Rate of suicide in the U.S. peaks among older men, a hard demographic to reach
Rate of suicide in the U.S. peaks among older men, a hard demographic to reach
Suicide rates increased in the U.S. to an 80-year high in 2022, with nearly 50,000 people committing suicide, according to federal data.
Only as valued as their productivity.
That is a big part of it.
When the first question you are asked for decades when meeting someone is "What do you do?" it gets ingrained that your only value is what you do.
Add in the fact that men hitting that age now have basically never received any positive reaction for expressing any emotions or vulnerability and usually outright been mocked for doing so and it is no wonder they are are hard group to reach...
I've seen a few people complain about the question "what do you do?" over the years, and I think it's pretty telling that most people seem to interpret that as "what is your job?"
For me, my job is a footnote to my life, it's not something I'm overly proud of, if I woke up rich tomorrow I'd never go back to work, it's just how I fund the rest of my lifestyle.
I tend to answer that question with my hobbies, things I'm working on, trips I'm planning, etc
Sort of a double-edged sword is that I do actually work a pretty interesting job that people really want to hear about when they find out what I do, and I'd really rather talk about the other things I do. Probably the one thing I miss about when I was a random schmuck working a shitty warehouse job, I didn't have to talk about work outside of work as much
That's been one of the culture shifts I've noticed moving to the EU. People are a lot less likely to lead with that question here than in the US.
I've been saying "it's private" for years.
When the first question you are asked for decades when meeting someone is “What do you do?” it gets ingrained that your only value is what you do.
Exactly. I stopped asking that question because I don't wanna be asked that anymore. I ask other guys what their hobby(ies) is(are).
I've always taken that question as a form of trying to find common interests. If you answered it with your hobbies, it would fulfill the same purpose which is getting conversation started.
If you asked me "well, how much do you make?" that would be way more pointed towards "productivity".
I still cant remember the last compliment I got that wasn't about my work.
I like your username. This has figured it out.
Or your net worth if you’ve made enough for long enough, or made the good choice to be born to rich parents.
It’s as direct as “what do you do.” You can say “he’s worth eight figures” or similar.
I can partially speak to this from the inside so to speak. I'm not that old, but I had a heart attack and open heart surgery at the end of 2018 and complication after complication through all of 2019.
All of which puts me at greater risk for depression and suicide.
Just when I was medically cleared to go back to the office, we shut down for covid and I haven't been back since.
I started looking for a support group for heart attack/open heart surgery survivors and it was far, far more difficult than I thought.
Plenty of support groups for other conditions, plenty of support groups that advertised as women only, I really couldn't find anything that accepted men.
I didn't need a "mens only" group, just someone who wouldn't turn me away due to my gender.
I finally reached out to one of the women's groups going "Look, I know I'm not your demo, but I hope you can direct me..."
They set me up with a national org, https://mendedhearts.org/ who had an unbranded chapter in my area and I got to talk to people in my situation, it helped, but it was not easy getting there.
There were other problems during lockdown, I became a victim of domestic violence, against which I was helpless due to my medical conditions.
Same problem. No real support for male victims of domestic violence either.
The police directed me to various mental health agencies, for both myself and my wife, but this was peak covid and NONE of them called us back. NONE. Not even a "sorry, we aren't taking new patients", they just completely ghosted us.
My wife finally found a therapist who would "see" her remotely, which was a condition of our staying married, and things did get better.
But after all that... it was really dumb luck. Other folks aren't as lucky.
I just want to say something about the mental health practitioners not calling back:
It's the worst part about getting help is how hard it is to find. This is true for all folks, too. So, I just want to provide a quick how-to because I've been through that particular step 5 or 6 times and it's only slightly less annoying when you know the best steps to take. Not saying you didn't do all these things, and not saying you shoulda known if you didn't, but this is for anyone reading this. This also only applies for US. Idk how other countries do it, but it's probably better than this.
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UnInsured? Skip step 2 and 3
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Find your health care card. Call the number(s) on the back. Reach a human (never easy). Ask for a list of mental healthcare practitioners that are within x miles of CITY. use biggest nearby city for best results. Or just say STATE if your state is small enough. Regional accuracies may vary.
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Go to psychologytoday.com or google around for another mental healthcare finder. Use the list you got from your insurer.
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Search by your conditions at a site line psychologytoday.com. curate as long a list of options as you can for your area.
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Mass email to all of them. "Hi. I'm dealing with SYMPTOMS, I have this healthcare. I was wondering if you were accepting new patients." Send.
Within 1 week, if you have no response, re email all of them and say you got no response and you're really trying to find help, and if they could give you recommendations, that would be great.
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Setup appointments. First sessions suck. And it takes a solid 3 sessions to know for sure if someone is a possible fit.
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If they're not a good fit, you go back to your list. This repetition is exhausting, especially because when you finally reach out for help, you're at a breaking point, and all of this feels like too much already. Keep going.
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Hopefully you find someone that's a good fit through this process. It sucks. Hang in there.
This is all great advice. The issue I in particular have and a lot of other guys probably do as well is that I only ever get like 4-5 sessions with any therapist before they basically start booting me out the door. The issue is that per society I'm perfectly functional. I work, I pay my bills, I take good enough care of myself that I function. I've never attempted suicide (although stats show most guys only attempt is the sucsessful one.) I'm a low priority. I'm not a statistically high suicide risk. I'm not at risk of becomming homeless. I'm not being abused or abusing drugs. I'm already receiving medication that kind of works. All in all my situation is not dire so naturally the people who are in a more dire situation get prioritized and there are a lot of people in more dire situations.
I have enough of a medical background to know how triage works and I get that that is what is happening but it still just sucks. No place will actually keep me on long enough for me to improve at all and even if I do start to improve I get dumped at the first slightest sign of improvement. So I'm just stuck perpetually "functioning". It's kind of like the wellfare cliff. I'm doing just well enough that there's no long term help available.
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Men can help each other and SHOULD help each other. Women's groups exist because women recognized issues and organized themselves to help each other. This is why women's DV shelters exist, for example. (BTW, women's DV shelters may help men in need, there are arrangements that can be made to help but keep women and kids separated for their mental health and safety.)
Men can do the same thing and should do the same thing. Perhaps growing that sense of community and learning how to help others will build the social support that men seem to be lacking. But you men have to do it collectively yourself - no one "somebody" will do it for you.
I hope you are doing better these days. (Edit): I do not expect you personally to be able to do the hard work of organizing a DV shelter. This is why it is so important for men as a class to work together to support each other too.
I seriously appreciate all of the points you're making, but the idea of men and women as cohesive social units here might not be realistic or helpful, especially for issues affecting sub-groups. Sometimes the people actively working to improve something are fighting an uphill battle against societal expectations and/or larger portions of their own group who don't recognize it as an issue. I'm sure you know that doesn't make it any less valid.
Women's groups exist because women recognized issues and organized themselves to help each other. This is why women's DV shelters exist, for example.
Isn't this essentially victim blaming and overlooks the very real societal issues and trama that hinders men getting support? You know funding, not being believed by both sexes, lack of awareness, society just not generally caring about men, etc
I hope you have great holidays this year and better things to come next one.
I hope you're doing better physically and mentally kind sir. Thanks for sharing your story.
Societies that have been created around the concept that your life is worth as much as the value you produce. People are deeply ingrained with the idea that if you aren't part of the production line then you may as well die and get out the way for the next cog.
To this day, this mentality still benefits the higher up in those societies.
That's not just an idea - its physical reality. You can't get your physical needs met in old age if you didn't win the lotto. Suicide is the retirement plan for most of us non-boomers.
Somewhat related, but I learned today that Phil Shea who worked as the prop master on the office, died by suicide earlier this week, he was 62. He had a family and friends who loved him, but clearly wasn't speaking to anyone about what was really going on in his head. Older guys tend to be more closed up about speaking up
Cuz society mocks and looks down upon men who open up and talk. There's very little room for error being a man.
Thankfully this is changing... I see a clear divide in attitudes in my workplace between the boomers nearing retirement, and the new kids (Gen Z) that are coming in fresh out of college. And all I can say is: good riddance. Boomers are fucking toxic, but the Gen Z kids see right through that bullshit.
As an old guy (well old enough) I understand the sentiment. We are the providers, the protectors, the ones that aren’t supposed to show weaknesses or vulnerabilities. As an older gen x’er we weren’t taught how to talk about our feelings. It can be tough for sure.
For those who don't know, this is the other end of the toxic masculinity spectrum - the cultural idea that there is a certain way men are supposed to act, and we're perceived as weak or effeminate if we don't. We don't allow (or aren't allowed to) ourselves to express our emotions in a healthy way, so we bottle them up until the stress either kills us, or we kill ourselves.
Phil Shea
Oh shit actually a name I've heard that means something to me. That's no fun news :(
My dad died in his late 80s of Parkinson's. For at least a decade before his diagnosis he'd tell me that everyday when he woke up, he'd lost another piece of himself. He went from an active man in his early to mid 70s--he rode his bike 25 miles a day and weight lifted--to a shadow of himself very quickly.
It was tough to watch, and so much tougher for him facing loss after loss of his abilities. He spoke several times of "releasing" himself, but ultimately decided not to do it.
We are living longer, but that isn't always to our benefit.
Sorry for your loss. Your dad sounds like a good guy. I wish we all had a better and easier way to die with dignity and on our own terms.
Watching my Dad decline in his later years was really tough, the man I had known my entire life just fell apart month by month, week by week until he was just a shell of a person. I don't know when it happened, but the person I had known my whole life had already died before his body died later on. Seeing what I saw over the course of years as he declined, I would've completely understood if he had committed suicide well before. It would've been shocking and hard to take, but if he realized what was happening, felt himself slipping away, I wonder if he hadn't at least considered it. He retired a year before he died at 63 and never really got to enjoy his retirement.
The capitalists tortured your father out of your father month by month, week by week, until only a shell, no longer productive, was cut loose to die as it was no longer useful to them.
That is what the capitalists do to us while they live large and pat themselves on the back for it.
Saw this happen to my both my grandfathers, one died around 60 and the other around 80. Even the 60yo one, watching the mental decline was heartbreaking. Being left with literally nothing, losing your memories while you lose control of other parts of your body, these men were long gone long before they passed. Nothing in this world scares me like aging with dimentia does. You literally lose the person, sometimes completely, before they even die and you gotta sit there and be strong for them knowing that the slow desent will come for you too, and thats only if you're lucky enough to get that old. It's just not fair for anyone and there's scarcely any dignity in death.
that is not normal old age stuff mate that sounds like cancer
I feel myself heading this way. So much of my identity is wrapped up in what I can do and service I can provide. When my body fails, and it's starting to slow down even now, what will my identity be?
All I can suggest is to start decoupling your identity from your productivity or what you think you are expected to do. Figure out what really matters to you, and what you would regret doing or not doing when you’re elderly.
I’ve gone through a bunch of crap in the past few years, and part of getting back to normal life has been letting go of things that don’t really matter to me (anxiety doesn’t always make this easy, of course) and figuring out what matters most and how I can best enjoy this weird temporary thing we call life.
It will be what you make it. In retirement, my great aunt and uncle ran the ethnic dance scene for their city and volunteered. Even in a wheelchair you can teach and give your time to causes you find worthy!
jesus at 63?? uhm that is not Normal old age man unless your 80 and that was in 45 or some such
I'm sorry for your loss friend, the hardest thing in my life is watching my loved ones slip away before they're gone.
Glad to see an article about suicide focused specifically on men for a change. I wish it went into more specific detail about the societal treatment of men and how it fuels their mental health issues, but some attention is better than nothing.
I've seen a lot of those lately. At least in Polish media it was a very popular topic recently. Of course still nothing is being done to address. Then again, what are you going to do? In the end it's really men doing it to themselves. How are you going to change what men think about what 'being a men' means?
I'll probably kill myself at that age too
Going the drugs and Vegas route while be chased by 50 US marshals with fireworks shooting out of a stolen sports car in the desert. I Want the grand kids to think I was legendary and not a person stuck in a tomb of a body.
I’ve thought about it plenty in the last few years. The only things really stopping me is the idea of hurting my still-living mother, and my kids.
The founding culture of individualism in America have led to excessive isolation. The atomisation divided communities and separated people from one another. And with globalisation many people have been left out. Which in turn led to many atomised inviduals seeking desperately for any socialisation, many of whom turned to Trump.
I would also probably off myself at this age, seeing all the fuck ups that my generation did Holy shit.
What a waste if they don't take someone horrible with them.
what the actual fuck is wrong with you
Yet America still wants to control the world.
I am not from the US but similar stories and stats exist for my own country.
If you think any country is handling this better, please tell us which one it is.
(and, of course, back it up with solid data...)
You should be ashamed of yourself, it's an article about the horror that is suicide and you try and turn it into your personal beef with America. Shut the fuck up.
What the fuck are you talking about
