Engraved Suicide Notes: The Last Note Written on Body by Metallic Object

Surface and Latent Meanings in Male's Suicide Notes: A Two-Legged Qualitative Study

This study aims to investigate the phenomenon of suicide, which is a global health problem, by utilizing suicide notes. Our main concern in this article is to understand why a person leaves suicide notes before committing suicide; indeed, this question may shed light on particular personal characteristics of the note-leavers. 12 documents containing suicide notes, belonging to Turkish males, were obtained from Prosecutor office. By using an inductive and interpretative method, firstly, we conducted a semantic level analysis; and subsequently, we deeply analyzed the data by conducting latent level analyses from a Lacanian point of view. At the end of this cumulative process, we labelled the latent themes as 'ambivalence of emotions', 'issues associated with separation' and 'issues associated with the Law'. Within the scope of those findings, a diagnostic discussion was provided. This discussion designated a picture of narcissism in addition to a psychotic structure, specifically paranoia.

Suicide note written on the forearm using a sharp pointed object

Suicide notes are generally written on readily available materials, such as paper, notebook, wall or mirror by means of pen, pencil, marker or chalk. They can also be communicated by telephone, text messages, internet and digital media. A case has been reported where a note was written with henna. Suicide notes written on one's body are uncommon, and notes engraved on the body with a sharp metallic object are extremely rare. We present two cases where a sharp pointed metallic object was used to write suicide notes on the body.