It's no secret that both remaining a JW or leaving the WTS can take a toll on mental health. Some will suffer from depression and ultimately some will have thoughts of suicide and a few will succumb to those.
But I don't recall ever seeing any hard stats or studies on it though. I'm sure we all know of some people who have committed suicide but I don't know if, because you may have loose association with a much larger pool of people through the religion, that this only seems higher or maybe not be actually higher than the general population.
What I mean is, you go to a KH here there maybe 100-150 people, you attend circuit and district conventions with many tens of thousands - if any one person commits suicide then you likely hear about it and it becomes part of the anecdotal 'evidence' that is then put forward as a fact that there is a higher rate ... but is there?
It's similar IMO to the deaths due to lack of blood transfusion - many often make the news but many times we all know of the same, what appear to thankfully be rather isolated, incidents which make me question whether there are really the many hundreds of thousands that some claim there are.
So does anyone know of any studies or reports that cover this area?
Like the blood issue, some will take questioning the numbers or a desire to get real statistics as somehow minimizing the issue so let me be clear: even 1 death is 1 too many and represents a terrible loss to some family, but that is a separate to looking for accurate information to talk meaningfully about the issue.