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.
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.
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… Read more »
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 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 (https://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.
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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.