What can we do about the high male suicide rate?

Page 4 of 11 [ 167 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 ... 11  Next

sly279
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 11 Dec 2013
Age: 36
Gender: Male
Posts: 16,181
Location: US

06 Feb 2016, 5:25 pm

0_equals_true wrote:
sly279 wrote:
Why do anything?

So people have a higher standard of life are happier, etc.

Are you equating suicide to self-euthanasia? I'm pro-euthanasia.


The men who commit suicide are men that society deems worthless or losers. One would say this is just nature at work. I don't see women at large wanting to do anything for those men. I don't see other men who see themselves as better doing anything either. Leaves just us men no one cares about. Probably why this issue hasn't gotten any real attention in news or government. Sad but suppose it's just how things work.

On the issue of euthanasia what's the difference between using a drug to do it or hanging, knife etc is the drug death somehow considered more civilized ? 0.o

Kinda odd like when cops threaten to shoot a suicidal man, um he wants to die so why would he be afraid of being shot to death.



0_equals_true
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 5 Apr 2007
Age: 41
Gender: Male
Posts: 11,038
Location: London

06 Feb 2016, 5:28 pm

sly279 wrote:
The men who commit suicide are men that society deems worthless or losers. One would say this is just nature at work. I don't see women at large wanting to do anything for those men. I don't see other men who see themselves as better doing anything either. Leaves just us men no one cares about. Probably why this issue hasn't gotten any real attention in news or government. Sad but suppose it's just how things work.


This your assumption, not born out by the evidence. These can be average people, and even successful people.



sly279
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 11 Dec 2013
Age: 36
Gender: Male
Posts: 16,181
Location: US

06 Feb 2016, 5:44 pm

Most are not successful people . Usually it's the last act of desperation

Successful people only usually do it after they've lost everything. Like a ceo going bankrupt. Or a executive about to get arrested for fraud. I'd wager most suicides are poor single men.

Successful people are usually too busy enjoying their success. Poor people are too busy worrying about their failures and if they'll have a home next week which leads to depression a lot more then being successful and having everything you want or desire.

Robin Williams is the only successful person I can think of who killed themselves. I don't include those who over dose on drugs accidentally.

So yes not all are but most are.



0_equals_true
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 5 Apr 2007
Age: 41
Gender: Male
Posts: 11,038
Location: London

06 Feb 2016, 5:51 pm

sly279 wrote:
So yes not all are but most are.

By the definition you have stated much of the population would commit suicide at one point. It is around 0.1%



sly279
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 11 Dec 2013
Age: 36
Gender: Male
Posts: 16,181
Location: US

06 Feb 2016, 5:56 pm

0_equals_true wrote:
sly279 wrote:
So yes not all are but most are.

By the definition you have stated much of the population would commit suicide at one point. It is around 0.1%

What how do you get that?
I was only talking about those who commit Sucide. I never said most the population kill themselves I said most of those who kill themselves are poor people. I don't get how you made that jump



wilburforce
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 13 Sep 2014
Gender: Female
Posts: 1,940

06 Feb 2016, 6:01 pm

I think it is probably relevant to also ask why it is that murder-suicides are almost always done by men--as in, we need to be asking why it is that so many men, when they decide to commit suicide, also decide to take others with them, usually family members/wives/girlfriends. Female suicides almost never do this. If it's almost solely a male phenomenon, it should probably factor in to this discussion.

http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2015/03/what-we-know-about-suicide-as-an-act-of-murder.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder%E2%80%93suicide

Wikipedia wrote:
Though there is no national tracking system for murder–suicides in the United States, medical studies into the phenomenon estimate between 1,000 to 1,500 deaths per year in the US,[4] with the majority occurring between spouses or intimate partners and the vast majority of the perpetrators being male. Depression, marital or/and financial problems, and other problems are generally motivators.


http://www.officer.com/article/10744560/murder-suicide-when-killing-yourself-isnt-enough

officer.com wrote:
-90% of the perpetrators are men.
-80-90% of their victims are spouses or intimate partners.
-Men tend to kill their children and their intimate partners prior to suicide.
-Women tend to kill their children but spare their partners.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/03/27/nearly-80-percent-of-people-who-commit-murder-suicide-had-a-crisis-in-the-two-weeks-prior/

Washington Post wrote:
The 730 murder-suicide incidents listed in the data show that 93 percent of the perpetrators are men. Two-thirds of all cases are white men.



0_equals_true
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 5 Apr 2007
Age: 41
Gender: Male
Posts: 11,038
Location: London

06 Feb 2016, 6:07 pm

sly279 wrote:
I was only talking about those who commit Sucide. I never said most the population kill themselves I said most of those who kill themselves are poor people. I don't get how you made that jump


Because being "a looser" doesn't mean you will kill yourself. It is completely relative.



sly279
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 11 Dec 2013
Age: 36
Gender: Male
Posts: 16,181
Location: US

06 Feb 2016, 6:13 pm

0_equals_true wrote:
sly279 wrote:
I was only talking about those who commit Sucide. I never said most the population kill themselves I said most of those who kill themselves are poor people. I don't get how you made that jump


Because being "a looser" doesn't mean you will kill yourself. It is completely relative.

Again I never said that i said most of the people who kill themselves are what Society deems as losers.



Hopper
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 22 Aug 2012
Age: 44
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,920
Location: The outskirts

06 Feb 2016, 6:25 pm

sly279 wrote:
Most are not successful people . Usually it's the last act of desperation

Successful people only usually do it after they've lost everything. Like a ceo going bankrupt. Or a executive about to get arrested for fraud. I'd wager most suicides are poor single men.

Successful people are usually too busy enjoying their success. Poor people are too busy worrying about their failures and if they'll have a home next week which leads to depression a lot more then being successful and having everything you want or desire.

Robin Williams is the only successful person I can think of who killed themselves. I don't include those who over dose on drugs accidentally.

So yes not all are but most are.


Off the top of my head: Kurt Cobain, Tony Scott, David Foster Wallace, Ernest Hemingway, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Tony Hancock, Virginia Woolf, Ian Curtis. I consider all 'succesful', achieving success and acclaim in their field to an extent most who don't kill themselves won't.

Define 'successful'. Define 'unsuccesful'. Then gather suicide numbers for each and check the percentage.

I see nothing here but a common preoccupation amongst certain young men about certain people - often themselves and those like them - being thought 'worthless' or 'losers' by others. Don't bully yourself.


_________________
Of course, it's probably quite a bit more complicated than that.

You know sometimes, between the dames and the horses, I don't even know why I put my hat on.


0_equals_true
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 5 Apr 2007
Age: 41
Gender: Male
Posts: 11,038
Location: London

06 Feb 2016, 7:16 pm

wilburforce wrote:
I think it is probably relevant to also ask why it is that murder-suicides are almost always done by men--as in, we need to be asking why it is that so many men, when they decide to commit suicide, also decide to take others with them, usually family members/wives/girlfriends. Female suicides almost never do this. If it's almost solely a male phenomenon, it should probably factor in to this discussion.


Murder suicides represent 1.6% of all suicides in US (2011)

Feel free to investigate this though. I think it is a kind of depressive narcissism. With women there are various personality disorder that and mental illnesses for those that kill their children.

The point of this threat was how to reduce the amount of suicides in men. If that has the effect or reducing murder-suicides that would be great.

There is a whole debate about the selfishness of suicide. Murder suicides are definitely selfish acts. Usually vindictive intent but not always (i.e. a parents who kill a sick child and kill thiemselves) Usually there is some kind of perverted logic to it.



Fnord
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 6 May 2008
Age: 67
Gender: Male
Posts: 59,887
Location: Stendec

06 Feb 2016, 7:19 pm

Reducing the suicide rate in men will involve (at the very least) convincing men at risk that they can trust the people that are trying to help them. Without that trust, men will not likely to admit that they even have a problem.


_________________
 
No love for Hamas, Hezbollah, Iranian Leadership, Islamic Jihad, other Islamic terrorist groups, OR their supporters and sympathizers.


0_equals_true
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 5 Apr 2007
Age: 41
Gender: Male
Posts: 11,038
Location: London

06 Feb 2016, 7:54 pm

Tbh I don't know what you are on about Fnord.

I understand it is hard to trust people, but in reality most people that you can talk would just listen. People need more help than that usually.

I would understand if you were talking about just confiding in a stranger. However we are talking about people offering to help.

Maybe women are more open about feelings, however I'm not convinced they just come out with it. Most of the women that had emotionally confided in me, who I hadn't know for a very long time, were drunk or tipsy.

I totally relate to the trust issue, but that is about what I feel comfortable with.

So yes "convincing" is the operative word, or perhaps finding the most comfortable way of men getting help.



LKL
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 21 Jul 2007
Age: 48
Gender: Female
Posts: 7,402

06 Feb 2016, 8:10 pm

sly279 wrote:
The men who commit suicide are men that society deems worthless or losers.

Often, that's not the case. The suicide may be the product of a temporary despair, such as a divorce or the loss of a loved one, that the individual would get over given time; it may be an even more short-term glitch, a brief misfiring of the brain. That's part of why homes with guns have higher suicide (and murder) rates: a gun takes very little preparation, and a person can quickly and thoroughly kill himself without the time to change his mind.

There is also a very high suicide rate based on factors that are social stigmas in some groups, but not in others: for example, gay and trans kids kill themselves at higher rates in conservative/religious areas than in more liberal areas, when their families reject them for intrinsic factors of their being. Recently a very promising young doctor jumped off the parking garage at one of our sister hospitals: he was gay, and his conservative family had just found out. He was a well-liked and respected young man.
For that matter, doctors and other high-stress professions have relatively high suicide rates, not because their practitioners are losers but because they're some of our best and brightest and society expects so much from them that it makes their lives miserable.



Raptor
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 8 Mar 2007
Gender: Male
Posts: 12,997
Location: Southeast U.S.A.

06 Feb 2016, 8:14 pm

LKL wrote:
That's part of why homes with guns have higher suicide (and murder) rates: a gun takes very little preparation, and a person can quickly and thoroughly kill himself without the time to change his mind.

:roll: :roll:
Why did you have to go there?


_________________
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
- Thomas Jefferson


LKL
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 21 Jul 2007
Age: 48
Gender: Female
Posts: 7,402

06 Feb 2016, 8:28 pm

:roll:
it illustrated my point. Substitute 'homes with fast, effective, and easy to use weapons' if you prefer.



Trogluddite
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 2 Feb 2016
Age: 53
Gender: Male
Posts: 3,075
Location: Yorkshire, UK

06 Feb 2016, 9:00 pm

The research backs up that claim.

When I was a kid, the whole of the UK switched from Coal Gas (Highly toxic) to Natural Gas (Non-toxic). A popular euphemism for suicide when I was a kid was to "stick ones head in the oven." As a suicide method, it was relatively quick, painless, and maybe perceived as a little less shocking to those left behind than other methods.

When the switch was made to natural gas, the suicide rate dropped dramatically. All the social scientists of the time reckoned that before long people would just find another way to do it. But they didn't, the drop in suicide rate persisted for a long time afterwards.

Research was also done on people rescued from attempting to jump off a famous bridge (Golden Gate, SF, IIRC) Subsequent to their rescue, only a small (but significant) minority ever had another suicide attempt. People with chronic suicidal ideation are in a minority of people who attempt suicide and succeed - it is far more common that it is a short-lived acute event.

Making suicide harder to physically do, works. It's that simple. But neither side of the debate about gun control ever mentions that there are more firearm suicides than there are firearm homicides. It has to be faced up to - having a firearm in the house increases the risk of a successful suicide. I'm not based in the US, so it's not my place to say what the solution might be - but pretending that it isn't a problem should not be an option.


_________________
When you are fighting an invisible monster, first throw a bucket of paint over it.