Fatal silence: Why do so many fortysomething men kill themselves? | Hacker News Reader

Fatal silence: Why do so many fortysomething men kill themselves?

bbc.co.uk

91 pointssjcsjc87 comments

Maybe it's because by the age of forty you've probably run out of the steam that comes free, mostly from the external expectations of what you should do.

It's easy to finish school, go study something, then get a job, get a better job, start a family, have kids and pay for the bills because you don't really have to think much about what do you want from your life. Where did you come from? Why are you here? What are you to do here? What's your call in life? But the crisis that happens roughly at midlife brings those questions to the surface: "Is this all to it? What is going on and where am I in it?"

Men are not necessarily as socially integrated as women. Going through the big questions alone is something a lot of people simply don't survive. They are likely to lose their momentum in life, often get depressed, and at the extreme end some even kill themselves because too many old things turn out to be meaningless. Some become workaholics or develop a way to escape the emptiness and recreate purpose artificially. But a lot of men just lose the momentum, or a significant part of it. In contrast, more women talk to other women or therapists or relatives about what they're going through. In the average, it looks like that women seem to get energized in midlife whereas men seem to lose power.

It then depends on the man himself whether he's the kind who will eventually emerge and see his vision for life more clearly than before or who will lose his sight for life more or less permanently. Social circles with positive examples of what men can, at the best, grow into in their 40's and 50's could make a big difference but there aren't many of those these days.

I agree with you.

Let me add that many accomplished people didn't achieve much before old age. The media has been spreading the myth that success only lies in the youth.

Here's a very interesting HN comment section on the article "Does life end at 35?": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6640430

> In the average, it looks like that women seem to get energized in midlife whereas men seem to lose power.

Could this be natural, in a way? Women have always had to look after the wellbeing and social standing of their offspring, because their own survival derived from them more often than not. By 40, they either have teen-aged kids in their formative years, or they're grandmothers; in both cases, they must be at full steam. This has not changed much in modern times, if anything it's become easier to deal with (they are not going to starve if their children don't work on the farm).

Men have a different set of "natural" expectations. Fighters by 40 were either dead or veterans with respected social status; agricultural workers would be phasing out, with children taking over some of their duties. This is very different now: a lot of men at 40 have average jobs that will expect the same level of performance day-in day-out, no "phasing out" allowed (especially in tight economic times) and no real social status either. It's easy to feel dejected when looking back.

I know this does not apply to all situations, but if your circumstances allow (and spouse is on board) - delay having children until you have these answers. Or at least understand that you don't have all the answers (and may never) early as possible. That way it does not sneak up on you. Think stoically about the future and be mindful of the present.

The average age at which a man goes through his first divorce is about 36. [1]

Here's the cocktail:

1) By 40 you've gotten divorced, and probably have a split family. Those post divorce years can be incredibly difficult for everyone.

2) Life hasn't worked out as you hoped, and your youth is mostly behind you. If you happen to lose a career at this juncture, it can be difficult to regain your footing due to routine age bias.

3) You're unwilling to reach out for help, seek therapy or take drugs to deal with depression. By about 40 your body is also changing, this can compound all the other effects.

4) You kill yourself out of desperation, fear, loneliness, etc.

http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2013/article/marriage-and-divorc...

Add to that that men are incredibly competitive - in the workplace, in sports, concerning women. At the age of 40, you either made it or know a lot of other guys who did and start to realize you won't be part of them.

And of course, a lot of men have as much a skewed image of their success in life as women have concerning their looks. So even moderately successful types get depressed or kill themselves because they see themselves as losers.

As a young man (maybe it's similar for women, but I suspect there is are some differences here) thinking about your life and its possibilities is usually about the environment.

I thought of my own "hard abilities" like talent in math or sports as a fixed thing or more precisely a sort of talent effort equation. I though of the environment (if I get this opportunity) as the determining wildcard. I thought of my own courage, ingenuity and strength of character as inexhaustible wells. If success hinges on my determination and strength of character, success is guaranteed. Just give me the chance. I'll take it from there.

Reality is less rosy. There is a reason we admire (or detest) those with genuinely powerful strength of character. It's rare and valuable.

At 40 (or earlier, later, I dunno exactly) your own part becomes more clear. Your failings are big. They're behind you and ahead of you. You can see them and their causes. What you haven't achieved and your role in it is clear. What you won't achieve and your inevitable role in that becomes clearer.

Failure (again, I think it's relevant that my own experience is as a man), is heartbreaking for a man. It hits us at our core. It shatters our illusions and strips us of what we allow ourselves to think we are.

It's hard being a person. It hurts being a person. It's heartbreaking. It's painful. It really is so much more than we can take, to feel all the pain in earnest.

Not that I disagree with what you say but I wanted to bring attention to other thing. We are really bad at telling what the reasons of our feeling are. For instance, you could feel bad; believe that is due to your “failings” or your life. Then, you take a weekend in the woods and you feel that nothing is wrong.

My point is that many times we are not aware what is it that makes us feel bad and we just build a narrative that could or couldn’t have anything to do with our feelings. A good advice is, I think, when feeling bad; try to change how you spend your time and you can be surprised. Don’t trust too much in introspection.

A absolutely agree and that is an important point.

There's some interesting discussion going on about antidepressants, which is somewhat similar to discussions about add medication for kids. 2 points: (1) Psychiatric diagnosis is often like the BMI, true at a population level but not necessarily true at a personal level. (2) Pathological is relative to the environment to need to live in. If school requires an 8 year old to pay attention in a class with forty 8 year olds for seven hours a day, inability to do so is often the trigger for medication.

With depression, I think it's uncontroversial the environments can play a large role. If the first course of treatment was living better, and medicinal treatment was layered on top of that as needed we would have better results with fewer side effects. OTOH, there are limits to what a doctor can do.

My earlier comment is more about 'why 40 year old men' not 'why depression.' The latter is almost certainly the more important and actionable question though.

Just wanted to point that, maybe, the source of the problems are commonalities to the “40 years old lifestyle” instead of more philosophic reasons. If we mistrust introspection then investigating that could pay well.

I think a lot of this disappointment at 40 comes from the fact that a lot of kids (especially in the US) were told silly things like "you are special" and "you can become anything you want to become". So a lot of boys grew up with the idea that they were going to be Richard Feynman + Bill Gates + Wayne Gretzky rolled into one. When that didn't pan out, they didn't understand what happened to them. Nothing happened - you were born human.

This whole "you're special" thing wasn't always here, it's a relatively new thing.

I am 40 this year, and while I don't want to kill myself, I understand the feeling of having failed. It is even stronger (IMHO) if you work in start-up/tech because you're either millionaire or... obsolete.

Finding inner peace is important for anybody, but even more critical at 40.

Why do you think you have failed?

Because the superficial rule set of your surrounding social group dictates so?

If you don't harm other people and every now and then make someone happy or smile - then you did not, do not and will not fail!

Guys like Donald Trump are failures [1] - you most likely are not.

Do something to reshift perspectives if you're stuck in one that makes you feel so bad about your life that you even associate this with the subject at hand. Travelling, reading, moving, meditating, ...

[1]: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1943873/

Donald Trump is an obviously insecure man, so he's pretty low value even by the aforementioned superficial rule set.

Man, you really nailed it (see what I did there?) about insecurity. He broadcasts it.

I'm 36 and I know what you mean, but I think this "success" stuff is the male equivalent of "being beautiful": something that society relentlessly pushes on us, which we should probably reject from first principles.

I'm 35 and I couldn't give a flying balls about success or what society wants (never really have).

Life is literally too short to care.

Dealing with failure gets tougher as you get older, just because you being to understand you have a limited set of 'resets' available, and each one is going to be tougher.

Growing ageism in the tech industry is a massive concern, however. But relearning the new thing every couple of years gets very old, so I completely understand how it happens.

Inner peace is the key - as you say - you have to give some missed goals the virtual Viking burial and let go of them. But I think you also need to set new goals or risk losing direction altogether.

Because if life isn't working out in the way you expected, it starts to become apparent in your 40's.

So how do you explain the difference between male and female? Women has lower expectations of life or they hit their expectations better than men in general?

Women also take anti-depressants at a higher rate than men, likely preventing some percentage of suicides. Men often seem to regard anti-depressant use as coming with a stigma or being an admission of weakness.

Are there any good numbers on this?

This might be sexist, but some people claim that women never blame themselves for any life problems and find a way of justifying themselves no matter what.

It's outrageously sexist. Plenty of women blame themselves for problems that aren't their fault - it's one of the reasons why many women stay in physically abusive relationships.

More importantly it is wrong.

Why do you believe it is wrong?

Is this merely dueling anecdotes (plus vacri's accusation of sexism, as if that were a real argument), or is there actual data?

  Why do you believe it is wrong?

  Is this merely dueling anecdotes (plus vacri's accusation
  of sexism, as if that were a real argument), or is there 
  actual data?

Because of the word "never"[0]. That means it is trivial to prove the statement to be false as I and others have plenty of examples that falsifies the statement.

[0]: M8 says: "some people claim that women never blame themselves" emphasis mine

Edit: And I didn't downvote any of you, someone who didn't care to say why did.

Ah, ok - that seems right. I too can name a single woman who has blamed herself at least once, which defeats his weak man (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man#Contemporary_work).

However I can't easily refute a pretty trivial steelman (http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Steel_man) of his position, namely "women are less likely to blame themselves than men".

As a generalisation, women are more likely to reach out for emotional or psychiatric help than men are.

Or women get kids and the whole protection instinct comes forward, which doesn't happen to the same degree for men...

I dunno, maybe I'm unusual but I felt that instinct when I got married (actually, when I knew I was going to). Having kids only strengthened it.

Most suicide attempts fail. Men just happen to "fail" less often than women.

This is not a good outcome. Every failed suicide attempt is really a good outcome.

Women tend to choose less effective methods, like wrist-cutting or sleeping pills, while men are more likely to choose hanging or shoot themselves.

The interesting question here is why the difference in method choice.

Well suicide can either be a cry for help or a decision that life isn't worth living. Maybe more men decide the latter.

I also think the financial/work aspect is being overlooked. At around 40 a man will be most likely to have kids/mortgage/wife to support.

For him, it looks like another 25 years of the same 9 to 5 drudgery. This is probably made worse by the face that his spouse is at home or working part time looking after the kids and is pretty much put to pasture, the hard part of her life is over, alot of women don't pick up their career after having kids and will rely on their spouse for support.

Basically, what user squids wrote. For more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_suicide

So there are as many attempts by women and men in that age? That is interesting.

There are a variety of attempts to explain the difference.

I'm not sure how true any of these are but:

1) women self harm more frequenty than men, which means it's more likely that they get early intervention and help.

2) women communicate better than men meaning they get constant low level support and easier path into treatment

3) men use methods that are more lethal and less survivable.

4) stigma, discrimination, lack of understanding, etc. many people have no idea what mental health treatment involves.

1. Could be, I don't know the numbers, what about alcohol as self harm/medication?

2. Could be, I don't know the numbers but it sounds reasonable

3. Could be, then we should see that the numbers of suicidal attempts were as high for women in the same age.

4. Should be the same for women and men right?

> 4. Should be the same for women and men right?

I don't think it is. Culturally a man who's going for therapy is much more stigmatized than a woman doing so.

So the next question is, if this is true, why is that? Seems strange.

3. The number of reported suicidal attempts are actually higher for women.

Where did you find that information?

I already linked below, I didn't want to repeat it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_suicide

I think they hit their expectations more often.

Lots of women develop goals of having a family, a decent husband and stability in their life. Not all, obviously, but it is a common enough set of goals. Lots of women achieve these goals and gain a state of relative happiness.

Lots of men develop goals of things like sporting prowess, business success and material wealth. These things are much less common to achieve than a decent family life.

I think underlying it all is the fact that men are also generally more capable of violent acts, probably including towards themselves.

>men are also generally more capable of violent acts

Do you have a citation for that claim?

Also, what distinguishes a "violent" method of killing oneself from a "nonviolent" one?

Seriously? How about every war ever started since the beginning of history? Is that enough citation?

A violent method of killing is shooting, hanging, etc. A non violent one is sleeping pills or gassing.

Probably an issue of wording here. I would have said "men are generally more likely to use violent methods of suicide", which is in fact the case. Obviously both genders are capable of violence.

That's an interesting observation on goals.

So true. Statistically speaking, we can't all reach our goals and fulfil our dreams, because many people share the same goals/dreams.

By your 40s it is really hitting home if you have missed the boat. You're running out of time to turn it around, and those rutted-in habits are tough to break. You begin to realise how bad some past decision were.

Getting through this for most people is tough. Throw in some relationship trouble, career trouble, drug or alcohol troubles and it is a toxic brew.

I think it's why learning to fail is vitally important for everyone, and the current 'everyone's a winner' childhood treatment is a time bomb. People push self esteem by vacuously pumping themselves up with positive affirmations. But true self esteem is gained through competence. While a child might suspend reality enough to believe their crap artwork is just as good as the talented kid at the other desk, by the time you are forty you can't kid yourself any longer.

Adding to all that...

In your 40's (for a man) is realy when a lot of life's possibilities close off for you. If you haven't already set your life's trajectory to your satisfaction, you are in serious trouble. Before 40, it seems there is still time to fix things. Switch careers, move, get more education, etc.

This all happens to women to, but in their 30's, especially so with regards to family. But somehow they must deal with it better.

Well, for women who wanted children and gradually have the option closed off to them, it can be pretty heartbreaking. That must be harder. After all, a man can still achieve success in their 50s or 60s, but the possibility of childbirth is gradually switched off for women.

It may be a bit cliche or corny these days but the song "Time" by Pink Floyd really nails those feelings:

"And then one day you find ten years have got behind you No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking. Racing around to come up behind you again.

The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines"

I'm still in my late 30's but as someone who's felt the occasional depression that's innate to being human, this tune always hits it on the head.

As a 40 year old man myself, I've felt the growing ageism in the tech industry since I turned 30. This even here in laid back RTP, NC. I'd imagine it's worse off in the startupy world in Silicon Valley. Every man is different, but I think for me it's a matter of not being able to provide the lifestyle I want to provide for my wife and kids. The movie RV (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0449089/) is quite relevant too.

As a former software developer who is now being forced into a powerpoint developer role but is not quite a manager, what can be done?

I live in RTP and don't find the ageism thing to be too notable, but I do note that companies do like to hire people like themselves at times, and this is the one thing that happens in an interview that nobody talks about - what really is "cultural fit". Though, often, that's not hiring the guy that has been burned out by 40 years at IBM - not because he's old, but because that place can eat your soul out. Younger employees want to feel like they'll be able to make decisions too.

Computer Science seems prone to this because it's such a weird mix of creative and also deeply technical, it almost seems to make it a harder field to work in sometimes, because both instincts can't usually be expressed well in group contexts.

As for the perception of why ageism may exist, newer folks want to replace technology quicker, and don't have as much historical memory, so if anything, I think the challenge is to keep replacing things you are working on, and not specialize too much.

I think this will also get easier as the big wave of new C.S. folks get older themselves, but I built my last company with most of everyone in their 30s and early 40s.

Might vary based on what sort of companies.v Startups seem more prone to it to me, but my startup was pretty well spread out. More established companies are less likely to be that way.

RTP?

Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, USA I presume. If you're not in the know, it's another tech center in the US

Ah, I'm aware of the research triangle, but "RTP" is new for me. Thanks!

In terms of what can be done, this recent thread on ageism might help: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9361580

For me, it wasn't so much the explicit ageism (though it was there to be sure), but more of not fitting in because since some time in my 30's, my social interests don't revolve around the consumption of alcohol anymore, and I've got better/more important things to do after work than hang around with coworkers.

Leaving the silicon-valley-flavored "startup scene" (though I'm at a startup, just not a "startup" startup, per se) where I get to work with grown-ups, while not as profitable, has been a nice lifestyle change, and I highly recommend it.

Someone said there's less suicides during times of economic depression, because then there's a generally accepted reason for failure. In times of success, there isn't and so it must be our fault.

The more we believe that success of life is based on merit, the more disappointment will occur.

> Someone said there's less suicides during times of economic depression,

They were wrong. There are more suicides (at least, in England) during recession.

Well, and I don't think this is a nitpick, a recession is not the same as a depression. It would be good to get the original source for both of these facts to compare. Perhaps during recession, the number of "failures" is not increased quite enough to create the "generally accepted reason for failure" you might find in a depression.

Okay, that's a fair nitpick. It's explained by my careless use of words. Rates of completed suicide correlate strongly with a bunch of economic indicators: number of people without work; number of house repossessions; etc.

At least in Finland, there was a decrease in suicide rates in 1940-1945 (war) and the more recent downward trend started from 1990 (beginning of very strong 5-year recession).

After the war and immediate reconstruction, the suicide rates predominantly climbed up from 1950 to 1990.

http://tilastokeskus.fi/til/ksyyt/2010/ksyyt_2010_2011-12-16...

You do raise a good point which is how much credit we can take for our successes and failures. I am by most definitions a "success", but I have doubts about how much of this success was due to me and how much was due to randomness. I guess the positive of this is I can distance myself from my failures too.

Not being an expert on the subject, I think the trend is to have a progressive increase rate in suicides along the age. I don't know where this 40s figure comes from.

http://goo.gl/j7pOgc -- this is a study about suicide in Portugal and Spain. If you look at "Figura 13" (suicide by age on men) and "Figura 14" (suicide by age for women), that pattern is clear (they even explicitly mention it on the text as a classical pattern).

Eurostats data ( http://goo.gl/UyTqtE ) features a similar pattern, although it seems they lack a few age groups!

Couldn't it be hormonal? doesn't testosterone drop as we age?

Testosterone usually peaks close to 40 (plus or minus five years), and falls roughly 10% every decade thereafter.

Testosterone actually peaks around age 20 and gradually declines after that, accelerating around age 30. By 40, it's been falling for a long time.

I'm finding vast disagreement over whether testosterone peaks at 20 or closer to 40. Can you provide some good sources?

Some sources show it declining drastically from 20 to 40 (by as much as 90%), others claim it peaks between 35-40 and gradually declines. It seems to be all over the map.

For example:

"Studies show that most men experience a 2% drop-off in testosterone production each year after they turn 30."

http://www.askmen.com/daily/austin_150/155_fashion_style.htm...

"Testosterone Does Not Necessarily Wane With Age"

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/247013.php

"Testosterone levels peak in the mid-20s for both men and women. For women, who have about 1/10 to 1/20 the amount of testosterone that men have, testosterone levels taper off slowly until they plateau around the age of 45. For men, testosterone levels continue to wane into their 70s. By the time women reach menopause, their testosterone levels are about half of what they were in their 20s. Men's testosterone levels decrease by about 1% per year and then drop faster as they approach older age."

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/may/02/health/la-he-midlife...

I know from personal experience that testosterone peaks much closer to 20 than 40.

I don't have sources on hand but I recently had my testosterone levels checked at a TRT office and they seemed to agree it's highest in your 20s and decreases after that. It was why they were so surprised to have me (24) getting my testosterone levels checked. Most of their clientele are men in their 30-40s+.

Interesting, thanks. My sources are no better than yours; it was news to me to hear that there is disagreement over this.

The Campaign Against Living Miserably is a Liverpool charity doing some interesting work in this area. They use language differently in an attempt to get a message to men. "I am a man. I refuse to be a man down." is a campaign about the 12 men who die to suicide each day in England.

There are some things that correlate with deaths by suicide. When the number of people without work rises the number of deaths by suicide increases.

I've been doing some voluntary work around suicide reduction. Some of this is cheap but effective. We get multistorey buildings that have public access (eg car parks) to install signs with phone numbers of suicide prevention charities.

Funding of mental health treatment in England has always been low. "Parity of esteem" is aiming to change that. Eventually the wait times for non urgent MH treatment should be similar to non urgent physical health. (So, a maximum 18 week wait between first appointment and start of treatment). A recent change in law (dec 2014) means that people with non-urgent[1] needs get some choice in where they're treated.

Every local authority in England is supposed to have a suicide prevention strategy, and that's supposed to be informed by the national suicide prevention strategy. So, hosted by Public Health (who are in tirn hosted by county councils) and working with clinical commissioning groups, criminal justice (a shocking number of prisoners die by suicide), the police, drug and alcohol services, mental health services, etc.

Some regions are takig ideas from the learnig disability community. For example: many regions have a "learning disability health and well being partnership"; a few regions have started a "mental health and well being partnership".

I do a bit of work around suicide prevention and I am keen to hear people's ideas around suicide prevention. Please do feel free to email me.

[1] there are a few criteria around who can chose and when they can chose but it's a lot better now. http://www.england.nhs.uk/ourwork/qual-clin-lead/pe/bp/guida...

Campaign against living miserably https://www.thecalmzone.net/

The old strategy for my region (I had no involvement with this. I'm working on the replacement). http://www.gscb.org.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=62552&p=0

The national strategy: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/suicide-preventio...

Article posted on my 40th birthday :O

Happy birthday buddy :)

Thank you :)

I've had this happen to a couple friends. It seems to fit a common pattern and, as such, has a solution but I'm not going to talk about it online. Be open to breaking all the rules and rejecting everything you're told about how you should be.

As a fourtysomething man the reason is one of intent. I have no desire to kill myself, but I do know that if I chose suicide I would die.

So why does a fortysomething man have more intent?

They don't as such, but when they set out to die they manage to so. This is not a good outcome.

So the reason is not one of "intent", but of "effectiveness".

Well if I intend to do something then I do. I guess you could say I have learned to be effective with age.

Why do people suddenly care for others when they had enough of this shitty space rock? You gave no shits the last three decades. Given the rabbit-like pest that we are - why should you?

I want to end my life where and whenever it suits me. Hypocrites please stay away.

Because people DO care, but they generally don't show it much. Often it takes a shock like this for them to realize how much they actually do care.

It's easy to fall into the thought trap of "nobody cares", followed by "because there's no reason for them to care", to "because I'm / they're worthless", to "Nothing but parasites", to "We should all just go extinct."

We are all social beings, and deficiencies in social interaction can and do affect our psyche in very dramatic ways.

I would argue that if someone requires a shock to act like they care, then they are probably overestimating the amount they care. I don't say this to be a dick, but rather to point out that this particular argument sounds very hollow to a suicidal person. It's better not to use it. If the suicidal person is holding on because they believe that other people (mom, dad, etc.) care about them, this can make that caring seem trivial enough to stop considering.

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