What can we do about the high male suicide rate?

Post Reply New Topic

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

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

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



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/

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Why did you have to go there?

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

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.

Ah, but WHY are they offering to help? A person from HR offering to "help" may actually be looking for information that will later be used against you during the evaluation period, or when selecting who gets promoted and who gets fired from the company you work for. A neighbor offering to "help" may actually be looking for something to gossip about with all of the other neighbors. Someone you've seen around the building who is offering to "help" may actually be working for your landlord, who in turn may be looking for a reason not to renew your lease. A stranger offering to "help" may actually be looking to gain your trust long enough to clean out your bank accounts and ruin your credit. Even the people from Social Services who insist on being allowed to "help" you may just be looking to meet daily quota of contacts, without actually doing anything for you.

And don't get me started on self-serving journalists!

No wonder some men would rather commit suicide than ask for help - they have no one to trust, having been abused and ripped off for most of their lives.

At what point should people start getting pretty offended about just how many people there are here that have spent a lot of time and energy caring about and trying to help you. And yet it repeatedly circles back as if what they say or do doesn't exist. In other words, they don't matter.



There is a laundry list of people who were famous (is that the definition of success?) who killed themselves.
Additionally:

"Economic status has not been found to be a predictor in the simple way that social scientists once thought. Early suicide researchers theorized that poverty was a significant risk factor for suicide... it’s the extremes of either poverty or wealth that are associated with higher suicide rates."
http://www.hsccs.org/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=13737

And if that were the premise, why is the answer no one cares about them they/we should go eat worms...? What about the concept of increased wages and decreased unemployment?

Last edited by 100000fireflies on 07 Feb 2016, 2:28 am, edited 1 time in total.

"Here are some of the demographic (social group membership) characteristics that have been associated with recent suicides in the United States:

...Increased alcohol and substance use, the increased availability of firearms, and the fact that many mental disorders (such as depression and schizophrenia) begin or worsen during these ages all contribute to these statistics. Suicide victims under the age of 30 are also more likely to have dual diagnoses (a combination of a mental illness and a substance abuse disorder), impulsive and/or aggressive behavior disorders, and legal problems than people over 30 who commit suicide. However, the challenges of adolescence alone are enough for some teens to commit or attempt suicide.


As mentioned previously, older Caucasian males commit suicide at the highest rate of any population group...Widowhood, serious medical illness, and social isolation are particularly common risk factors for this demographic group.


Whites and Native Americans (especially adolescents) have the highest suicide rates than any other ethnic group in the US. In addition, the rate of suicide among young African American males has been steadily increasing.

Researchers suggest that men suffering from depression are more likely to go unrecognized and untreated than women suffering from depression, in part because men may avoid seeking help (viewing it as a weakness). Men who are depressed are also more likely to have co-occurring alcohol and substance use disorders than women.


Men are more likely than women to use highly lethal methods to commit suicide.

Women are more likely than men to attempt suicide.

Marital status is associated with suicide risk. Living alone and being single both increase the risk of suicide.

Being a parent, particularly for mothers, appears to decrease the risk of suicide. Even pregnant women have a lower risk of suicide than women of childbearing age who are not pregnant.

Suicide rates are higher in rural areas. People in rural ares are more likely to attempt suicide with a firearm. Because people who use a firearm are more likely to die (than others who choose a less lethal method), more people in rural areas die from suicide.

Industrialized countries generally have higher rates of suicide than non-industrialized countries. Among industrialized countries, the U.S. has a moderate rate of suicide.

Religiosity seems to have a protective effect against suicide. Exactly which religion(s), during what ages/developmental periods, and among which ethnicities remain unanswered questions.

Economic status has not been found to be a predictor in the simple way that social scientists once thought..it’s the extremes of either poverty or wealth that are associated with higher suicide rates.

Unemployment is associated with increased rates of suicide. "

http://www.hsccs.org/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=13737

My two cents -
Overpopulation...there are simply too many rats in the cage.
Males use guns more than women, so though they try less, they succeed more.
The machismo real men don't cry, men can't be sensitive, men can't be sad or feel hurt, etc..just shove it down and man up attitude is still far too prevalent. And damaging.

Perhaps. I however took some offense to the statement that men don't understand their feelings. I sure as hll would have if it had been something similar like women are too emotional and don't even know what they're feeling.
As such, i might reply with a bit more of an edge than i otherwise would.