­tant dif­fer­ences ex­ist.

The love pact

The love pact is one of three types of sui­cide pacts and gen­er­al­ly oc­curs be­tween two lovers who are faced with the threat of sep­a­ra­tion as im­posed by their par­ents or so­ci­ety. There are some cas­es of love pacts in the West­ern world, but this type of pact is par­tic­u­lar­ly fre­quent in the East­ern world where there are strict rules con­cern­ing dowry and mar­riage.

For ex­am­ple, in In­dia and Japan many young peo­ple are forced to break off a love re­la­tion­ship to mar­ry the per­son that their par­ents have cho­sen for them. Some of these young lovers view sui­cide as the on­ly way that they can stay to­geth­er. Lover sui­cide pacts are of­ten al­so seen as re­bel­lion against parental au­thor­i­ty and linked to the in­tense guilt of giv­ing pri­or­i­ty to one's own de­sires in­stead of re­spect­ing so­cial con­ven­tions.

Pre­ven­tion of sui­cide pacts

Nu­mer­ous risk fac­tors as­so­ci­at­ed with in­di­vid­ual sui­cides are linked to sui­cide pacts. For this rea­son, it is im­por­tant for health prac­ti­tion­ers and loved ones to pay at­ten­tion to gen­er­al signs of sui­cide risk, such as ma­jor be­hav­iour­al or emo­tion­al changes, sleep­ing or eat­ing dis­or­ders, dis­pos­al of im­por­tant pos­ses­sions, loss of in­ter­est and en­er­gy, sub­stance abuse, and hope­less­ness.One should al­so be watch­ful for signs of sui­cide pacts, such as the iso­la­tion of an old­er cou­ple with a phys­i­cal ill­ness or emo­tion­al­ly un­healthy, ex­clu­sive re­la­tion­ships in young friends. More­over, the peo­ple who en­gage in sui­cide pacts of­ten talk about their plans to fam­i­ly and friends.

Men­tal health prac­ti­tion­ers sug­gest that one asks di­rect ques­tions to ver­i­fy sui­cide in­ten­tions and plans, such as, "Are you think­ing of sui­cide?" "Did you plan your sui­cide (i.e., de­cide when, where, or how to do it)?" The more the sui­cide is planned, the more im­por­tant it is to be di­rect and act quick­ly. One should be em­path­ic and warm with a sui­ci­dal per­son, and try to find new so­lu­tions or al­ter­na­tives to the per­son's prob­lems, and en­cour­age him or her to seek pro­fes­sion­al help if need­ed.Fi­nal­ly, de­spite the fact that sui­cide pacts share a lot of char­ac­ter­is­tics with in­di­vid­ual sui­cides and are a rare phe­nom­e­non, health prac­ti­tion­ers be­lieve that ed­u­ca­tion pro­grams on sui­cide pre­ven­tion should in­cor­po­rate in­for­ma­tion on sui­cide pacts and guide­lines for pre­vent­ing sui­cide pact be­hav­iour.

(En­cy­clo­pe­dia ofDeath and Dy­ing)