Senior men have higher rates of suicide than average, and firearms were involved in more than three-quarters of those deaths in 2021, according to a CDC report
This is a really sad state of affairs for older guys.
Imagine a guy who gets to 55+ and takes a look at his life and realize he’s not where he wants to be and it feels like there’s no chance to restart. Maybe he just didn’t get into the housing market in time or start his 401k. Maybe some health issues or divorces blew out his savings.
These are the guys who were out of college right before the world was flipped upside down by technology, so I’m sure a lot of them never thought they had to catch up to keep their career running.
It would be really hard to not see it as a personal total failure, and to be frank their family and peers might see it that way too if they know. It probably feels like standing at the base of Everest when he should have the summit in sight.
His peers are either feeling depressed like him or they are jetting around on holidays most of the time.
Guys are taught most of their life to stuff the emotional things, so the future feels hopeless because he’s in a bubble and doesn’t understand how common this feeling is.
I hope we can find more ways to let guys like this, and all people, know that this feeling is temporary and there is a lot of hope waiting at the next turn.
Maybe he needs a bit of a boost from some antidepressants and someone to talk with who can help him let it all out. Or maybe he just needs a society that sees him as someone with something left to give, who still has jobs to be done, and that’s enough.
“There’s too much identity tied up in one’s work, so that is lost [after retirement]. And then there’s the cultural script of what maleness means in in our culture, so men just won’t admit or won’t receive care for depression because of that sense that it’s somehow not what a man does.”
What use is a cog that can’t cog anymore? Caring for elders is not built into our value system and not protected by our economic system.
Hell, it may be the only way to retire in a few more years.
What use is a cog that can’t cog anymore? Caring for elders is not built into our value system and not protected by our economic system.
Also, what good is “care for depression” when the causes of depression aren’t a “chemical imbalance” but having to live in a partriarchal capitalist society that only values men for what they can provide?
What if constantly calling a system that fails men “the patriarchy” was part of the problem?
What if calling a system that blames all men for a system that benefits a tiny elite was a large reason why so many men are totally dead disenfranchised with the concept? If there was even a one percent chance that was true - would you stop it doing it?
What would you suggest instead? The “kyriarchy”? The “military-industrial-congressional complex”? How about getting fisted by the invisible hand of the market?
It’s a plutocracy, pretty much the textbook definition of it.
Why would I have to choose a name that specifically targets one demographic?
When are the Internet revolutionaries going to realise that choosing solutions that deliberately create division will… Wait for it… Create division.
How are you going to solve problems when you’re literally motivating people to resist you?
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Medical Aid in Dying (MAiD) is only legal in 11 US states.
At best, it requires a diagnosis for a terminal illness with 6 months left to live.
Individuals with an Alzheimer’s or Dementia diagnosis are precluded from being able to make that choice, even if the diagnosis is recent and they still have most of their faculties.
We could be doing so much more to allow people to go out on their own terms and die a good death. It doesn’t have to be traumatic for family members, whoever discovers the body, or those who will inevitably clean up the aftermath.
So the choice given to a dying old man faced with watching his “retirement” and healthcare costs drain whatever meager remains of the estate he might leave behind is faced with this choice:
A) Spend six figures on the various hoops needed to legally kill yourself. B) Spend 40 cents on a really good 9mm cartridge.
Medically assisted suicide doesn’t work in places without public healthcare. You can NEVER be certain that the decision isn’t driven by financial concerns, and like ALL HEALTHCARE IN THE US, its really only available to at least marginally wealthy people in the first place.
For real. Once I retire in a decade or so, I’ll try to live off social security for as log as possible, but once I need to dip into my savings, I’m just tapping my kid’s inheritance. At that point, death is the only financially rational option.
We put dogs down every day because they have incurable diseases or are suffering.
I had to put my dog down a few years ago because she was so old she could no longer get up or control her bladder or bowels, and I felt guilty for letting it get that far. I still remember the look in her eyes when they gave her the pain killers to knock her out, she looked so relieved.
I don’t understand how I get to make that decision for a dog, but a grown human, in most places, can’t make that call for themselves and go out in a peaceful and controlled manner. If I knew I was going to die painfully in a few months or a year, I’d definitely take an overdose or nitrogen asphyxiation over the disease. When dogs have a better way out than people, something is seriously wrong.
I had someone close to me with a terminal illness use a gun to end his suffering. He had a bottle of Oxy on his nightstand and a gun inside his nightstand and the only reason I can think that he decided to go the gun route was so he was sure that it’d be done. It sucks that he didn’t have any other options available that could have provided a more caring and humane way to exit. Instead now his wife has to live with having found him like that in bed, and my daughter has to live with the fact that she never got to say ‘goodbye’.
I knew someone who made use of a death with dignity law and one of the doctors that he had to see to get the OK legally had to entourage him to take his own life. Something along the lines of “I have to tell you that, instead of a peaceful drug-assisted death, you have the option to forgo eating and drinking until you die.”
The sad part is, some people have done that because in their area there was no legal medical assistance. I read an article a few years ago about a person who decided to go out that way. I can’t imagine how horrible it must be to be clawed by hunger pains for days until death. I’ve experienced hunger for days while waiting on a paycheck, but until death? That’s a whole new level of horror.
So?
We value capital here, not human life.
As an American, shouldn’t our glorious free capitalist market celebrate these depleted capital batteries taking themselves out of the equation and lowering the tax burden on our beloved job creators requiring social supports once they can no longer make them money as fast food employees or store greeters?
What kind of Americans would put value on human life that can’t generate private shareholder capital? Smh, ya’ll need to find supply side Jesus.
Is this for or against free choice for medical suicide?
The level of sarcasm is too high too understand for me >.>
No no no, we must keep them alive on life support for as long as their bank balance remains. Them after that we shall keep going until their entire family line is in debt to us. Brilliant!
Well see, capitalism isn’t about productivity. It’s about maximizing capital. More consumers means more spending, and more money moving to people maximizing capital. So… Capitalism hates the death of consumers and loves procreation even more.
Evolution has never stopped. Humans are simply creating new selection pressures. Humans are cruel to each other so that some will kill themselves. This will remain the case until cooperation becomes a dominant survival strategy.
Damn dude. I think this too and it’s crazy to see someone else explain this.
Well, cooperation is a dominant survival strategy. But that does not mean it’s fair or that everyone will be an even slightly equally beneficial party.
Yes but evolution is natural, this rat race that pushes people to suicide it’s entirely fabricated.
Idk… sounds too much like social Darwinism
Good job in taking a serious issue and putting an unnecessary partisan spin on it, CNN. The issue of guns needs to be sidelined when talking about issues as serious as suicide.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/suicide-rate-by-country
If Republicans actually gave a shit about mental health maybe we wouldn’t have so many gun suicides.
So suicide is a republican problem hey.
Get a grip. Stop using every topic to gain political points, it’s disingenuous.
They’re the ones who keep saying “it’s not a gun problem it’s a mental health problem” and then doing fuck all to improve mental health, so yeah.
In this instance they are actually correct
If you understand suicide even a little bit you would know men do not fuck about when it comes to suicide. There is little in between, no cry’s for help they are rare. guns are a tool to achieve the outcome and the statistics will never change.
So this click bait title and stupid anti-gun garbage does not help and makes the issue harder to resolve. Men will ALWAYS be the higher suicide rate no matter what. Social support systems and mental health stigma for men needs to change.
Up next water is wet.
But they still won’t vote for comprehensive mental health coverage, and most of the men in the Republican party are poster boys for toxic masculinity.
So? You’re obsessing over a political farce unless you want to join the party?
I have a problem with blatant hypocrisy. Every gun nut in this thread saying “it’s not guns it’s mental health” and “men have a mental health crisis” and then go vote for assholes who do nothing to help either of them, and then say it’s the Democrats who are the problem.
Your oversimplification was unnecessary the first time, stop copypasting your comments.
Said the asshole adding nothing to the topic to wedge anti-guns
Yeah but then they’d have even more mental gymnastics to do with bootstraps and all that
Ban guns that will fix the mental health problem…
Sarcasm for those unable to spot click bait. Might as well have titled the story “Death the leading cause of suicide among elderly men”…
Why does the US mentality always revolve around a single cause?
It’s clear that the availability of an instantaneous way to end your life on a whim with zero effort and zero percieved pain is going to facilitate a lot of suicides. No, banning it wont stop suicide, but it would absolutely reduce them. To suggest otherwise is simply statistically disingenuous, regardless of how much you have the right to bear them or not.
But if guns are part of the US identity and culture then so be it, but that means spending on mental health outcomes and prevention need to dramatically increase.
It’s a cost either way, whichever side of the gun debate you are on
If you understand suicide even a little bit you would know men do not fuck about when it comes to suicide. There is little in between, no cry’s for help they are rare. guns are a tool to achieve the outcome and the statistics will never change.
So this click bait title is just stupid anti-gun garbage. Men will ALWAYS be the higher suicide rate no matter what.
Up next water is wet.
If you understood even a little bit about suicide you would understand that sucidial ideation proceeds action, and ideation involves stimulus from the immediate locale.
ideation involves stimulus from the immediate locale
locale
What a load of garbage.
If you understood suicide even a little bit you would know that DEPRESSION proceeds action! Wow. The only way to stop suicide is to address the underlying cause: Depression. Depression requires support from, employers, colleagues, family, friends, and most importantly, mental health support services. Its literally that simple. Depression kills all and plenty of studies have found the cause for men is the fact they act on it more. This is not a unique American problem. Why do men act on it? Because its a part of the social and gender values, ingrained into generations.
Toxic masculinity is what you’re describing. It’s very prevalent in the US. Guns are part of that toxic male culture.
we should ban rope as well just to be safe
did the americans find out about lemmy? wtf is this comment section??
Guns just add dangerous violence to everything.
In a shooting event, the “good guy” trying to stop a bad guy with a gun can still accidentally hit innocent bystanders with bullets. By adding more bullets flying, they’ve effectively made the situation more dangerous, and now when incompetent cops show up, they’ll think anyone with a gun is the shooter.
In a suicide, you’re not only risking it not working because you didn’t explode enough of your own head, you’re also putting other people in danger, depending on the caliber of bullet and gun used. You could easily have the bullet exit the back of your head and enter your neighbors apartment and harm someone on the other side.
Guns make everything worse.
If you need defense in a shooting/violent attack, carry a high-powered flashlight that you can temporarily blind an attacker with, allowing you and others to escape in confusion and/or get close enough to disarm the assailant.
If you want to off yourself, buy a fucking Exit Bag and get some god damned helium.
Art imitates life. I equate it to using a weapon as literary device. If you’re reading a book and the author mentions a gun on the table, that gun will be used.
Think of how many minor traffic accidents or drunk arguments at birthday parties result in deadly consequences because just like our author, if someone has a gun, they may use it.
Guns have nothing to do with this and you fell victim to partisan click-bait. You got perfectly distracted from the real issue of suicide, it seems.
You are making some bold assumptions that a person that is in that headspace actually gives a fuck about anything else or anyone else.
None think about having to clean up all their blood and brain matter left over. Suicide is so selfish.
Ironically your comment is incredibly selfish (you need to walk in their shoes) and based on nothing but your imagination. Some may take precautions to minimize cleanup.
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thank you. its nice to hear or in this case read someone put it out so sanely and clearly. I do not get why other people feel they should tell someone else that they have to continue to exist because they know better than them.
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