Will Impoverished Baby Boomers Choose Suicide as a Retirement Plan

White Baby Boomers are killing themselves in greater numbers, sending America's suicide rate spiraling upward for the kickoff fourth dimension since the late 1990s, co-ordinate to a study released yesterday.

The American Journal of Preventative Medicine reveals that each twelvemonth between 1999 and 2005, the suicide rate lept past 3.9 per centum among white women aged 40 to 64, and by ii.7 percent among white men in the same age group—increases of 35 and 33 percent, respectively. Suicide in other groups decreased or remained steady, prompting one of the written report's co-authors to characterization middle-anile whites "a new high-risk group."

I am now condign one of the invisible people and know that 3 weeks from now I have to walk out this front door and just go along on walking.

Why are Boomers taking their lives? The news reports cite several possibilities: deteriorating admission to mental wellness intendance, higher rates of prescription drug use, and more reluctance amidst women to undergo hormone replacement therapy during menopause. But online, in feedback sections and message boards, many Boomers have their own theories: outsourced jobs, too much atheism, piling debt, and being forced to care for their elderly parents. Here are a few of their reactions to the study, culled from diverse online forums.

Posted by: American | Oct 21, 2008 3:34:10 AM

I have been because suicide for the last four years. Each time I go closer to it, simply pull back because I fearfulness for what I would be leaving my married woman. I don't take any savings and no retirement. I have tried repeatedly to get a job with the Land, where I only need 2 years to belong, merely to no avail. I'chiliad 56 years old and have been a lawyer for 25+ years. Great experience in the real earth. I don't believe there is a god and if there is ane, it has completely forgotten us (but again, my scientific mind makes it impossible for me to believe that there is a god.) This state is going to vote for another Republican president (and stooge VP) and nosotros'll take 4 + years of fighting and higher deficits. At that place'south no indicate.

Posted by: Anonymous | Oct 21, 2008 8:37:44 PM

I am 40 white college educated cube domicile male. I feel that no i is concerned about me. The GOP bails out the ultra rich, the Dems bail out the poor. The corporation that I give my creativity and passion wants to downwards size me and transport my job to India or China.

I try and practise the correct things (pay my taxes, live within my means, support my family, save for retirement, protect the surroundings, piece of work out and consume healthy) but the bond out nation we live in will take from me and give to the irresponsible sooner or later. When they exercise it it will be in the name of "fairness"

There are groups to protect women's rights, blackness's rights, hispanics rights, immigrants rights, homosexual rights, etc. Groups made up of white guys are considered racist. The policies of our government and the politically correct society are a constant weight on my shoulders burdensome me into the footing and I have no hope for the futurity.

I am non suicidal. Only when my world I have worked and then difficult to create comes crashing down, I wouldn't be surprised if that changed.

Posted by: JOE | Oct 21, 2008 11:37:18 AM

I hateful no disrespect, but I would think a high-tech economic system that blurs the lines between work and dwelling life can have an agin impact. Unfortunately, the American economy is repose simply becoming so competitive it is morphing into a mental health crunch. Many of the low-stress jobs Americans could rely on in the 50s' and 60s' left the American economic system a long fourth dimension ago and we're starting to pay the price so many years after. Drug abuse, alcohol abuse, and an assortment of mental wellness disorders are related to a high-stress lifestyle.

Posted past: Ella | October 21, 2008 12:12:28 PM

Perchance the reason for the immense depression is the fact that these men and women have worked their butts off, and for what? For the regime to steal coin from you and requite it to others, for saving all your money and then losing it, for struggling to pay for your kids to go to college because they don't belong to a special interest group where they can go a scholarship or loan? For being forehead-beaten because they are perceived every bit "rich", for entering professions which were once respected and so being verbally driveling by jealous non-achievers? For constantly being told past the media that those who earn a decent living are the common human being's enemy, and that driving a BMW or Mercedes equals chirapsia seals to death or drowning babies? Yous're supposed to bear the responsiblity, but are not supposed to be rewarded. What IS the point of living?

Posted by: mset | Oct 21, 2008 12:40:27 PM

Don't overlook the effect that elderly parents take on their middle-aged children. With the elderly insisting they will finish their lives at home, blithely bold their children will be their "assisted living" staff, it's a draining brunt. As life expectancy increases, a middle-anile person tin can expect to go a caretaker for a senior who becomes increasingly debilitated and demanding.

Throw in one or two adult children who return home due to economic distress (no matter how considerate they try to be) and information technology'southward a recipe for stress and despair.

Being an empty-nester is condign a affair of the past. Sometimes I retrieve nosotros should consider rationing medical benefits later on age 75 so we tin can get out a little Social Security for the next generation.

Posted by: HWILL2000 | 11:02 PM October 22 2008

I call back that club is a role of the reason for women (in general) getting depressed and despondant. I have been unmarried for 4 years now (I'm 41) and find that men my age want someone who is a Barbie doll. (fifty-fifty if they nowhere near resemble Ken). I also accept chemical depression and accept been on the border of suicide more times than I tin count. And so for those who just don't go it...........y'all never volition

Posted by: Marcygirl | 10:00 AM October 21 2008

…Even though I worked since I was 14, it wasn't at the same job and take no retirement, so I was forced to realize that I'd probably accept to work until I die. And that was doable until I got caught in the economic crash and not merely lost my home, merely my job was in real manor and I lost my job. So I hitting a brick wall with medical issues and, now, at 58 years old I'g 3 weeks away from being evicted from my rental, with no place to go, a land, canton, and federal system that has no suggestions for people like me and the but answers I receive are "I don't know, nosotros take senior housing, but there'southward a two year waiting list". I am now becoming one of the invisible people and know that three weeks from now I take to walk out this front door and just keep on walking.

Posted past: Zelda 568 | 11:04 AM Oct 21 2008

I work in healthcare, and I encounter on many charts of women raising children lists of antidepressants and antianxiety meds. My observation is that a high percentage of these women are college educated but they have chosen to stay at home with kids. Working moms and women without kids dont seem to exist taking these meds to the same degree.

Posted by: Raejeanowl | 12:33 PM Oct 21 2008

Whatever you think is middle-aged, I believe the entire score between xl-60 is a dangerous time for women. You are likely to still accept child-rearing responsibilities while starting to assume caregiver duties for elders. You will be transitioning through menopause and you will accept all of the health, sexual and cosmetic problems related to aging. Younger people will begin to ignore you or dismiss you (act like you are nonexistent). Your partner may begin to have health and sexual issues. And at work, the newly minted graduates are chomping at the bit for your job, willing to do information technology for much less, and resist the suggestion that they may need to larn more than.Other than that, what's to be depressed about? As it's been said, gettin' old own't for sissies.

Posted past: KPPGGA | 05:36 PM Oct 21 2008

I'g 55, been unemployed for over a year, accept used up my savings and accept to depend on my sister to assistance me out. I tin can't even get a job at Home Depot. In that location is not a 24-hour interval that goes by that I don't think about doing away with myself. I accept a lot to offer an employer, difficult worker, defended, merely no i volition fifty-fifty requite me a adventure.

Posted by: LowBug | 02:42 PM Oct 21 2008

In one case my duties as the doting daughter are complete, I will return to my dwelling 400 miles away, darken every window, stock up on my wine, resume smoking and let nature runs its class, hoping Death won't be long coming for me to rejoin my tardily hubby. He was my sanctuary, my harbor in the storm. His strength fabricated me safe from this earth and now, this world is a stranger to me.

Posted past: evelyna13a3 | 09:22 AMOct 21 2008

But middle aged men are very close to women in the suicide numbers. The older men cannot get younger women unless they have drugs and money. I think information technology has to practice more than with limited chore opportunities and such. People get tired of applying for menial jobs and the changes. Tired of dealing with the health care system etc. Women practice not feel discarded unless they let themselves to be treated this manner. The organisation makes it hard for people and I call back people should not go so like shooting fish in a barrel but suck more out of the system.

Posted past: TOberg6188 | ten:10 AMOct 21 2008

evelyna13a3, I so agree with yous. You work hard all of your life and succeed in a career only to have information technology somehow eliminated past the economy, then go look for a job. The young people who interview us nearly snarl at our historic period. We are "manner old" in their stance, and cannot not possibly be open minded, gear up to learn, exist void of a know information technology all mental attitude. Over and over once again, my hubby and I have not been given a run a risk to perform, and information technology is depressing. We even considered a double suicide when nosotros couldn't brand our house payments. Nosotros knew nosotros would be better off dead than alive. Give thanks GOD we didn't do it. Only this society where young placement and HR workers discriminate and therefore eliminate is pervasive and it is a big factor in us middle aged people'due south depression. (Chemical compound that with our age related medical factors - try dealing with menopause and erectile dysfunction through all of this).

Posted by: Jamcarr3 | 02:14 PMOct 21 2008

i as male take the thoughts i lost my soul mate of over thirty years to cancer 3 years ago and hardly a day goes by that i do not think about it thank you to no pay life insurance companies and crooked banks whom could care less and washington whom does nothing. grand coulee keeps looking better all the time at least i would be with real animals.

Posted by: Sue Leitner | October 22, 2008 one:06 AM

Here's a focus group of one:

I am 52 years sometime, with a thirty-twelvemonth history of low and chronic pain (I was diagnosed with severe fibromyalgia in 1988, the year subsequently they came up with that diagnosis), and a 25-year history of managing pretty well despite all that.

As I become increasingly no longer a cute young thing, and no longer have the sheer energy to overcome the pain, I find myself increasingly unemployable. I am not employable, in large part, because my health bug brand me uninsurable.

I take been recently diagnosed with narrow bending glaucoma in both optics. That will toll $i,000 plus 20% of God knows what price. I need to have two dental crowns replaced, which will price me another $1,000. I cannot concentrate long enough to write a blog post. I lock my keys in my car, do not recognize the faces of people I spent several hours with a few days earlier, and accept left my purse in shopping carts twice in the past six months. I am scheduled for neuropsychological testing that will toll $ii,600, and is likely going to be dismissed by my health insurance company as "investigative or experimental."

If my body were a automobile, I would not bother trying to get any merchandise-in value on a new 1 (although I take fabricated arrangements to salvage annihilation useful when I do become.) If I were a family pet in this condititon, I would euthanise the pet.

I am 52, far, far, away from Medicare or the ability to retire. I applied for Social Security Disability over a twelvemonth ago, was refused and am waiting for an appeal. Whatsoever work that I am able to find weakens that entreatment.

I am at the point where, each twenty-four hour period, I ask myself how much longer I am going to withstand the pain, and whether I should brunt my family with the noesis that I am seriously considering suicide and so that I don't burden them with overwhelming medical expenses. That knowledge would fix off a whole new pour of medical expenses.

If I practice commit suicide, it will be a dandy surprise to many, because I await pretty normal.

Posted by: A deadbeat dad | October 22, 2008 1:twoscore AM

To those of us in this demographic, the answer is elementary.

For men, the biggest gene in disabling low and suicide is divorce. The laws surrounding divorce, child support and taxes are a burdensome emotional & financial brunt. Most men finds themselves cut off from their kids, and thrown 2 steps down the economical ladder.

This is not rocket science, and the causes result from actually draconian public policy, where parasites in the hierarchy and legal fields are profiting at the expense of people'south lives.

giesenunchip.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-are-more-boomers-killing-themselves

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