Suicide Rates Rise Sharply in U.S. | Hacker News Reader

Suicide Rates Rise Sharply in U.S.

nytimes.com

40 pointsuladzislau55 comments

“The boomers had great expectations for what their life might look like, but I think perhaps it hasn’t panned out that way,”

Very true for GenX as well, in my experience. Speaking from my own experience as a member of that group, I think we all thought we would have more of a positive impact on the world, than what we have had to date. For all the talk about how we were just disaffected, lazy whiners back when most of us were teenagers, this generation always had a lot of optimism and a lot of drive to effect social change, from what I saw.

Now, we are creeping up on middle age (I'll turn 40 this year myself) and the world doesn't really look any better in a lot of ways, and looks worse in some. :-(

On a personal level, I don't really expect to commit suicide, but I'll freely admit that there is a "background thread" that fires and mulls the possibility from time to time. I haven't really accomplished shit compared to my expectations for myself on an individual level, and as age catches up with me, the idea seems more reasonable. I have a vague notion that if this current startup doesn't succeed, I may pull a "Leaving Las Vegas" deal and checkout that way.

I prefer to take an optimistic view though... The startup is going to succeed, make us all very wealthy, and I'll live out my final years on a yacht in the Carribean, being tended to by a bevy of beautiful young redheads who like rich old guys. :-)

I highly, highly recommend you take a couple of years off, and go and see what the rest of the world has to offer.

You'll be shocked how many hundreds of millions of people out there have way less money and stuff than you, but are massively happier with their lives.

(I personally took two years to drive from Alaska to Argentina, I'll never be the same person again. http://theroadchoseme.com)

But the key to being happy with way less money and stuff is to be secure in the money and stuff you do have, which Americans overwhelmingly are not. You can have a whole lot of stuff, but get laid off... miss a payment... and it all comes crashing down.

You can have a whole lot of stuff, but get laid off... miss a payment... and it all comes crashing down

That's a good point. If you have house payment, car payment, huge credit card bills, etc., then you are kinda living on the razor's edge.

Luckily for me, while I've made plenty of bad decisions in my life, at least I have never done the deep indebtedness thing. I still don't own a house, and both of my vehicles are paid for and my total credit card debt right this minute is < $1,000USD If I got laid off, my biggest concern would be scraping up enough money for a place to stay, and I'd probably have to get rid of some "stuff" and move to a smaller apartment or something.

It depends a lot on how you budget. If your mortgage payment is 45% of your income, you are in a very tight spot. On the other hand, if it is 15% of your income, you have a lot more flexibility. You can easily save extra month's worth of payments, and/or take a large paycut, and still be fine.

But the key to being happy with way less money and stuff is to be secure in the money and stuff you do have, which Americans overwhelmingly are not.

Actually, Daniel Gilbert's book Stumbling on Happiness and Jonathan Haidt's book The Happiness Hypothesis both point to the idea that social connections and finding meaning one's relationships are the key to being happy—much more so than material possessions.

That being said, it does appear that many if not most Americans spend too much on things they think will make them happy but don't—see Spend by Geoffrey Miller for more on this idea. It's as if we're hanging ourselves through our own failures to understand ourselves.

That sounds very appealing, actually. But I don't feel like I can justify the time off. Bit of a catch-22 on my part. There's a part of me that would like to shuck it all off, quit technology, move to Hawaii and set up a stand renting surfboards on the beach and live in a cave. But the other part of me is still chasing dreams and still feels like he has something to prove, to himself and the world, and isn't even slightly interested in taking time off. That's time that could be spent writing code, or prospecting for leads, dangit! :-)

But who knows.. maybe if the startup thing doesn't work out, I will totally do the "turn hippie and just travel and relax" thing.

Yeah, the feeling of "something to prove" without a good idea of what much less how is really annoying.

In addition, let me offer some recommended reading: Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert. It rearranged my thinking about a lot of things. I've written a lot about it on blog, but this: https://jseliger.wordpress.com/2012/02/11/on-what-makes-peop... is probably the most useful summary.

> and the world doesn't really look any better in a lot of ways, and looks worse in some. :-(

I think that's an unnecessarily pessimistic view of the world, and I think it's fairly common in idealists. I am myself guilty of indulging in pessimism with fellow idealists. We have big plans and great visions, and almost by definition, they don't come true, and to the extend they do, progress is glacial.

You can always find a metric by which the world is going straight to hell, but if you put on your pragmatic glasses, you can also find some metrics that show great improvements. I've found it useful to seek out those as well.

That's a very good point.

"The most pronounced increases were seen among men in their 50s, a group in which suicide rates jumped by nearly 50 percent, to about 30 per 100,000."

As an American man in his fifties, I find this a startling statistic. This suggests that there may be a cohort effect that makes the Baby Boom generation more vulnerable to middle-age suicide than preceding generations of Americans.

Older people tend to have more medication around the home. Access to means and methods is a risk factor for suicide, thus having meds == increased risk for attempted and completed suicide.

I really want to avoid gun control debate, but having access to guns is a significant risk factor for completed suicide.

Also, in women, lesbians tend to complete suicide in their 40s and 50s rather than their teens. At least, that's the case in the UK.

Here's the UK University of Oxford Centre for Suicide research (http://cebmh.warne.ox.ac.uk/csr/) which has lots of information about suicide and deliberate self harm.

CDC numbers, men are 56% likely to use a gun, women are more likely to use poison, 37%. Some differences in links provided by same source so it gets a bit confusing.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/suicide.htm

http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/Suicide_DataSheet-...

I really want to avoid gun control debate, but having access to guns is a significant risk factor for completed suicide.

It's an interesting question whether or not this should even be part of the gun control debate. IF, if, you accept the idea of a "right to die" (I do, FWIW), then people who voluntarily choose to end their lives using a firearm should not be counted as "gun deaths" in anything like the same way as homicides, or even accidental deaths.

Now granted, that's a controversial topic in it's own right, but it's something to consider. If somebody choose to die, does it really matter how they do it?

Of course, it also raises the issue of whether or not people who (try to) commit suicide really want to die or not, or are just "looking for help" or whatever the phrase is. I don't really have a stand on that.

> Of course, it also raises the issue of whether or not people who (try to) commit suicide really want to die or not, or are just "looking for help" or whatever the phrase is. I don't really have a stand on that.

I certainly see the general distinction you're making, but I'd say putting a gun to your head and pulling the trigger is removing any ambiguity from your intentions. I'd say the "cry for help" methods would be things like overdosing on pills, cutting wrists, etc.

I guess what I mean is, sometimes the person doing it may not really be sure (in theory, I don't know for sure) and the ones overdosing on pills or whatever may full well expect that it will kill them. And, as weird as it may sound, people do survive gunshot wounds to the head, especially from smaller calibre / weaker rounds, like, say, a .22LR. I believe it's not unheard of for a .22LR round to literally bounce off the skull and cause fairly little serious damage.

And, of course it also complicates things that we can't talk to the people who succeed, and find out anything about their actual intentions. :-(

The argument for a persons "right to die" may hold up to some degree. However, I believe the spirit of that sort of protection applies to those who are terminally ill. The idea being able to preserve a persons dignity and shorten the time spent in excruciating pain.

Treatable mental illness: depression, anxiety, etc. do not fall into this category. They are not terminal.

Proximity to an instrument of death when a person is contemplating suicide (due to treatable mental illness) is a very real issue. If there is no barrier in place, the rate of change from thought to action is astonishing.

It's also important to note intoxication plays a role in this same sort of escalation.

In these cases you're looking for anything which increases access (proximity) or reduces inhibition (chemicals). Eliminating these gives professionals and loved ones time to help.

I'm not sure if people who suffer from treatable depression, and commit suicide, should be included in the euthanasia bracket.

Yeah, I don't know either. Just throwing the idea out there for discussion. Depression is a weird thing...

I'm also not sure, but there is a lot of well poisoning about that.

Usually, if someone physically healthy decides that (s)he doesn't want to live any more, we automatically declare that person mentally ill (even if no chemical imbalance seems to be present). It's implicitly stated that ending one's life is a decision that can't be taken rationally (unless a terminal physical illness is present). I find that quite disturbing.

Depressed that you may or may not "have a stand" on someone else's thoughts.

I'm not sure what you mean. What I was getting at, is that there's a popular meme you often hear repeated, which I don't know if I accept or not, which claims something like "everybody who (tries to) commit suicide is really just crying for help".

I don't have a stand on that, because I think it's probably true more often than not, but I believe some people actually do simply make a rational, calculated, carefully weighed decision concluding that the pain they are experiencing outweighs whatever joy they experience, and decide to end the suffering. IOW, I'm one of the people who think that - for some people - suicide is a reasonable choice. And who am I to tell them it's not?

We all have our own crosses to bear, and empathy or no, none of us can ever truly understand someone else's pain, IMO.

Suicidal depression is an illness, no less so than cancer; when people get cancer, we try hard to keep it from being fatal. We don't chalk cancer fatalities up to the body's right to succumb to entropy.

Some subset of suicides are "right to die" cases, but given the prevalence of clinical depression, the notion that most suicides are the result of rational decisionmaking and not illness is an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence.

But if I'm worried that I might become suicidally depressed in the future, and I don't want to have ready access to a gun, I can choose not to buy one. I don't think it's the government's job to protect me from myself.

I don't care about the gun control debate; HN is a terrible venue for it. Some of my close friends are gun enthusiasts, others gun-control activists. I don't think any less of people who disagree with me about guns and think of it as one of the better examples of a "reasonable people can disagree" discussion (which, ironically, tend to be the worst kinds of discussions for HN).

I do care about misconceptions about suicidal depression, since depression is a serious risk for the community of people that use HN.

But no one forces the cancer patient to accept cancer treatment - it is always a choice. The same can be said for clinical depression - but for some reason in this case you sound as if you'd like to force the person to undergo treatment because you think you know what is in their best interest. I find that highly contentious.

the notion that most suicides are the result of rational decisionmaking and not illness is an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence.

FWIW, I am not making that specific claim. I'm just pointing out that there is another angle to consider, as far as whether or not the suicide issue should even be considered when talking gun-control.

I suspect cancer and depression share another important property: it's damn hard to treat if you don't diagnose it.

I have no data, but I would venture the guess that suicide is far more prevalent among those with undiagnosed depressions, than those with undiagnosed ones.

What I find interesting is that when suicide was illegal in the UK, the suicide rate was lower.

Should we make suicide illegal just to keep the rate down?

On the other hand, If I'd attempt a suicide and have this choice I'd choose firearm by a large margin. It's a humane way to die, as opposed to e.g. hanging. Just imagine it: Somebody living a miserable life and even dying painful and miserable death.

Interestingly enough, I'm known for being very "pro gun" and I do own a firearm. But if I ever chose suicide, I can't imagine shooting myself. It's hard to say why, but it doesn't seem like the path I'd go. I would lean more towards poison, or driving my car into a concrete embankment going 100+. Probably poison though, or a slow "drink myself to death" ending, ala Leaving Las Vegas. :-)

> I really want to avoid gun control debate,

Gun control debate in the US centers around several proposals: restricting semi-automatic firearms, restricting handguns in particular, and additional checks at firearm purchase time.

Problem is the first two:

A) Do not matter in regards to suicide. A semi-automatic rifle with a 30-round magazine is no more useful than a double barrel shotgun (a firearm type that is legal in most countries, even those that prohibit all other types of firearms).

B) Significantly turn gun owners (who are the ones mailing their constituents) against all kind of firearm regulation, including the last kind of measures, such as additional background checks, requirements to demonstrate safe handling, etc...

California has a ten day waiting period for firearm purchases and as a result has a lower firearm suicide rate despite the fact that handguns and semi-automatic firearms are readily available. While they're restricted to ten round magazines and -- in the case of military-style firearms -- require using a tool to release the magazine, it's unlikely that these laws matter much in regards to suicide.

> > I really want to avoid gun control debate,

> [gun control debate]

That wasn't very nice.

You probably don't need a double barrel shotgun for suicide, either. A single break-action would do. If someone's fired both barrels of a double barrel shotgun in a suicide, it's probably not a suicide :)

This suggests that there may be a cohort effect that makes the Baby Boom generation more vulnerable to middle-age suicide

Seems simple enough... They don't have enough money for retirement and their kids hate them.

Complete speculation, but perhaps it could be a lack of financial security? Savings wiped out in the financial crisis, not earning enough to cover it into retirement?

Could it be due to the fact that jobs for this crowd are hard to find/retain, while they are still a decade-plus from retirement?

I know several 50-60s aged folks, great people who've been unemployed/underemployed for years. Sadly, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that they may have suicidal thoughts.

The disruption oriented job market is moving too fast for these folks, and there are fewer less-skilled jobs available for them to fall back onto that pay a living wage.

Add to that the insult to injury that social security is under attack and their kids (if they have any) might not be able to take care of them either.

"The rise in suicide may also stem from the economic downturn over the past decade."

I saw this in my local area. Some traditional breadwinners in established careers suffered in the last recession.

For those at risk having trouble getting help I'll highlight two options (no affiliation): http://www.crisischat.org/ http://ecouch.anu.edu.au/

Perhaps it's realizing that the work that they've done has caused great harm to the United States of America their parents left them, and that they've left a troubling legacy of selfishness and consumerism that has degraded the notion of family and community?

Or maybe they just can't afford that Harley or entry-level Porsche that is supposed to come in your 50s.

Yes, and many of them went broke living above their means for so long. When the recession hit, they wouldn't adjust their lifestyles because 'they deserve' and subsequently lost most or at least half their wealth after all those years of working late and 'postponing' family life. You speak brutal truth, my friend.

So they should die because they gave too much to their spouses and children?

No, goodness no. Just stating that I understand. This is what my parents went through. Was quite worried about my father for a while, to be honest (he's better now).

I come at it from the other side--my folks (both early Boomers) lived well-within their means, and even though the first decade of my life saw my dad working absurdly long weeks consulting I still feel like we kept a happy house. Both folks worked hard to help their children succeed, even when we were being dorks.

Later, as I headed off to college, some legitimately unforseen medical issues sprung up and a system designed to extract maximum wealth out of a captive, bloated audience tore that same happy family apart.

My parents did everything right, and now I get to watch as a culture geared for your typical baby boomer goes and grinds them down, day by fucking day. My hope is that through entrepreneurship I can make enough to eventually pay back the filial debt I owe--a debt which is worsened by the isolationist lifestyle I pursued as a haven during my college and post-college years.

That's... painting with a rather broad brush.

"Suicide rates among middle-age Americans have risen sharply in the past decade, prompting concern that a generation of baby boomers who have faced years of economic worry and easy access to prescription painkillers may be particularly vulnerable to self-inflicted harm"

I don't live in the USA, but are't baby boomers supposed to be older than "middle-age" now?

The youngest boomers will be in their late forties or early fifties.

49 to 67

They are using the term "middle-aged" to describe a person between the ages of 35 and 64.[1] The "Baby Boom" is generally described as having occurred between 1946 and 1964.[2] Therefore, there will still be middle-aged Baby Boomers until 2029.

[1]: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6217a1.htm?s_cid=... [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post%E2%80%93World_War_II_baby_...

Compared to those born between 1900 and 1931, Americans born between 1962 and 1978 were 3 times more likely to have grown up in severely abusive homes, 5 time more likely to have attempted suicide, 4.5 times more like to have contracted a sexually transmitted disease, 50% more likely to have suffered depression, and 50% more likely to have experienced alcohol addiction.

Source: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0091743503...

Couldn't some of that just be that we've have gotten better at diagnosing some of those things?

Advances in technology have eliminated or drastically changed many of the jobs these people have, and there is no end in sight. As a result, there is no economic opportunity for many of them. In modern society, that leaves few options. While many suicides can be attributed to mental illness or depression, an increasing number of them fall within the definition of "rational suicide".

Fewer people can now serve the needs of far more people than ever before possible. For example, we are rapidly approaching the day when humans will no longer be involved in many forms of construction, and most of those jobs won't be replaced in any other field. Millions of manual labor jobs worldwide can be replaced by a relatively small number of engineers in a single location working to automate those tasks. As our world catapults toward this reality, unemployment and the resulting suicide rate can only increase.

Excellently put, the solution in the short term is counseling and creating a culture in which down-time, leisure and enjoyment of life is prized more than "putting in your hours."

The purpose of automation is to make our lives easier. We have to think that a bum living on the street is not a drain on society, in a lot of ways he is doing more "work" just to keep himself alive than the average wage-slave. We need to stop thinking that "work" is somehow the goal of a person's life and transition to "enjoyment" being the goal.

There's a story like this 3mos after every high-profile suicide to garner some sales (papers, pageviews) via predictable copycat trends.

I wonder what percentage of suicides are military, or veterans?

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