Despair
Tomorrow I have to open a presentation on despair in the 20th Century, and answers to the problem, with some statistics. Here's what I found out:

In some industrial countries, the rate of clinical depression has been doubling every ten years. Suicide has become the most common cause of death in North American young adults, and according to the World Health Organisation, one person commits suicide every 40 seconds. By the end of this tute, around 135 people will have committed suicide.

Males are four times more likely to suicide than females are, but females are more likely to attempt unsuccessfully.

It is estimated that 16% of Americans experience depression severe enough to seek treatment and that 13.3% of Americans have suffer from an anxiety disorder.

Westerners are stressed out by demanding daily commitments, social isolation, the apparent pointlessness of life and unresolved anxiety.

Between 1970 and 1995, the rate of completed suicides in Australian young men doubled. What’s even more shocking is that the rate of male suicides in regional areas increased by 50% between 1986 and 1992. In 1995, 2366 Australian suicided. In 1995, 5.1% of Victorian Secondary School students surveyed claimed to have deliberately harmed themselves.