Middle-aged suicide on the rise

Middle-aged men, in particular, now can feel like total, irretrievable failures even earlier. Just try rebuilding an high-tech career at 50...and we tend not to believe we'll be getting much Social Security.

The distance between what we think we're _supposed_ to be, and what we can do, is large. At the same time, though I am very glad that second-wave feminism and more democratic families happened, the net effect is to make us feel like we're not really necessary, especially if we're not earning.

Add this to the middle-aged man's near-transfinite capacity for self-pity.....

According to Wikipedia, Baby Boomers would now be 56 to 64 years old, so would not fall into the middle aged cohort.

One of Neitzche's quotes got me through divorce - the most devastating event of my life. I hung onto Neitzche's words:
"He who has a 'why' to his existence can bear with any 'how'."
I found my 'why.'

I wonder if your guests could describe what the difference is between a healthy human reaction of sadness vs. depression. Is there such a thing? Perhaps we should be feeling sad about the state of things in our lives right now. How do we address things that should be making us sad, in a healthy way...beyond drugs and an easy label of depression?

Yes. I myself have fought the anguished yanking frustration to just END it. Gotten better, but I am still struggling with having been a "sandwich generation" child, alone, both rearing a teenager while diapering a grandmother -- now here and truly alone, trying to find my way back into the working system because I am too young (( and too broke )) to even think about retirement, and too disconnected to have anything in our societal system work on my behalf.

My Uncle successfully committed suicide last year in his late 50's. He was never diagnosed or prescribed any medications for mental illness. We now know he had lost his career-job, distanced himself from all family (he never married) and had no other supports. I had a suicide attempt shortly before his, in my late-30's, that left me in a coma. I had also just lost a career-job (well, what I thought was one), was unmarried and had few supports (and a diagnosis of Major Depressive Disorder since my early 20's). Both of us kept our suicide plan secret, but had many many applicable risk factors- loss of job, lack of meaningful relationships, substance abuse, etc.

i have suicidal thoughts. i'm 41 and in the best shape physically i['ve ever been. I have a good job and i'm not bad looking. but i don't have any close friends. I used to have really close friends but i got sober over ten years ago and now i don't know how to have meaningful relationships without drink or drugs. All my friends having fun seem to drink and my AA friends are too much into the god thing. Help

If women were the predominant victims of suicide the world would clamor for solutions and funding for suicide prevention programs would flow faster than oil in the Gulf of Mexico.

But men are four times more likely to kill themselves than women. Men are 10 times more likely to commit suicide when relationships end. And when men are deprived of their children they are even more likely to commit suicide.

According to the U.S. Institute for Mental Health suicide is a major health problem accounting for over 33,000 deaths every year in the United States, of which roughly 24,000 were men. More than six times as many males as females ages 20 to 24 died by suicide and the rates skyrocket for men over 65. Suicide is the seventh leading cause of death for males and the sixteenth leading cause of death for females.

The World Health Organization reports that In Belarus, Russia, and Poland the ratio is greater than 5 to 1 male to female suicides. China is one of the few places in the world with a higher suicide rate for women than men albeit the difference is small.

Suicide is clearly and primarily a problem of epidemic proportions for men across the globe, including China. Unfortunately it is politically incorrect to fund research that might reveal the causes and offer solutions to reduce the suicide epidemic.

Domestic violence educator, researcher, and author Richard Davis has recently unearthed reliable information that strongly suggests roughly 30% of suicides are related to intimate partner violence.

If true, then intimate partner violence related deaths are most often men, not women. Indeed, the domestic violence and its sister industries would begin to collapse around one of its most cherished and destructive beliefs, that is, more women die from intimate partner violence than do man. Do the math. Ponder the possibilities.

Helpful are programs such as this that recognize male suicides. Unfortunately there is no sustained public dialog regarding the epidemic of male suicides. Chivalry is not dead, but it is a killer. Men are disposable.

Teater: Help is here NOW!

323 630-8587....LET THIS PERSON KNOW A FRIEND OF
Bill W. referred you...Please call.