Hello again friends!

Today I have decided to include a couple of articles I found.   These articles are both 4 -5 years old, but are still relevant for what is going on in today's world.

I hope you find them useful.

Men’s suicidal life 

By  Tom Golden    

https://www.avoiceformen.com/men/mens-issues/mens-suicidal-life-c-jt-i/

This video offers a great description of a basic thread of the MHRM and it does so in a very polished, eye catching and professional manner.  We have numerous youtube channels such as my own that have been doing videos on men’s issues for some time but this one stands out as being remarkably…well,  you watch it and add your own adjectives. I think it is perfect to send to people who are completely unaware of men’s issues in any way.

If they have an ounce of compassion they will be moved by what they see.

The vidoeographer of this wonderful piece is a man from India named Jerald Santhosh.  He works in motiongraphics, kinetic typography, and does posters, artwork and more. He is a part of the men’s movement in India and we welcome him to AVFM.  He is planning to open a web site and to do more videos so stay tuned and please do subscribe to his Youtube channel after you watch the video. –TG

Transcript of video:

Married men commit suicide at a higher rate in our society.

A married man lives his life supporting his wife and children.

When he faces abuse, we as society are indifferent to him.

A man is severely assaulted by his wife or girlfriend every 14.6 seconds.

When a man is battered by his spouse there is no shelter which would take him.

The government which should protect him, will imprison him even if he is falsely accused by his wife.

He will lose his job, and will be subjected to social shame.

Family courts incentivises his abuser by extorting money from him.

Divorce alienates him from his children, takes away his house, and his money. A man who has lost his children, house, and social image receives no help from the same government which he pays tax to.

All this helplessness leads to drug and alcohol abuse which also makes him depressed and suicidal.

This is a global phenomenon.Lists of various suicide statistics per year of men, which far exceeds women’s rates:

America 24,672 – 5950

India 63,343 – 31,921

Canada 2,989 – 901

Australia 1,727 – 546

UK 4,552 – 1,493

Russia 35,608 – 7,247

Lithuania 952 – 186

So many men are killing themselves every year..

What are we doing about it?

The Gender Inequality Of Suicide: Why Are Men At Such High Risk?

 By Alice G. Walton

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2012/09/24/the-gender-inequality-of-suicide-why-are-men-at-such-high-risk/#6068379b3ba8

Though mental health issues are less taboo than they were in the past, and certainly more people are getting treated for them (at least pharmaceutically), the suicide rate is still high – especially for men. The World Health Organization estimates that about one million people take their own lives each year, and this is not counting those who attempt it but are not “successful.” In just about every country, men commit suicide more frequently than women, which is intriguing since women typically have higher (at least, reported) rates of mental health disorders like depression. A new study looked at the factors that might explain why certain groups of men are so much more likely than women to take their own lives.

Certainly suicide is linked to mental health problems like depression and anxiety – it almost has to occur in their presence – but there are other factors involved. And it is these external factors that, according to the researchers, need some attention. The new study was commissioned by the organization Samaritans, and carried out by a team of researchers in Great Britain.

One of the risk factors for suicide in men seems to be middle age. Historically, younger men were at greater risk than older ones, but this has changed in recent decades. Now, middle-aged men experience the lowest levels of well-being and the highest suicide rates (especially if they are of lower socioeconomic class; more on this later). In fact, well-being for both sexes follows a U-shaped curve, with well-being bottoming out in the middle years.

For middle-aged men today, being in between two very different generations (“the prewar ‘silent’ and the post-war ‘me’ generation”) may make them feel more stuck. “Men currently in their mid-years are the ‘buffer’ generation – caught between the traditional silent, strong, austere masculinity of their fathers and the more progressive, open and individualistic generation of their sons. They do not know which of these ways of life and masculine cultures to follow.”

Middle age is also the time when the importance of long-term life decisions is clear: Making changes can come with a big cost, both financially and personally/socially, since doing so could lead to job loss, financial uncertainty, or on the personal front, a breakdown in marriage. Feeling boxed in could seriously compromise well-being.

The study found that the suicide rate was ten times higher in men of lower socioeconomic status than in affluent men. The link between suicide and unemployment has been known for some time, but the authors discuss the reasons why, beyond losing a job, socioeconomic class might affect suicide risk. One factor is the increasing “‘feminisation’ of employment (shift towards a more service-oriented economy),” which may cause men to feel like they have less room in the professional world. The authors write that “men in lower socioeconomic groups now have less access to jobs that allow for the expression of working-class masculinity, and have thus lost a source of masculine identity and ‘pride.’” Yet losing a job may still make men feel like a “double failure, since they are unable to meet two central demands of the masculine role: being employed; and ‘providing’ for the family.”

Another interesting finding is that while divorce and separation are linked to suicide risk in both sexes, divorced/separated men seem particularly vulnerable to suicidal “ideation” (thoughts and planning) and to suicide itself. This may make sense, since it’s been shown that men derive more mental and physical health benefits from marriage than do women (although it’s good for both sexes) – so the breakdown of a marriage could lead to more detrimental outcomes for men. That said, there’s still a lot of pressure on men to fill out the masculine husband role, whatever socioeconomic class one is in, and the reality is that today this classic role may be somewhat unrealistic. “There is a large and unbridgeable gap between the culturally authorised idea of ‘hegemonic masculinity’ and the reality of everyday survival for men in crisis,” write the authors. One way of taking back one’s own masculinity, they suggest, is to take one’s own life.

The reality is that there is a constellation of variables that all interplay, and can compound one another. Men of lower socioeconomic status may, for example, feel the breakdown of a relationship more, and conversely, financial problems can contribute to marital problems and pressures. When things break down for men, they really break down. The authors point out that there is too little known about the actual “psychological routes” to suicide for men – that is, once men are feeling the fallout of financial, professional, or personal problems, why do these problems end in suicide more frequently than women?

Part of it may be that men actually have a higher threshold for pain, which could, counterintuitively, lead to a greater risk for suicide, in volcano-like fashion. They may also may poorer decisions when under stress – and men who are unemployed may not come up with effective solutions to personal problems as well as their employed counterparts.

How to reduce the risk of suicides in middle-aged men (or any other demographic) is a question to which there aren’t many answers. The authors of the new study suggest one way may be to develop effective interventions for young men and boys at risk, since many of the patterns leading to suicide in middle age may begin during youth.

“It’s not acceptable for people in lower socioeconomic positions to be at so much higher risk than men in higher socioeconomic positions,” study author Stephen Platt told the Telegraph. “And we need that understanding to be very much a part of suicide prevention strategies and action and local and national level – and up to now, it’s not been.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/22/health/us-suicide-rate-surges-to-a-30-year-high.html

U.S. Suicide Rate Surges to a 30-Year High

By SABRINA TAVERNISEAPRIL 22, 2016

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WASHINGTON — Suicide in the United States has surged to the highest levels in nearly 30 years, a federal data analysis has found, with increases in every age group except older adults. The rise was particularly steep for women. It was also substantial among middle-aged Americans, sending a signal of deep anguish from a group whose suicide rates had been stable or falling since the 1950s.

The suicide rate for middle-aged women, ages 45 to 64, jumped by 63 percent over the period of the study, while it rose by 43 percent for men in that age range, the sharpest increase for males of any age. The overall suicide rate rose by 24 percent from 1999 to 2014, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, which released the study on Friday.

The increases were so widespread that they lifted the nation’s suicide rate to 13 per 100,000 people, the highest since 1986. The rate rose by 2 percent a year starting in 2006, double the annual rise in the earlier period of the study. In all, 42,773 people died from suicide in 2014, compared with 29,199 in 1999.

A Growing, Widespread Toll

From 1999 to 2014, suicide rates in the United States rose among most age groups. Men and women from 45 to 64 had a sharp increase. Rates fell among those age 75 and older.

40

suicides per

100,000 people

Age 75+

30

45–64

65-74

25-44

20

15-24

Men

Women

45–64

10

25-44

65-74

15-24

75+

10-14

10-14

1999

2014

1999

2014

Source: National Center for Health Statistics

By The New York Times

“It’s really stunning to see such a large increase in suicide rates affecting virtually every age group,” said Katherine Hempstead, senior adviser for health care at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, who has identified a link between suicides in middle age and rising rates of distress about jobs and personal finances.

Researchers also found an alarming increase among girls 10 to 14, whose suicide rate, while still very low, had tripled. The number of girls who killed themselves rose to 150 in 2014 from 50 in 1999. “This one certainly jumped out,” said Sally Curtin, a statistician at the center and an author of the report.

What to Do If You Need Help

The National Institute of Mental Healthrecommends this site. It also warns that reporting on suicide can lead to so-called suicide contagion, in which exposure to the mention of suicide within a person’s family, peer group or in the media can lead to an increase in suicides.

There are many groups that help people having suicidal thoughts. One, Crisis Text Line, inspired by teenagers’ attachment to texting but open to people of all ages, provides free assistance to anyone who texts “help” to 741-741.

If you prefer to talk on the phone, N.I.H. recommends the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

American Indians had the sharpest rise of all racial and ethnic groups, with rates rising by 89 percent for women and 38 percent for men. White middle-aged women had an increase of 80 percent.

Continue reading the main story

The rate declined for just one racial group: black men. And it declined for only one age group: men and women over 75.

The data analysis provided fresh evidence of suffering among white Americans. Recent research has highlighted the plight of less educated whites, showing surges in deaths from drug overdoses, suicides, liver disease and alcohol poisoning, particularly among those with a high school education or less. The new report did not break down suicide rates by education, but researchers who reviewed the analysis said the patterns in age and race were consistent with that recent research and painted a picture of desperation for many in American society.

“This is part of the larger emerging pattern of evidence of the links between poverty, hopelessness and health,” said Robert D. Putnam, a professor of public policy at Harvard and the author of “Our Kids,” an investigation of new class divisions in America.

The rise in suicide rates has happened slowly over many years. Federal health researchers said they chose 1999 as the start of the period they studied because it was a low point in the national suicide rate and they wanted to cover the full period of its recent sustained rise.

The federal health agency’s last major report on suicide, released in 2013, noted a sharp increase in suicide among 35- to 64-year-olds. But the rates have risen even more since then — up by 7 percent for the entire population since 2010, the end of the last study period — and federal researchers said they issued the new report to draw attention to the issue.

Policy makers say efforts to prevent suicide across the country are spotty. While some hospitals and health systems screen for suicidal thinking and operate good treatment programs, many do not.

“We have more and more effective treatments, but we have to figure out how to bake them into health care systems so they are used more automatically,” said Dr. Jane Pearson, chairwoman of the National Institute of Mental Health’s Suicide Research Consortium, which oversees the National Institutes of Health funding for suicide prevention research. “We’ve got bits and pieces, but we haven’t really put them all together yet.”

She noted that while N.I.H. funding for suicide prevention projects had been relatively flat — rising to $25 million in 2016 from $22 million in 2012 — it was a small fraction of funding for research of mental illnesses, including mood disorders like depression.

The new federal analysis noted that the methods of suicide were changing. About one in four suicides in 2014 involved suffocation, which includes hanging and strangulation, compared with fewer than one in five in 1999. Suffocation deaths are harder to prevent because nearly anyone has access to the means, Ms. Hempstead said. And while the share of suicides involving guns declined — guns went from being involved in 37 percent of female suicides to 31 percent, and from 62 percent to 55 percent for men — the total number of gun suicides increased..

The question of what has driven the increases is unresolved, leaving experts to muse on the reasons.

Julie Phillips, a professor of sociology at Rutgers who has studied suicide among middle-aged Americans, said social changes could be raising the risks. Marriage rates have declined, particularly among less educated Americans, while divorce rates have risen, leading to increased social isolation, she said. She calculated that in 2005, unmarried middle-aged men were 3.5 times more likely than married men to die from suicide, and their female counterparts were as much as 2.8 times more likely to kill themselves. The divorce rate has doubled for middle-aged and older adults since the 1990s, she said.

Disappointed expectations of social and economic well-being among less educated white men from the baby-boom generation may also be playing a role, she said. They grew up in an era that valued “masculinity and self-reliance” — characteristics that could get in the way of asking for help.

“It appears this group isn’t seeking help but rather turning to self-destructive means of dealing with their despair,” Professor Phillips said.

Another possible explanation: an economy that has eaten away at the prospects of families on the lower rungs of the income ladder.

Dr. Alex Crosby, an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said he had studied the association between economic downturns and suicide going back to the 1920s and found that suicide was highest when the economy was weak. One of the highest rates in the country’s modern history, he said, was in 1932, during the Great Depression, when the rate was 22.1 per 100,000, about 70 percent higher than in 2014.

“There was a consistent pattern,” he said, which held for all ages between 25 and 64. “When the economy got worse, suicides went up, and when it got better, they went down.”

But other experts pointed out that the unemployment rate had been declining in the latter period of the study, and questioned how important the economy was to suicide.

The gap in suicide rates for men and women has narrowed because women’s rates are increasing faster than men’s. But men still kill themselves at a rate 3.6 times that of women. Though suicide rates for older adults fell over the period of the study, men over 75 still have the highest suicide rate of any age group — 38.8 per 100,000 in 2014, compared with just four per 100,000 for their female counterparts.

I want to thank the people out there writing these articles for focusing on an issue that for many of us as men goes unnoticed.

As Always,

Ali