Jake DiMare takes a look at the male dominated epidemic of suicide through the lens of AMC’s Mad Men.
I felt nearly breathless after last night’s hauntingly beautiful episode of Mad Men. Perhaps you may feel this is a strange choice of words to describe an episode including a morbid scene where Don, Roger, and Pete wind up cutting their partner Lane’s dusky, rigid corpse down from the ceiling in his office, where it had dangled for the weekend after he had hanged himself.
The truth is I believe lots of things can be done with beauty. One may sing beautifully, field a grounder beautifully, or write beautifully. One may also produce television shows beautifully, addressing terrible topics such as divorce, addiction, and suicide. Nobody does this better than the team of writers on Mad Men.
Like many subjects confronted in AMC’s premier series, suicide is quite an important topic for men to consider. According to the National Institutes of Mental Health, suicide is the seventh leading cause of death among men in the United States. Men are four times more likely to commit suicide then women. As demonstrated in the death of Lane Pryce, financial security and career issues are stress factors known to play a significant role, but mental illness, including addiction and/or depression, are also present in the overwhelming majority (90%) of cases.
I think what struck me most about the story leading up to Lane’s death is how easily his situation might have been avoided if he had only been able to ask for help. The narrative, which unfolded over many episodes, featured Lane’s compounding money problems. Out of pride and resentment, he tried to resolve his issues by embezzling from the agency, instead of asking his partners (and friends…and wife) for help. Eventually he got caught and the resulting guilt, shame and sense of hopelessness he experienced lead him to decide suicide was his best option.
Ironically, Lane was one of the more lovable and seemingly stable characters on the show. A smart, sensitive, hard-working professional, and devoted husband and father…He cut a stark contrast against the hard-drinking, insensitive, mischief of some of his fellow partners. It’s not hard to imagine, had he brought his problems to any of the people he cared about…Had he asked almost anyone for help, they would have been enthusiastic to come to his aid.
My own experiences with suicide include a close male relative, and a long-time, family friend (also male) hanging themselves to death (separately), and a personal friend, who has made multiple, legitimate attempts to kill himself. Regardless of what other factors may be at work, it seems to me the victim’s perception of being hopeless is the real killer.
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Though difficult to admit publicly, my experiences also include a brush with feelings of hopelessness and suicidal ideation, during a set of concurrently occurring personal and family crises I weathered in my early 30′s. At the time, the thought of asking for help simply never crossed my mind. It’s not like I resisted the notion…It just didn’t occur to me. Thankfully, in my case fate intervened before I was ever given the opportunity to do something rash. Few people in my situation are so lucky.
One of the biggest obstacles to healthy coping skills is pride, which may have something to do with why men are so much more likely to kill themselves then women are. Pride was certainly a factor in my own case and I had to completely dismantle my ego before I was able to begin healing.
But where does this pride come from? Are men born this way? Personally, I do not think so. Society, parents and culture teach men it is not OK to have feelings. It’s not OK to ask for help. It’s important to be proud. I definitely think this education starts young. I often wonder if parents understand and consider the potential damage they are doing to their little boys (and girls) when they teach them to stuff their negative feelings in otherwise benign scenes such as a grocery store temper-tantrum.
I honestly don’t ever consider suicide as an option anymore. While it’s true my life is infinitely less stressful today then it was back then, I have fought through years of therapy and training to learn coping mechanisms for dealing with problems, big and small. Although I have dealt with some truly horrific circumstances, the truth is before I knew how to ask for help, I was barely equipped to deal with the anxiety of a broken shoe lace.
I am feeling gratitude to the writers of Mad Men for illustrating the point that Lane’s troubles might have been avoided. If the thought of suicide has crossed your mind as a potential solution to your problems, ask for help. Particularly men…Don’t let pride stand in your way. Whether you realize it or not, there are people who want to help you. All you have to do is ask.
Call 1-800-273-TALK or visit http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
For more on men and depression, read Jed Diamond’s The Masculine Mystique and Male Depression.
About Jake DiMare
I kind of have an issue with this to be honest. Many people say that suicide isn’t a solution to problems, but it is. Suicide IS a solution to ALL of life’s problems. I’m not saying it is always the correct solution, but it is a solution. So many people talk about how suicide is never a rational choice, but it can be and often is. Most people are against suicide for selfish reasons; they don’t want to suffer and be hurt. Unfortunately, this will typically lead to more suffering and pain for the person who wants to take their own life. No one seems to think about that fact.
How much should someone else suffer for your own comfort? Someone who is already suffering greatly. I don’t think it is fair. There is also the fact that people don’t really care about helpful people who feel suicidal and depressed feel better; they just don’t want to be inconvenienced and feel bad themselves.
I have, for as long as I can remember (at least since the age of ten) thought about taking my own life every single day. Sometimes it is just idle thoughts of how I would do it, what I would need to do in advance so as to create as little problem for others as possible, and how I would spend my last day, and other times it is serious consideration. I did end up making a legitimate attempt that landed me in the hospital for 2 weeks when I was 19. My biggest regret there as not being successful as the hospital is not a place to get well; it is a prison designed to make you feel worse. That was an impulsive attempt and not one that was planned or well thought out.
Currently, however, I actually have plans and certain benchmarks in place where I can justifiably say, “I have done all I can, and I have reached the conclusion that the right answer is suicide.” It isn’t imminent, but if it does happen, I will do it with total certainty that it is the correct choice based on the facts of the situation. I must fail to meet all the targets on my list in order for it to be viable. One example is asking out 100 women and not having a single one say yes to a date. I’m not even counting the 70-odd I’ve already asked and the hundreds and hundreds of messages I’ve sent out on dating websites.
We as a society seem to think it is perfectly acceptable to make other people suffer so we don’t have to feel guilty or burdened or saddened. That is the definition of cruel and inhumane.
When I was getting “rejected” by women I blamed myself, as I was used to blaming myself for everything. Now I realize that I was terrified of women, and that I was deliberately sabotaging the interaction, because I was scared.
In my opinion the problem with your stance on suicide, is that you don’t believe that you can get better. Someone with incurable disease can legitimately decide that killing themselves now is better. You can get better, overcome your issues, and be a healthy normal person. Just because your childhood was awful, does not mean you can’t heal as an adult.
1:1 therapy, and peer support groups are things that I have found very helpful.
but… that isn’t my stance.
I would not disagree with suicide as a solution, however I have a few provisos. If you are thinking about suicide I think its fine given that you have done a lot of experimentation and tried a lot of different things to solve your problems. My general finding is that most depressed people conclude suicide as an option but try a very small subset of the possible methods to solve their problems. For instance, you should try something like quiting your job, moving to Korea, teaching English and trying to pickup girls. Guys I know have gotten laid fairly easily in Korea.
I do think though you have brought up something extremely important. Many men attempt suicide because they are having problems with women and for most of these men they will never admit it. Its a big hidden reason and if guys can’t even talk about it because they are too embarrassed there is little possibility of a solution.
I actually wanted to teach English in Japan, but I don’t have a college degree, so I can’t. I looked into it a couple years ago actually.
And this is a follow-up to my post that is awaiting moderation. If you’re someone who has thought about or discussed thinking about taking your own life, the only reasons ever offered about why you shouldn’t are because it will make other people feel bad, they’ll miss you, etc and that things will get better you just need to give it time. The first is completely irrelevant and the second is in no way a sure thing. You can’t know it will get better? It could and very likely will get worse.
the only reasons ever offered about why you shouldn’t are because it will make other people feel bad, they’ll miss you, etc …
Oh this bugs me to no end. The idea that suicide is a “selfish act” and if you do it the problem is that you decided to take your life without considering how that would make others feel.
Speaking from one who has had suicidal thoughts this is not a good angle of approach. You run the risk of two possiblities.:
1. If the suicidal person in question is already feeling down and see themselves a drain on their friends the last thing they need to be told is “what about your friends?” when they are considering suicide.
2. The suicidal person in question probably feels that they have no control over their life to start with. Telling them that ending their life, something that may be the last bit of control they feel they have, would hurt others could come off sounding like an attempt at taking away that last bit of control.
Jake has written a beautiful and compelling article and I do think the failure to ask for help is central to much of suicide. . I have never contemplated suicide, but I can identify with every feeling and value he articulated since I have experienced them all. It’s just they never led to thoughts of taking my own life although I know people much stronger than me who have attempted or contemplated it.. I can’t say specifically why I have never thought about committing suicide. It has little or nothing to do with the admonition against suicide by the Church or legal sanctions. (Do you know in some states it’s illegal to commit suicide??) It’s just that I’ve always been able to cling to the feeling that things will get better if I hang on and go forward. I’ve never dropped from the black hole into the abyss that more than a few friends have described, but I do experience depression and know this is a dangerous condition to be avoided at all cost.
So what could make me contemplate suicide? I’m 75 and have seen several relatives and friends spend their final years in a nursing home on feeding tubes, beds that move constantly to prevent bed sores, day after day of the same dull routine, and nothing, absolutely nothing to look forward to that is remotely positive. That is the one condition that would readily make me pull the plug on myself. My fantasy is to pinpoint the final day I’m mobile, rig a battered J-22, head it into a strong 70 knot gale and go down singing that great County Mayo ballad, “the West Awake.”
Thank you both, Jake & Collin, for what y’all have written about suicide.
To be brief, there was a time I seriously considered suicide. All the factors that Collin mentions (“it will make other people feel bad, they’ll miss you, etc and that things will get better you just need to give it time”) weren’t enough to dissuade me.
Do you know what was?
I didn’t want those fuckers that hurt me to WIN!!!
It was that simple. I was too stubborn, too contrary, to commit suicide.
Fortunately, I lucked out. I’ve worked hard on achieving some peace in my life. So now, I have had my revenge. Because I’m a happy man. My life is better than I would’ve ever thought possible back then. For those who who abused me, they may kiss my ass.
Speaking of my ass, I’d better go sit down and get to meditating. I need a tune-up on my compassion (even-for- those-hurt-me) thing.
Y’all be well.
I have been hospitalized twice within the past 14 months for suicidal ideation, along with depression, anxiety and PTSD from having been sexually abused as a boy. There are some things which are too big, too large, too complicated and too difficult to ask others for help. In an ideal world, whenever someone cried out for help, there would be loved ones there to come alongside of them…but I have a hard time believing that we live in such a world. As such, I will tout resources like the Suicide Prevention Hotline because sometimes it’s easier to get help from strangers than it is from those closest to us.
I have actually attempted suicide so this discussion is interesting to me. I think we have differentiate between people who have a mental illness e.g. Bipolar Disorder (like myself) and became biologically suicidal and other folks who are circumstantially suicidal. There is a difference.
I write about my perspective often (http://goodmenproject.com/forshawnel/two-face-bipolar-is-the-villain-during-my-dark-nights/) because I think suicidal experiences are very personal and difficult to generalize.
Men do need to be more communicative about their emotions. In vulnerability there is strength.
Men do need to be more communicative about their emotions. In vulnerability there is strength.
But that strength comes after a delay and as you know “real men” are supposed to be powerful from the get got and be power all the time, without fail or falter.
Thank you, Jake. I’m not a man, but I’ve been suicidal and have experienced suicide first hand in my family. This is a wonderful discussion…the more sensitive and upsetting the mental health issue is, the more it needs to be examined and understood, I say. xo
I first started thinking about suicide at age 7. It has never passed. I’ve heard all the crap people say about why not to. All bullshit. Asking for help brings none, for me. I can’t find any success in any area of my life and can’t shake this deep depression. Medication is a sick joke; an empty promise. After cutting myself to shreds this last July, spending a week in a useless psychiatric hospital (Laureat, a division of St. Francis Health System) and being prescribed Zyprexa, which would have given me diabetes and serious lung problems considering my hypoglycemia and asthma (G**Da**ed Dr.s!) and absolutely NO support from family, I decided to wait to see if the world will end in December of this year. I sincerely hope it does b/c I have had absolutely no help from ANY gov’t financed agency, and I’ve tried them ALL. There seems to be not even a single real psychiatrist working outside of private practice. If you don’t have money than just shoot yourself. I really don’t care about answers anymore; there are none for me. If I don’t die from global disaster than I will take myself out of this shit-hole of a country by my own hand. Being a man in the U.S. SSUUCCKKS! I hate what the media machine has turned us into. I won’t even bother to call the suicide prevention hotline listed at the end of the article b/c I’ve already heard it all and it is not helpful. If I can’t do anything meaningful in your life than what is the point of living? Everything else is just the avoidance of pain and THAT is NOT living. I guess it’s like they say: “Good-bye cruel world”.
At the time, the thought of asking for help simply never crossed my mind. It’s not like I resisted the notion…It just didn’t occur to me.
And that’s it right there. It’s not that men “fail to ask for help” it’s the script of being a man strictly states that asking for help is not an option.