Middle age is reportedly the happiest time of life for most Americans. So, why are middle-aged men at such high risk for suicide?
I belong to a group that has an unusually high rate of dying by suicide. No, I don’t belong to a cell of terrorists in training. I’m not a soldier or veteran with multiple deployments to Iraq or Afghanistan. I’m not a prison or jail inmate. And I’m not a doctor (physicians have easy access to drugs and understand their lethality). What high-risk group do I belong to? I am a middle-aged white man.
Men have long had higher rates of suicide than women, and whites in the United States are more likely to kill themselves than are African, Hispanic, or Asian Americans. But it’s only in recent years that the middle-aged have overtaken older people as the ones most likely to die by suicide.
In 2007 (the latest year for which statistics are available), people aged forty-five to fifty-four had the highest suicide rate of any age group: 17.7 per 100,000. (The national average was 11.5 per 100,000.) And the rate for fifty-five to sixty-four-year-olds showed the greatest increase from the previous year.
Researchers don’t yet know why midlifers are becoming more vulnerable to suicide, especially since studies have found that middle age is generally the happiest time of life for most Americans. As a forty-five-year-old white guy, I was curious to know what makes my demographic group so self-destructive. After talking with experts, here’s what I learned.
♦♦♦
“Women seek help—men die.” This quote from a 1990 medical journal article is an overgeneralization, of course. There are plenty of women who don’t seek help for their emotional distress. After all, women in the United States are three times more likely to attempt suicide than men. But “men tend to hold their own counsel,” says psychiatrist Yeates Conwell, co-director of the Center for the Study and Prevention of Suicide at the University of Rochester. “They often don’t build supportive networks that allow them to share their concerns with others.”
Men are also more likely to drink heavily when feeling distraught, and to reach for guns in order to kill themselves. Nearly sixty percent of suicides among males occur by firearms, while the most common method among women is overdose/poisoning. Guns tend to be more lethal than pills, and this helps explain why there are four male suicides for every female suicide. (Some ninety percent of all people who die by suicide have a diagnosable mental illness or substance use disorder.)
There’s even evidence that men are more likely than women to feel there is a stigma attached to a “failed” suicide attempt. So men may use more lethal methods to avoid being seen as unmanly—even as they’re planning their own death.
Changes in gender roles may also be affecting men, suggests Sally Spencer-Thomas, executive director of the Colorado-based Carson J Spencer Foundation, whose Working Minds program promotes suicide prevention in the workplace. As more women become family breadwinners and attain leadership positions once denied them, Spencer-Thomas says that “more men are asking themselves, ‘Am I a provider or not? Am I a leader or not?’ Their sense of purpose may become unclear.”
♦♦♦
Whites could use a little faith. Whites are more than twice as likely to die by suicide as blacks, although whites in general are better off economically. In fact, the suicide rate for white men aged forty-five to fifty-four (29.3 per 100,000) is 14 times greater than the rate for black women of the same age (2.1 per 100,000). Some researchers suggest that blacks may be less prone to suicide because they are more religious. They tend to outpace whites in the United States on measures such as frequency of church attendance and prayer, closeness to God, and self-ratings of spirituality. Being part of a church community can also be a powerful source of social support, another protective factor.
♦♦♦
Midlife can be a minefield. For many people, the peak earning years of midlife offer a sense of competence and mastery. But for others, the middle years may be times of disillusionment and regret about stalled careers and stale marriages. This time of life can also be filled with anxieties about mounting debt, while putting kids through school and caring for aging parents. Plus, men at midlife discover that their own bodies aren’t what they used to be. As natural medicine expert Andrew Weil, M.D., writes, “The man at fifty or sixty looks at his sagging muscles, thinning hairline, bigger belly, and uncooperative penis and wonders, ‘Whose body is this?’”
But these challenges aren’t new to midlife. What could account for the rising suicide rates? (Remember, the latest statistics are for 2007, before the economic meltdown of 2008 brought widespread job cuts and home foreclosures.) Dr. Conwell says that even before the recession, concerns about the stability of employment could have set the stage for other factors—such as substance misuse, more difficult access to health care, and less-stable social support—that can increase the risk of suicide.
Sally Spencer-Thomas also suspects that fraying social ties may play a role. She notes a 2006 study showing that Americans’ circle of confidants shrank by one-third in the previous two decades. And the number of people who said they have no one with whom to discuss important matters more than doubled in that time, to nearly twenty-five percent.
Thomas Joiner, a psychologist at Florida State University and author of Myths about Suicide (2010), speculates that the mainstreaming of gore may even be having an effect. When the people now in their mid-40s were in their teens (from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s), they were starting to get exposed to gory movies like Halloween and Friday the 13th. He believes that one of the most important factors that contributes to suicide is a “learned fearlessness” about physical pain, physical injury, and death. (Other factors, he says, include the idea that you are a burden on other people, and the feeling that you are hopelessly alienated from them.) As people develop an increasing tolerance to gore, perhaps they are more likely—when in extreme distress—to do themselves harm.
“I hope that I’m wrong about this,” says Joiner. “If it’s true, that’s ominous.” Children and teens today are exposed to far more graphic violence in movies and computer games than were their counterparts of thirty years ago.
Other theories about why midlife suicide rates are on the rise include easier access to guns and prescription drugs, and a potentially higher incidence of depression among baby boomers.
♦♦♦
Lowering risk. When I asked these experts for practical advice on what middle-aged white men can do to reduce their risk of suicide, they stressed that you should see your doctor if you suspect you’re suffering from depression or another mental health problem. While depression often includes feeling sad or losing interest in things that typically give you pleasure, it can also be expressed in other ways: sleep problems, frequent headaches or stomach pain, risk taking (such as reckless driving and casual sex), and anger. If you are suicidal, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
The experts also advise all men to develop support networks, and to stay engaged with family and friends. “Do everything you can to resist the urge to isolate,” says Phillip Smith, Ph.D., a psychologist at the University of Rochester. Reaching out can feel uncomfortable, he admits. But sharing your worries can make you feel less alone, and other people may offer valuable perspectives on what you’re going through.
Dr. Conwell also encourages men to take good care of themselves. That means eating right, being physically active, managing your stress levels, getting enough sleep, and not drinking too much alcohol.
And don’t forget to look out for each other, says Spencer-Thomas. Notice if a family member, friend, or co-worker doesn’t seem himself, and ask him how he’s doing. Remind him that depression is a treatable medical condition, not a sign of weakness. If he’s talking about death and suicide, and you suspect that he might harm himself, offer to take him to the emergency room or call 911.
♦♦♦
A personal perspective. I am no stranger to depression, as it has affected me to varying degrees since my teens. It took me a long time to get help—first from psychotherapy, then medication, and now both. The idea of suicide once had a seductive pull on me, but it has lost its power.
Although suicide used to seem like a way out of my struggles, now I can see more options to get through them. I’ve also met several people who have lost loved ones to suicide, and now I firmly believe that any option is better than killing myself.
These survivors of suicide loss have been through a veritable hell of grief and guilt (“What could I have done to prevent this?”). If you ever get to the point that you think you’ll be doing others a favor by doing yourself in, you are wrong.
To me, the essence of suicidal thinking is a kind of tunnel vision in which self-annihilation seems like the only solution to emotional pain. Perhaps this is why I’ve found comfort in environments that provide a sense of spaciousness and openness. Sitting beneath the vaulted ceiling of my church, or walking though the woods and coming upon a sunlit clearing, seems to take me out of my head and my concerns.
In his book Man’s Search for Meaning, Victor Frankl describes a moment not long after he had been liberated from a Nazi concentration camp. He is walking through the countryside past flowering meadows. Larks rise to the sky and sing joyously. He stops, looks around, and then drops to his knees. Frankl, an Austrian Jew, repeats to himself a line from Psalm 118: “I called to the Lord from my narrow prison and He answered me in the freedom of space.”
I think it’s possible for anyone to experience this freedom of space, regardless of religious affiliation or spiritual beliefs. And I share Frankl’s sense of gratitude. I find myself released from many of the constraints that depression once placed on me and from the lure of suicidal thoughts, and I can see possibilities all around me.
—Dan Fields
Thanks to Elana Premack Sandler at the Suicide Prevention Resource Center for help with statistics.
About Dan Fields
Vocalyze
Hi Dan-
Nice job with this article – I like the blend of information, narrative, and advice.
Best Wishes,
Dr. Lezine
There is a lot more here then what this article covers. If you are in Ohio, and your wife decides she wants a richer man, gets a divorce, then you are soon, homeless, paying 40% of your take home pay as child support, and are lucky you get to see your kids. If you get 3 months behind in child support, heaven forbid, you have 30 days in jails. I know, you lost your job, but when you get out, you still owe for the time you are in jail. And the jail cycle continues. And let me tell you, child support hires mostly MEN HATERS.
Now, I don’t know about the rest of the country, but here in Ohio, men with money are WORSHIPED. All I hear about is WHO HAS MORE MONEY. All the factories have closed down, so you are making as much as your dates are making at the low end of the job scale. But the expectation is still that a guy is the provider, even if he makes a lot less then he used too, and then has to pay child support.
There is no way out of this. Jobs are scare, and more education does not promise a better paying job. Education usually means more debt. Many go with drugs, and I have no ill will toward that.
One day, you wake up, and realize, you are just TIRED. You go home, every night, and pray that GOD takes you home. You find that you are not afraid of dying, but even worse, you are happy to die. You realize, you would be happy if you did not see the light of day, tomorrow.
When it comes to support groups, you really don’t want to hear a bunch of whining from guys in the same boat. They have no way out, either. So why bother.
I agree with Trent. The pressure on men these days is much more than before. I have prayed several times also for God to take me away from this world. I’ve given up on this life and I’m in more trouble now than ever before. Get tired of struggling to survive and want to escape the pain.
I don’t know why everyone is so focused on suicide prevention and don’t seem to truly care about the person and their pain. Everyone wants to say suicide is selfish because you hurt all the people you’ve left ehind that careed……Really…? Well, if THOSE people “truly” cared for you and were such an essential part of your life, would you feel so alone, isolated, helpless, hurt, and felt dying is your only escape? I don’t think so.
please get help for your depression, that is why men are dying-they refuse to seek help.Please don;t be one of them.
did you not read the post. there is no hope. treatment for depression is expensive and the only thing that will help is a better job market.
my view is that it is better to end it quickly and painlessly. Americans have been sold out and the powers that be do not care if you live or die. they will outsource jobs and globalize and they don’t give a dagon about the citizens miserable worthless little lives. obama et al is partying it up and gloating with glee as we the people die.
i wish the govt would make barbituates available to those of us who want to check out of this american hell. I would just drop a good dose into a long island ice tea cocktail, drink it down, and, check out.
i am sick and tired of this dagon american nightmare there is no hope i am waiting for the savings to expire and if i haven’t found a job, take the plunge. i wouldn’t live long on the streets, it would be a miserable doggie death, And i just want out now.
Dear Trent:
Talk about a graphic description of hitting Rock Bottom. My gut instinct is to question what your former wife and mother of your children didn’t understand about swearing before man and God that she took you “For richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, for better or worse, till death do us part.” Stop blaming yourself. It’s her dark Karma she will carry through the rest of her slimy life.
May the new richer husband divorce her in a decade for a younger, prettier woman and have his expensive lawyer see she gets nothing because of a prior-to-marriage signed agreement she forgot about while having so much fun with his money over the years.
Stay Strong my friend!
Robert Allen Schledwitz
Newburyport, MA
please get help for your depression-see my general posting things will look different when your illness is under control.
you know why so many men are committing suicid? because they refuse to get the help they need and it;s killing them. I am on here because my friend committed suicide last month. I think of him all the time.
Wow! I am “on the fence” and have read the above reviews; found them very helpful. However your post is “honest” and is exactly how I feel…Mine is only spousal support. After only 16 months of being married she is going to get money and half my retirement; both for ONLY 9 months, but it is still hell…
But, at 56, I am alone and scared. I lost my first wife, daughter, mom all within 3 months and now my dad is finally at his end…I have two old dogs and that’s it; I’ll be ready….I pray every day that God takes me and I’m to CS to kill myself! I am a vet too and saw action! Thank you for your post.
good luck
To M, Larry, Jaym, Trent, Loner and the many others:
I pray you are still with us. I know what it is to have to change, forced to keep going and what it is to lose. But, I have also learned that I have value. As you too, have value. We need you, and without you we would be the lesser for it. There are so many that are lonely, orphaned, depressed, just hurting. Can’t you see that there is no one like you, that can bring to the table what you can. Yes, you’re tired – gain strength in the sharing; there are people who would dearly love for someone, ANYONE to just talk to them. Yes, you’re lonely- gain from the giving of yourself. Please don’t give up on us.
It’s almost too late, just waiting for one last disappoinpment or failed dream. If someone cared, they would have noticed by now. They haven’t. Thanks anyway.
you are going to get better, remember, the problems are temporary, what you are suggesting as a way to solve them is permament-please read my general post and get help for depression. That’s why mor men are committing suicide-they refuse to get help.
I am black 36 and male and I plan to kill myself in the near future. I have many skills and have worked very hard in my life but i have nothing. I am just hated. I live ina community that treats me with disrespect often and their is much racism where I live. No matter what I do my efforts are ignored. I am not talking about rejection. There is no rejection, I simply do not exist. Non-existence. That is how I am treated. I have no one and nothing. No hope for the future. No wife, no gf, no money, nothing. And no way to get anyhting. You just can’t get lower than this. The problem in this country is that men are hated. Men are degraded and men are disenfranchsed. No matter if you are white or black. It doesnt matter. If a man has no money he is perceived a failure. Women are the ones who degrade men the most. men dont even have the right to cry. I can not tell you the numbers of times I have been put down for shedding just one tear. I lost 2 men I knew to suicide in just this year alone. They were a lot like me. Forgotten and unloved. And again, they were extremely talented. But who cares? It seems the smarter a man is the more he is hated and has no place in this society. The more creative and original he is the more likely he will be alone. That is how this place works. I hate America and everything about it. I hate women for what they do to men and the world. I will be dead soon. But I wanted to write this to let you know that not all men die as a result of pity. There are real reasons for why we hurt. We are people too. Just unloved and unwanted by this world. Being born male is a crime. All it brings is a life of suffering. Especially if you are one who dared to embrace knowledge. We have no place and no one. i want to die to be free of this daily torture. It is like a wound that never heals. I am the ‘nigger’, the monster that everyone hates and blames for all of the worlds wrongs. I am the thing neither beast nor man. Unwarranted in his existence.
Hated by everyone. What greater joy does it give white america and everyone else, especially women to know that I am one less Nigger to worry about. No One will or can know the hurt or having your whole existence be vile.
Hey man, glad you decided to speak up. You might be surprised to know how many guys out there that know how you feel —
Know that you’re not alone in these feelings, and that there are people who care and want to help you figure shit out, so you can see a way forward. Talking about this stuff is really important — can tell us a little more about what’s going on?
Many of the things that you speak of are the very things we hope to bring to light through this project.
Your pain is real, and it sucks that you think you have nowhere to turn. I agree that there are “real reasons why you hurt.” I do care — about you as a person. Like Henry says, it’s important to talk about.
The two friends you speak of — could you tell us their stories? Write about what happened, so that people know what it’s like?
take care and write whenever you can.
No offense but how can you care about me as a person? You don’t know me. I don’t know you. I’m not being sarcastic, it’s just that i’ve never understood how someone can care, really care, about someone else thats unknown.
Well, I just reviewed this site for the first time since march and the lack of responses either thumbs up or thumbs down proves my point and confirms to me that no one really does care after all. Which doesn’t even matter because no one will read this response either. Seems that I’ve been talking to myself, as usual.
please get help for your depression-that is why so many men are dying-they refuse to accept help.Please dont be one of them
I did’t know about this site.people can care about people they don’t know. there are a lot of good people.If you were my friend you would see that if you needed help I would help you .sharon
The end: Thanks, man, for being so honest and open. As Henry said, you’re not alone at all. I just want to stress that this is a place where you can talk about anything you need to, and you’ll be among men who share your pain and who hear every word you’re saying.
I’m glad you spoke up. I know a lot of what you’re hearing or what we’re telling you sounds like a load of bullshit, but things will get better.
You sound like a real talented, intelligent dude. There’s a place for you, and there are people who will and do love you. I’m sure that’s tough as all hell to see right now, but there are. Keep on trucking and things will get better, I promise you that. You’re a good person. Everything else will take care of itself.
There’s always hope—even if you can’t see it. I know it seems like any and everything might be against you right now, but it’s not. There are people that want to help you, look at all the responses already.
We’re all here for you brotha.
Hey my friend just want to say that I have been to that spot myself, where nothing seemed to matter and death would be preferable to life. All I can say is that I choose life in the end. I can’t force you to do anything. But by giving myself a tiny little chance 15 years ago now, things got better. Slowly at first. Very slowly. And then, eventually, the darkness did past most of the time. It took courage not to end it. But in my case that was the right choice. I encourage you to think about it, talk to someone, anyone, you can trust. By writing here clearly you are able to communicate. And you should. Before its too late.
Pleas get help for your depression and r, the reason so many are dying of suicide is that men simply refuse to get help. Please don’t be a statistic-be tom
tell it like it is brother. you ain’t no nig either.
In this article, the fourth paragraph under Lowering Risks states that people should notice a family member, co-worker or friend that doesn’t seem himself and ask him how he’s doing. I agree, assuming there is anyone left in this society that cares. I’ve been waiting for several years for someone to notice (or care about) my downward spiral and ….. well, still waiting. There doesn’t seem to be anyone who cares, even in my own church. I feel like I’m lifting my hand out of the water hoping someone will grab it and save me from drowning but all I see is faces that say, “not interested”. What else is there to do but let myself drown”?
Why do we see suicide by presumably mentally competent adults as problematic? Is it so terrifying to admit that some people take a long look at their lives, see no value in continued existence, and ultimately choose to act on it? Suicide is far preferable to withering away in a life that long ago lost its luster. Why discourage people from seeking the only real release from the ennui of existence? Why stigmatize the ultimate act of self-help?
Thank you.
Someone understands.
worked very hard. Overcame a tough family life and poverty… went to grad school… perfect grades…no debt – no drugs – go to church – help others when I can – I don’t abuse women — But guess what? We’re the most derided and hated demographic in the office, in our families, on TV, in the media… the guys kiilling themselves aren’t the debt ridden – dead-beat dad types… they’re the regular guy who played by the rules. Women and our society hate us because and consider us guilty — marry a foreigner — anyone not corrupted by our culture… home school your kids… try like heck to just build a normal life — This is too much — middle age is the point where you realize that it doesn’t matter what you do in america – you are hated. I think about suicide on a daily basses – when women in the office are rewarded for their lack of integrity (lie, steel, cheat, backstab, undermine, gossip), divorced moms get custody and c.support for life, single old guys are avoided like the plague, when our immediate families deride us – refer to us as losers. Life here is pointless. A complete waste. Impossible to build a life a family
I was happy to discover this particular web-site.I want to thank you for your effort for this amazing learn!! I surely taking advantage of every little this and I’ve got you book marked to look at latest thing you article.
I am a 56 year old white dude, university educated and licensed building professional. My profession has been decimated by the economy and for the last 3 years I have been doing physical construction work, supplemented by what’s left of my 401K. I wholeheartedly agree with many of the commenters on the treatment/value of men in American society. I was another one who always played by the rules, focused on my family and career, didn’t drink, gamble or womanize, but it just seemed to evaporate over the last 10 years. I was laid off after a moderately successful career, then lost almost everything I had in my divorce (except my tools, camping equipment and firearms), when my ex-wife left our 18-year marriage for her millionaire. She doesn’t want to marry him so that she can continue to receive support. The few personal relationships I have had since my marriage go nowhere. Middle aged white dude construction workers with no money are not in high demand with Orange County, California women. I have about 3 months of 401K money left and am convinced that a rational suicide is the only way I can see to leave this life with a scrap of courage and a smudge of dignity. Having my children witness me continuing to degrade, and eventually having to live off public assistance, etc., is not an option. My big problem is how do I strategize the next few months. I get somewhat emotional and overwhelmed when I try to think this all through and am looking for resources to help me plan the exit, i.e., “checklist for a good death.” I’m looking to minimize the impact on my adult kids, to convert my last few possessions to cash and then transfer the cash to my children, while avoiding taxation. I don’t want to leave a mess, possessions to sift through, unpaid bills, unresolved issues, etc. Should I leave any type of video or written statement in explanation? I want to make this as clean, simple and painless as possible. I don’t want the body discovery to be anywhere near my family. What am I missing; what else do I need to focus on?
I’m looking for input.
Thank you for the Good Men Project. I pray that your work will protect my son from having to deal with similar issues.
I’ve watched women kick their men out the homes the men had almost paid off and then get the younger boy toy and shower them with gifts from the alimony money while the kids called the boy toy dad and the now ex-wife did her best to turn them against the real dad and deny him the two weekends a month he got while the boy-toy rolled around in the nice car the ex-husband made payments on blasting the new stereo the wife had showered him with. Now if that doesn’t make one want to kill themself, what would?
Fortunately, these guys kept their heads and somehow worked through it and yes it took years and they were lucky enough to have jobs.
I’m 29, mexican/white, and a loser. you wouldn’t have thought it back in the day: I was 18, graduating at top of my class. 3rd best grades out of 18 in an academic oriented all boys catholic boarding school.
I keep asking myself why I’m here? Not here on earth but here on a suicide forum. I forget a lot of things. Sometimes I think brain damage, others I suspect I repress. But some things I can’t forget. I can’t forget being 17, playing video games, when family members burst into my room for help because my grandfather was choking. I can’t forget I skipped taking a CPR class just 2 months before because I thought it was too expensive. I can’t forget how that afternoon dragged out into an evening – and grandfather, he was a dad to me, died.
I can’t forget being 18 a year later, and letting myself be convinced that a job in video games wasn’t the right thing to do. I should go to this particular catholic philosophy college, and develop my mind. Learn to think and become wise, learn to make a real life, a good one.
I can’t forget wasting two years at a college I failed out of, for a degree that wouldn’t have gotten me a job anyway. Going back home, working a pathetic job in a grocery store I got as a ‘favor’ from my grandmother’s friend while taking care of two disabled women (mom and grandma) and going to another college for a degree.
I can’t forget thinking massage therapy would be a great career. I was so good at it. I can’t forget 3 years getting an associates degree instead of settling for a 250 hour certificate. I can’t forget 3 years of every place I ever applied for a job to saying ‘yes, they had only one or two men on the team’ and never getting called back. I can’t forget the look in every interviewer or potential client’s eyes when they told me they thought Zaid was a girl’s name. I took a good internship; 3 client shifts and I never had an opening or cancellation over 3 months. It was the joy of my life to see men and women, middle aged and elderly, walk better, breathe more easily, or simply be in less pain over the months I got to work with them.
Then I was a graduate, off to long days of taking long bus rides to interviews and dropping off applications, and even longer evenings of riding back home feeling like a degenerate asking to be allowed to work and get paid by proper decent people. Actual people. Something I apparently wasn’t.
My old employer allowed me to go back to my old job at the grocery store. Packing groceries, sometimes produce. 3 hour days, 5 hour commutes. I lasted 2 weeks when i was transferred to another branch, still 3 hour days, now a 7 hour commute, and the manager muttering under her breath that I was deaf and stupid. Four months later I just never returned.
I’ve been begging for the end for years. One year ago shaving in the shower I got desperate and though it would work raw. it didn’t. So there I am naked in a shower breaking a plastic razor with my teeth so that I could pry the blade out and make it cut my wrists. it felt like five minutes. And by the end of it I couldn’t do it. It wasn’t fear, and it wasn’t mechanical clumsiness. I made sure of it. I carved a square around a 1.5 inch diameter mole on my chest and peeled it off using a nail clipper.
The blood didn’t stop me, I felt no pain, my dad had been dead for 10 years, my grandmother 3.
But my mother was still there in her room, and she needs me to get her meds every monday and groceries twice a week. Alone, depressed, broken, poor and pointless: suffering from every form of souldeath.
And still my sense of duty outweighed my animal instinct to let my misery end.
The death of the soul isn’t a numbness, it’s a poison. Necrotic, it eats away at every living part of us until only our core remains. For now I’m running on a sense of obligation and mysanthropic pride: the hubris that somehow all this I’m going through makes me better than the people who aren’t.
Mom might die soon, or not. Afterwards my suicide will likely be passive. Give myself the pleasure of a brawl with someone who’ll definitely use a weapon; see how far I can swim out in the Pacific before I get caught in an undercurrent, attract a shark, or simply get too tired; break a window and try to stab a cop with a shiv of broken glass, they shoot to kill in Mexico; or let myself get arrested, find out how long a man who embraces death can survive inside. I amuse myself with thoughts of murdering someone truly vile that still influences the free world.
I find it ironic that so many here have written sentiments so similar; for a group of the most ‘selfish men in the world’ we seem to be willing to go to great extremes to not be a burden to, or even have our deaths be a benefit to, our society. I suppose that’s logical in it’s own way- predators don’t think of alleviating their problems and those of their own, they think of ways to pass them on to anyone they can.
We’re not heartless bastards. We’re not kids. This isn’t all about us, we’re not trying to get attention, and we don’t want everyone to know about it. We’re just a generation of men who ‘aren’t needed’, and because of that aren’t paid. Some of us are in holes nobody could dig out of in twenty years of hard-working labor, some of us have a lifetime of memories haunting us, dreams and promise we never managed to live up to it doesn’t matter if we didn’t due to failure or nobility, and some of us are just medically sick. None of us wants pity, it adds insult to it all, but I do feel most for the ones who are sick. A surgery, a treatment or a pill and suddenly they’re gone from this. They’re free. And they won’t be because nobody will foot the bill for it.
Life is free. Living is what costs you.
I’m down to five thousand a year in personal living expenses. I don’t think I can cut it down more. I could delude myself into thinking things might turn better, but after 5 years of living this way, I’ve no reason to think I’ll go five more with a difference. It’s math. 2 people living with X supplies, 1 person would live twice as long. I could choose mom or me. Or I could live it out until the money ran out and then choose me, and live out the rest of my life in a similar prison.
I can, I could. But I chose not to. Like many of you here, I suspect I’m still a good man.
And we all know the cliche’s: the good die young, and nice guys finish last.
It’s our only last real choice: we can live on as monsters, or we can die like men.
-Z
We are made in God’s image. Be humble and admit our sins in Confession. Grace will then super-abound within us. Meaning in our lives will become apparent. God has a mission for you and for me. Ask and you will receive. Seek and you will find. God bless you. CHRIS
dont live in the past. everyone has made decisions that havnt worked, the trick is to learn from them and move on.
This country cares nothing for the average middle-aged male who lost their job, savings, and developed medical problems (in order). Deforming fingers without medical care from arthritis, heart problems, both the modern liberals and the neo-conservatives want the white middle-aged male gone imo.
Some days I think the only thing that keeps me on this planet is spite — namely, not giving my ex, the divorce system, and this twisted culture the satisfaction of me taking my own life.
I’m 59 – lost everything – suicide is the road to travel
Im living on disability and im not happy every min. of the day . You have to get out there and ask for help. there is a phone number you can call for different resorces 211 they will direct you to get the help you need.sharon
Oh and one other thing….those people who have hurt you or are hurting you? They are the ones with the shallow souls, I feel bad for them. You can change what is wrong with you, they can’t change. I do speak of these things from personal pain and being at the brink of wanting to end it all. I am ecstatic that I didn’t, actually because of it, I have come back stronger and even clearer about what is really important, who I really am and I know now I am here to be of assist to others, to look for ways to make others happy. With this comes great contentment and a sense of it all being as it should. You will see.
I’m 58 -unemployed for a year now -depressed- broke- all I think about is just ending it all. I do not see any other way out
Please consider that the depression is changing the way you think, it changes the chemicals in your brain to make you believe there is no other way. Seek help for your depression. Then address what you need to do to make a living. It can be done, but you must first chose to be treated.
I could list all the specific problems and negatives like other guys here have but there is no point.
And like the article said I’m not getting my youth back and I’m going to die one day anyway.
Even if my only reason for dying was just to avoid getting old to me it is still enough of a reason.
My life has no point. And endless string of ups and downs until you die.
But nobody tells you that as a kid. They lie to you and say that honesty, hard work, kindness, excellence, blah blah blah will let you achieve blah blah blah. And that treating people nice will get you blah blah blah. And there is the first time it falls apart. But still brainwashed by the delusion you keep trying and things keep crumbling. And yes I know others deal with these things. But a change in perception does not change reality.
I wish my attempt when I was younger would have succeeded. But I am smarter now. And am using multiple methods so that there is pretty much a sure chance at dying.
As far as getting help… I’ve talked to mental health professionals and it is the same bull about just accepting things. Screw that.
Rationally speaking there really is no point to life anyway. Except for the meaning people invent. We are not even part of the natural food chain anymore.
Just a little more time and I will be free of this mortal prison.
maybe being a man has its own dark sides, but here is a gainfully employed tall slim girl and I have set my date nonetheless. And no, I have no history of substance abuse. I am just completely alone, and have been so forever, and there is no way for me to imagine that now that I am 40 things would magically turn different. I have enjoyed the outside world and now I am looking forward to end this daily torture of nonbelonging.
Again-I say this from knowing first hand how I felt alone all my life-I still struggle with that-and being so low that suicide seemed like the only logical choice.
I do know how it feels, it is worth a shot, don’t you think?
Good Luck to all of you
The article at the top doesn’t contribute anything new, but these comments are so full of truth and honest, unlike the platitudinous crud which characterizes all the official discussions of suicide. The phrase “get help” or “accept help” or “seek help” occurs over and over and over again here, but THERE IS NO HELP TO GET. I am a middle aged man who has sought and received all kinds of “help” over the last 20 years – all the so-called antidepressant medications (read “The Emperor’s New Drugs” to get the truth on those), cognitive-behavioral “therapy” (sheesh, how long is it going to be before that crock gets exposed for what it is?), psychodynamic “therapy”, buddhist meditation, you name it… ALL USELESS. There is a conspiracy of silence. We are suicidal because it’s that bad.
Great post.
Very astute,
A good explanation on why so many us prefer to die.