Better Off Dead: The Lost Children of the Book of Mormon

This is a book of LDS suicide.

Joshua died by his own hand at the age of 14. Similar to thousands of Latter-Day Saint youth before him, his death became a mere statistic amongst so many other unfortunates.

Why? What is taking the lives of LDS youth at the rate of one every week in the Intermountain west, known to epidemiologists as “The Suicide Belt?” Within these pages are the findings of a father in search of answers.

“Better Off Dead: The Lost Children of the Book of Mormon” offers a cultural perspective to explain the abnormally high suicide and depression statistics of the Intermountain region of the United States.

With a suicide rate four times greater than most of the USA and nearly double the global suicide ratio, there must be an explanation that goes beyond “altitude,” “fluoride in the water,” or “Season-Affectation Disease.”

This father's findings point to cultural aspects of suicide. Culture plays a significant role, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints’ cultural influences are broad-reaching and deeply ingrained in western society.

-A demand for perfection
-Institutional guilt instilled while exploring natural behaviors
-A history steeped in a fascination of death-based repentance
-175 years of sanitized history unveiling its imperfect origins through evidence and admission in the “Google Age”

“Better Off Dead” is filled with interviews and quotes from Mormon leadership, renowned psychologists, parents of suicidal and lost children, and historical anecdotes interwoven with a deeply personal perspective from a man immersed in Mormon culture from birth.

Suicide has touched the lives of nearly everyone in the world; this book offers some answers to the questions of “Why?”.