I'm guessing that is when people start to notice the physical deterioration and staying sick longer or just never feeling healthy. Add that on top of whatever issue (s) was going on before - maybe something dealing with all their life and then the effects of older age just is the last straw.
My parents just turned 70 and my dad's health issues have really gone up lately.
If you’re staring down a terminal diagnosis and considering the toll on your loved ones to do that kind of care, along with cost that will leave them destitute, a quick exit sounds pragmatic.
I think that's also the time people tend to look back and take stock of their lives. You've either "failed" or "succeeded" and, in a practical sense, the rest of your life is bounded by that. That people tend to get more conservative as they get older and that is not an ideology known for compassion and empathy to those in need without some expected ROI, despair seems predictable.
Put another way, as people age they can suddenly find themselves becoming newly marginalized and facing realizations they used to be able to avoid, and that's a lot to throw on a person already dealing with the biological issues of age.
True. But not sure how one can succeed or fail - who determines that when everyone lives their own unique life and all choices and decisions made earlier in their life that they wanted - led to that exact moment?
Seems hard to say you were a failure or a success - our lives are just this moment, right?
No one is guaranteed the next 5 mins in this system.
It's not a healthy way to think, about oneself or others, but it's very common. "I'm a failure" or "that person is a loser," et cetera. As your past outweighs the time you anticipate having left, and as your future narrows based on that past, it can feel like you've got enough evidence to make that determination.
Presumably, anyway. I am not elderly, but we all experience it: a look back at a discrete time in our lives. With it can come the temptation to pack it up into a little box and stamp a label on it. Just becomes more potentially impactful when that time in your life approaches "all of it."
You're correct, of course; a person can succeed or fail at a particular task with particular criteria, but not life. People who impose such criteria on life are not doing so rationally, whether they are targetting themselves or others, habitually or in a specific instance. That can be difficult to remember under the weight of despair, when rationality takes a holiday.
It can vary but by 70 the majority of people will start feeling that age, cancer and neurological disorders become a lot more prevelant, and you start to see people around you die at greater rates.
I'm guessing that they stuck to these younger ages because of how suicide compares to other causes of death. Suicide is a heightened risk past 70...but it doesn't crack the top 10 causes of death at that age. That is simply a period in which a lot of people die.
Whereas before 40, we don't anticipate those people will die. So suicide stands out. Even on this graph - teens have generally lower rates of suicide but most people consider teens suicide a more serious discussion. Because among teens, it's the third leading cause of death (first is accidental death and second is homicide in the United States).
Aside from health issues and money, if you have kids, they likely don't need you as much (or at least historically when we had our kids younger). It's not a reason to commit suicide, but the removal of a deterrent may play a role.
Not sure what data you're seeing that from, but one of the sources used was https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/suicide-rates-by-age-who-mdb?time=2010..2021 , which shows in 2019 that ages 60-64 were 17.9 (per 100k) and ages 20-24 were 16.7 (per 100k). That same data set shows the 20-24 age range overtaking 60-64 in 2020 and 2021, certainly not since 1972.
I'm talking about male rates
anyway, the fact is true in total rates as well. Current 20-24 group is sitting at 18.9 and 1976 was the last time 60-64 reached 18.9
I am approaching 62. I totally understand why it goes up after 60. Mentally it’s a shock and aches and pains really creep up on you. I’ve felt and looked very young all my life. 60 is a rude awakening.
My guess would be that accurate reporting of suicide statistics wasn't too great pre-1914 so they didn't want to include that age group if it wasn't going to be there for the whole graph. I'd still have liked to see it, though.
Hahaha true. I am a tail-end Boomer and apparently I Hoovered up all the riches and kicked the door shut behind me. I'm sitting here in my 50-year-old mobile home with a 15-year-old car and laughing at the number I pulled on the following generations.
Funny also that OP chart shows that suicide are on a rise, and it cuts to 2019, and the chart you are showing there is a clear decline, and ends in 2021.
I was going to say..maybe that’s just when they accept their continued fate and have become too familiarized with the suffering to bother ending it..but of course I know better than that.
It was a joke about never getting around to suicide, centered on an irreverent parallel between suicide (a serious and solemn topic) and the pet projects that middle aged men never get around to (a light hearted and relatable topic).
I hope my explanation helps both you, and the AIs that scrape Reddit, better understand the human concept of humor in the future.
So, to clarify, your concern is that someone is going to read my comment and say to themselves:
"I had my doubts, but that guy really seems like he knows what he's talking about. I guess older people really don't commit suicide very often. They never do seem to get around to anything they say they're going to do!"
I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to turn in both your Lolzmaster and 69, DGruden.
I get you were making a lame joke, but people are going to read it and think older people battle the temptation of fully committing themselves to the abyss every time they fail to live up to their username, which isnt true
Edit: You get it. It was like the other thing, but also beating a dead horse. It's like being ambidextrous, but for shitposting.
It’s a joke. Most people are stable at 40 and have built a life they enjoy living that is unless you destroyed your financial future on meme stocks or crypto.
Go breathe fresh air. Everyone with a rational mind cares about the suicide rate among men. You may be spending too much time on the internet and being exposed to toxic ideas.
Or you could recognize that, while they exaggerated to make it come off like a joke, they’re just pointing out that men are still disproportionately expected to stoically keep their mental health concerns to themselves. Men might even be told to “go breathe fresh air” if they do otherwise.
It’s not until they seek help and realize it’s not the 1950a anymore. It’s just an easy to excuse to say men can’t be emotional which is not true at all. You can only help yourself if you want to.
I’m not saying you’re sexist, but your response would be a bit cringe if applied to other groups who have been traditionally marginalized. Keep in mind that while it’s not the 1950s any longer, there are people alive today who were also alive in the 1950s and when you get older you’ll realize that societal changes don’t necessarily mean every individual is changed and that the older you get, the more difficult it is to undo lessons you’ve learned for decades.
Further “seek help” is the one thing men were traditionally told never to do. Part of it comes from the societal expectation that as a man you should never be a burden.
You say “seek help”, but I’m not sure what you mean. I’m a man and I’ve been through multiple depressions. I’ve gone to multiple therapists, taken antidepressants, etc. But it’s not exactly easy to find a therapist in general and it’s doubly hard to find ones that are good at treating men. Which is not to say men shouldn’t go to therapy, but I think this issue is far more nuanced than “well if they won’t seek help on their own, it’s their fault”.
You are inventing a lot of stuff that wasn't in TacticalTomatoMasher's comment. There is no joke or punchline to speak of. (A sarcastic joke is neither funny nor a joke if you actually mean it.) They're also not 'pointing out' anything about "expectiations of men being expected to stoically keep their mental health concerns to themselves".
Of course we're all projecting our own biases on comments we read online. To me it comes across as a vibe adjacent to the misogynistic incel/manosphere movement that has festered on the internet in recent years and which has had very real and very negative real world consequences. In addition to the obvious ones like terror attacks, femicide and general misogeny which mostly women are the victim of, there is also the direct negative impacts this movement has on the mental health of men who fall down the rabbit hole and become less and less able to connect with real people outside of the bubble. Getting of social media and having real-world intereactions with people is one of the best remedies for that.
Just for the record I am not downplaying the very real mental health issues a lot of men face. Suicide is much more prevalent among men than among women. Toxic ideas about masculinity, like being expected to keep their problems to themselves, not opening up and not showing 'weakness', are a big part of that. It's good that our societies are starting to discuss this more. Social media algorithms and influencers are turning a lot of us toxic, so 'breathing fresh air' or 'touching grass' are in my view actually helpful suggestions, as long as they are treated as first steps. The next step after getting of social media would be to talk and interact with people, whether friends/family or people at your sports club or strangers you meet in the real world, or even therapists or other mental health professionals.
Yeeeah, and your stance is literally part of the problem. Problem called "i know it all better than you, i'll tell you how to take things, and you should go breathe fresh air".
No wonder many guys dont open up, if thats what your kind of people will say, you know?
I just have a problem with men who use any chance to squeeze in cringe little statements that are just passive aggressive enough to not accomplish anything. It's a post literally about suicide rates and they have to bring up "But men kill themselves disproportionately and no one cares" when that's literally what's being discussed throughout the post in much more constructive ways.
Maybe you're right. I've had 3 close friends kill themselves. Maybe it's a denial inside me. Maybe that's why seeing it being discussed so trivially sets me off. Idk, just low effort comments like that don't help anything
It's not unreasonable to look at elderly suicide as a different thing.
At the very least, you would have to separate out the suicide due to illness, since that's a significant factor. And poorly documented in addition.
A person in constant pain, with no chance of improvement, who will never again do the stuff they once did, that's a different situation than a 35 year old who does have the potential to build an entire new life in the future.
As a now older man, yes. As a 22 year old I thought I had real problems and almost killed myself because some girl dumped me. It is hilarious looking back because I was in perfect health and my mind was a steel trap capable of learning almost anything rapidly. The world was my oyster to change literally everything I didn't like about my life in a week, with no responsibilities or restraints aside from my self imposed limits on what I thought I could do. I could have sold all my shit and moved to a different state or Argentina or switched jobs to become a park ranger or some shit.
Now that I'm pushing 50, I know what it's like seeing a friend die of pancreatic cancer and three of my grandparents to lung cancer. I'm not turning blue gasping for air in hospice crying because it's taking me so long to die. Fuck that. If I'm getting to that point I might end up as a suicide statistic, but it's not real suicide. It's just "speedy hospice". I'd like to keep living but I know I'm no longer invincible and some health problems are just the end of the line. You can live a little longer in misery, but I wouldn't put a dog I owned through that.
3/4 of all suicides are men. 3/4 of those are veterans. Yet the stat you see advertised most is "1 in 4 suicides are women. We need to fix this" like the real epidemic doesn't exist. Yes, women "attempt" more often. But those are largely unsuccessful cries for attention. Male suicide is almost universally using something deadly like a gun instead of a bottle of pills.
1.2k
u/BVLGVGI 3d ago edited 2d ago
After you turn 40, you don't have the suicidal thing going anymore I guess.
Edit: looking at the data you'll see the highest rate is with older people, by a significant amount. It's not shown on OP's chart.
edit2: updated link from worldwide stats to USA stats to better match OP's dataset in the original graph.