Why are so many middle-aged men committing suicide?

[fallen-archie]

I recently attended a meeting at the local University, During this the topic turned to the growing problem of Male suicide. I was shocked to learn that the ratio of male to female suicide had reached 4:1 and that there was an alarming increase in men aged between 44 and 59. Those figures were from 2013 since then the upward trend has continued. Seemingly the bulk of cases have at some time suffered from depressive illness and or accute anxiety. What do you think is causing this change? when we are supposedly better off than ever living longer and having free health care what drives peolpe to despair so much that their only means of dealing with it is to take their own life.

[upthecreekyetagain]

At what age do you suggest society withdraws help to the person that is suicidal and allow them to kill themselves - is 11 old enough to allow them to make their own decision - what about 14 or 16 or 18?

[malacandran]

---

@upthecreekyetagain wrote:

At what age do you suggest society withdraws help to the person that is suicidal and allow them to kill themselves - is 11 old enough to allow them to make their own decision - what about 14 or 16 or 18?

---

I wouldn't set any age requirement.  Let them make their own decision.  Actually, if they do it when they're young,  the parents can soon produce a replacement.  So no great loss.

After all, the world is not short of human beings. Over 7 billion of us.   We can well afford to lose many suicidal individuals, if that's what they want to do.

[fallen-archie]

While Mal considers his response I wonder what people think about the following article published recently about a young woman in Belgium. 

A 24-year-old healthy girl has won the right to end her life by assisted suicide because she claims to have had suicidal thoughts since childhood.

The woman, known only as Laura, does not have any life-threatening illnesses but has still been told by authorities that she can voluntarily die.

She is apparently the result of an unplanned pregnancy and had a troubled early upbringing and told doctors: “Life, that’s not for me.”

Laura later moved in with her grandparents in her native Belgium who provided her with “security, peace and structure” but despite that she just does not want to live any longer.

She has been in a psychiatric institution since she was 21 and told local paper De Morgen: “Even though my childhood certainly contributed to my suffering, I am convinced that I had had this death wish even though I grew up with a quiet, stable family.”

“Death feels to me not as a choice. If I had a choice, I would choose a bearable life, but I have done everything and that was unsuccessful.

“I played all my life with these thoughts of suicide, I have also done a few attempts.

“But then there is someone who needs me, and I don’t want to hurt anyone. That has always stopped me.”

The only thing that Laura has enjoyed doing she said, is planning her own funeral but does admits that her death will be difficult for her grandparents and her mother.

She also revealed that she made friends with another suicidal girl who died 18 months ago.

Assisted suicide has been legal in Belgium since 2003 and it is estimated that five people a day die that way.

[malacandran]

---

@fallen-archie wrote:

While Mal considers his response I wonder what people think about the following article published recently about a young woman in Belgium. 

A 24-year-old healthy girl has won the right to end her life by assisted suicide because she claims to have had suicidal thoughts since childhood.

The woman, known only as Laura, does not have any life-threatening illnesses but has still been told by authorities that she can voluntarily die.

She is apparently the result of an unplanned pregnancy and had a troubled early upbringing and told doctors: “Life, that’s not for me.”

Laura later moved in with her grandparents in her native Belgium who provided her with “security, peace and structure” but despite that she just does not want to live any longer.

She has been in a psychiatric institution since she was 21 and told local paper De Morgen: “Even though my childhood certainly contributed to my suffering, I am convinced that I had had this death wish even though I grew up with a quiet, stable family.”

“Death feels to me not as a choice. If I had a choice, I would choose a bearable life, but I have done everything and that was unsuccessful.

“I played all my life with these thoughts of suicide, I have also done a few attempts.

“But then there is someone who needs me, and I don’t want to hurt anyone. That has always stopped me.”

The only thing that Laura has enjoyed doing she said, is planning her own funeral but does admits that her death will be difficult for her grandparents and her mother.

She also revealed that she made friends with another suicidal girl who died 18 months ago.

Assisted suicide has been legal in Belgium since 2003 and it is estimated that five people a day die that way.

---

See,  Dr Fred Shipman was slightly before his time.

If only he'd been able to get employment in a modern Belgian clinic. There, he could have injected and killed "5 a day" - legally!

The doc must be spinning in his grave, lamenting the time-denied job-opportunity!

[upthecreekyetagain]

---

@malacandran wrote:

---

@upthecreekyetagain wrote:

At what age do you suggest society withdraws help to the person that is suicidal and allow them to kill themselves - is 11 old enough to allow them to make their own decision - what about 14 or 16 or 18?

---

I wouldn't set any age requirement.  Let them make their own decision.  Actually, if they do it when they're young,  the parents can soon produce a replacement.  So no great loss.

After all, the world is not short of human beings. Over 7 billion of us.   We can well afford to lose many suicidal individuals, if that's what they want to do.

---

Even more effective if they strap explosives around their waist and commit suicide by blowing themselves up on a crowded train 😞

[malacandran]

I respectfully refer you to post #20 above, which deals with the pertinent point you raise.

[upthecreekyetagain]

---

@malacandran wrote:

I respectfully refer you to post #20 above, which deals with the pertinent point you raise.

---

Might be an unfair and selfish act but addresses your point about there being too many people on the planet 🙂

[malacandran]

Sorry, your post doesn't make sense

[upthecreekyetagain]

Makes as much sense as suggesting that children, (the youngest to commit suicide in the UK was 8), should not be helped with their problems if they want to commit suicide because there are too many people on the planet.

Well if there are too many people and the planet can afford to, nay needs to, lose some of those what difference does it make if the ones who are chosen do so voluntarily or not?  After all as far as I'm concerned I don't believe an 8 year old child is old enough to really understand what they are doing by committing suicide - they just want to escape the misery of the moment.

[malacandran]

If someone chooses to end their own life, why shouldn't they be free to do so?  Whatever age they are.

You mention an 8-year old child not understanding what they're doing. Well, what business is that to anyone else.

Let them do what they want.  Or if they are so miserable, perhaps they could come to England, stowed in the back of a lorry.

But that wouldn't necessarily provide a long-term solution.  What if they got radicalised,  strapped bombs round their waist, and  proceeded to blow up some other 8-year children.  

I think that if a person has a suicidal intent, it shows they have inefficient or defective genes.  Therefore any such a person should be helped to commit suicide.  That's what they want, and we should oblige them.

Otherwise, if they're frustrated, they will only cause trouble to everyone else

[upthecreekyetagain]

The 8 year old I referred to did live in England - was being bullied.

Are those who bullied him any less culpable than an 8 year old who committed suicide by blowing themselves up in the middle of the bullies?.

It is far too simplistic to say, "If someone chooses to end their own life, why shouldn't they be free to do so?  Whatever age they are."

[malacandran]

Everyone gets bullied at school.  I was, probably you were.

It's what happens.  Most of us get through it.  We don't commit suicide.  We survive, because we have good strong genes.

Committing suicide is, like I said, a clear sign of weak genes.

And such genes should be eliminated from the population.  By allowing the bearer of the weak genes to eliminate his/her own self. 

You accuse me of being "simplistic".  I don't deny the charge.  Life is simplistic.  And hard.  Unfortunately some people don't realise that, and try to hide truth under a comforting blanket of sophistry.

[fallen-archie]

Not so! Many who take their own lives do so through mental illness which can be caused by a simple chemical imbalance. Many of our most gifted people have that problem, it has naff all to do with genes.

[0125arwen]

Maybe many see no future, no hope,

whole towns with less jobs than some single factories used to have.

Overcrowding in just about every way possible yet communities are further apart than ever.

Add in that this has to be the most self obsessed selfish generation ever then you have a recipe for disaster.

Alone in a crowd, those words have never been more apt.

[malacandran]

---

@0125arwen wrote:

Maybe many see no future, no hope,

whole towns with less jobs than some single factories used to have.

Overcrowding in just about every way possible yet communities are further apart than ever.

Add in that this has to be the most self obsessed selfish generation ever then you have a recipe for disaster.

Alone in a crowd, those words have never been more apt.

---

Personally, I think this is a good thing - that in modern Britain, fewer people  have to work.

I mean who really wants to work.  Surely "Work" is almost by definition, something that we don't really want to do.

So, if nowadays more of us can live without having to work,  isn't that a sign of human progress?

[upthecreekyetagain]

---

@malacandran wrote:

---

@0125arwen wrote:

Maybe many see no future, no hope,

whole towns with less jobs than some single factories used to have.

Overcrowding in just about every way possible yet communities are further apart than ever.

Add in that this has to be the most self obsessed selfish generation ever then you have a recipe for disaster.

Alone in a crowd, those words have never been more apt.

---

Personally, I think this is a good thing - that in modern Britain, fewer people  have to work.

I mean who really wants to work.  Surely "Work" is almost by definition, something that we don't really want to do.

So, if nowadays more of us can live without having to work,  isn't that a sign of human progress?

---

In theory what you say is perfectly true - in practice not so.

If a factory, (owned by an individual), employs 100 people to make those widgets then the money raised when they are sold is split between 101 people, 100 by way of wages and 1 by way of profit.

That same factory when fully automated may employ just 10 people and the income from the widgets is split between just 11 and the profit proportion for the owner will be higher.. 

It wouldn't be 'fair' to tax that income in such a way that the 10 who are working only receive the same net income as the 90 who aren't - the only answer is to give those who aren't working less than they would receive were they working.

[**caution**opinion_ahead]

---

@fallen-archie wrote:
Not so! Many who take their own lives do so through mental illness which can be caused by a simple chemical imbalance. Many of our most gifted people have that problem, it has naff all to do with genes.

---

Except ... your genes can influence your brain's chemicals.  Otherwise there would be no reason for depression to be hereditary, which it can be.

I think the general assumption by society that someone who commits suicide did so because the balance of their mind was "disturbed" needs updating, as it is not necessarily the case.  Not wishing to carry on living may be a logical, even sensible, choice, surely?  There are no prizes for enduring to a miserable natural end.  

[fallen-archie]

I believe you are Correct, however as you say Genes may play a part with some but by no means everyone. What I do know is that the use of drugs like fluoxetine, Seroxat and others can help to correct the inbalance in some, others require more radical solutions including Lithium and other quite nasty alternatives. The most exciting development which can have fantastic results on even the most depressed individuals is the practice of mindfulness, recently approved by NICE as an alternative to drugs those who have a real desire to escape the misery get a chance to do so by retraining the way they think and the way they react to situations. If you show progress under cognitive behavioural therapy then Mindfulness could really help.

I agree that ultimately if you cannot overcome severe depression suicide may well be the only way to find solace. 

[**caution**opinion_ahead]

I'm all for cogntive interventions, provided they are not held up as the only treatment to have benefit and those taking medications are not made to feel they have "failed" in some respect.