Now, what do you suppose happened to people over 50 that would make them want to kill themselves? Let me think about that for a minute:
In the United States, the age-adjusted death rate from suicide grew by more than 11% between 2006 and 2011, even as the overall death rate from all causes fell almost 7%. (To put that another way, more Americans now die from suicide than from car accidents.)
The spike has been particularly concentrated among middle-aged Americans, with age-adjusted suicide rates rising by more than 30% over the past decade.
Given that suicide attempts generally increase in frequency as Americans get older, the aging Baby Boomers are especially at-risk, Rutgers sociologist Julie Phillips wrote in adraft paper she presented last year.
While suicide rates had declined in the early 2000s, Phillips noted that was appearing to reverse “as the large boomer cohort (particularly males) move into the older age ranges with traditionally higher suicide rates and with the development of increasing suicide rates among the middle-aged.”
“The boomers had great expectations for what their life might look like, but I think perhaps it hasn’t panned out that way,” Phillips subsequently told the New York Times. “All these conditions the boomers are facing, future cohorts are going to be facing many of these conditions as well.”
You can’t prevent suicide. It can’t be done. Suicide is unlike any other addiction. Intervention helps, but it’s a one day at a time proposition. Discussing this particular topic is the height of naval gazing. So if you’re suicidal go get help. Unless, of course, the alternative is a more attractive outcome for you.
Well, it sure would help if you weren’t laid off after 20 years at the same workplace because your entire facility relocated to some third world country, and you couldn’t find another similar job because all those had move out of country, and your unemployment benefits ran out because the House of Reps moved out of country, and you lost your house because you’re held to a standard that the bank doesn’t have to follow, lost your car, lost your wife and lost your kids, and the only job you could find was working at a McD’s for less than minimum wage and people you went to school with come in and give you “The Look” of pity at what a lazy slob you must’ve turned into. That might help the fucking suicide problem among 50-somethings.
Why does everything revolve around baby boomers?
Ron, do you suppose that that’s the way Hillary is feeling about the whole calling Obama a bum thing? Of course she now says that she didn’t mean it and wants to “hug it out” with him. She also says that she doesn’t understand why everybody is making such a big deal out of it. Well Hillary, aren’t you just about the most devious person on earth? It’s a big deal because it’s about war and peace. You Hillary, like John McCain, seek out foreign intervention. Generally of the military kind. You told us that in your book and in the Atlantic. Maybe you’re just out of sorts because you’re unemployed and your benefits have run out? Or maybe it’s because you live in the same house as Bill?
Jay – it isn’t. Boomers just happen to be the largest demographic.
Ron – as usual on the mark.
IM – as usual less than helpful. Naval gazing? Really? You’d make a great counselor, hon. Oh – and your predictable and unrelenting Hillary rants that have positively nothing to do with this post – are beyond laughable. They’re sad. You are a sad sad person.