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Ready or not, here I come, you cant hide

You can add the internet to the list too. Recent story http://www.prestontoday.net/ViewArticle.aspx?Sec...

My Life Is Beautiful..my spellings atrochous

I imagine that steady increase in male suicides is down to several factors.

Nowadays it's a lot more common for relationships to break up and so there are more single people around.I seem to remember studies from several years ago which showed that being in a stable relationship, marriage in particular, offered men some protection from depression and suicide (conversely marriage raised women's risk).

Also too, while it may not be PC to say so, men have lost a long identified with role too, as provider, head of the household and decision maker.So there's no doubt some sense of loss for many men, who as yet don't seem to have found a replacement for that role.Even younger men, who have known nothing else but the way the world is now, still have thousands of years of evolution in their dna and that can't be immediately swept aside in a few generations.

On that note men are now doing more of what was traditionally seen as "women's work" without really having had the time, speaking evolutionary wise, to develop the new skills needed for such jobs.

We are encouraging ambiguity about masculinity and so men don't seem to have a firmly established and clearly defined place in this culture right now.That no doubt leads to a loss of direction and sense of purpose in life for many.

Finally while there's no way to tell with any certainty I would hazard a guess that suicides were previously covered up more than today and put down to alternative causes (due to more shame being associated with suicide in the past).

The media can't be blamed because it's always supported the image of the strong silent type of men anyway.

I'm not so convinced that life is getting better for women though, if you look at the whole picture. Womens rates of what used to be thought of as mens illnesses (such as stroke, heart disease etc) are all increasing considerably.So perhaps each sex is under more stress than previous generations, but respond to it differently?

All of the above is written from an incredibly general point of view and without any thought to other influences such as bdsm.

"Shame is a lie someone told you about yourself".

There seems to be a suggestion that women are more likely to tell someone how they are feeling. Sadly, i doubt there are many people who don't tell or hint to anyone at all which makes it more depressing since telling someone is clearly a sign for help that doesn't necessarily get heeded.

I've been told that apparently lots of young men possess a 'suicide gene' that kicks in during the early 20s. I admit I'm always dubious when people say things like that, blaming genes but that's what a medical person told me this. She indicated anyway, that men with this gene are way more likely to commit suicide than anyone else and sometimes there may not even be an apparent reason, more an internal struggle.

As for why male suicides are on the rise compared to women...i don't really have any answer at all. It's possible to blame society and loss of male roles etc but largely that seems to make little sense to me. I haven't met any man that's admitted to feeling lesser in any way because of changing gender roles. Having said that there is a larger rate of suicides among homosexual people so I could be wrong here and to be fair i don't often go around asking men such questions.

Perhaps though, suicide has increased in recent years due to the fact there is much less social stigma attached to it. How much popular music has suicidal themes? (personally i'd like to ban Muse - harsh but i would) Suicide and death is practically cool. Mysterious and cool. Total bollucks but perhaps suicidal people exposed to these themes/influences and tolerance/admiration start to believe that it isn't a bad thing. The church largely doesn't care if someone commits suicide now, they'll still bury you in sacred ground and pray for your soul, whereas before you would have been condemned to hell. Suicide is a crime but what does that matter if you are dead? How many people say 'oh i want to top myself' not meaning it but selfishly knowing they'll only meet a kind of horrified but awed sympathy and attention? I'm sorry, i'm ranting now.

Or perhaps...(i will stop soon i promise) it's because drinking to get drunk and doing drugs is also more acceptable in recent decades and a large proportion of suicides occur under the influence of these things.

I'm sorry, i've thought about this loads, but I just don't know and to go into it properly would take forever so I'll stop there.

No matter how bad you think things are, they're worse and you're just not paranoid enough to see it.

I would suggest that you take a look into what a coroner considers a suicidal death... despite it being clear it was a suicide, there has to be certain criterior met before it goes down on a death certificate.

I suspect that around the 1950's 1960's suicide was such a taboo subject that maybe the records were not recorded as they should have been... to ensure a nice christian burial.... im not so sure that we can really look into why things in suicide rates have changed, when the figures that we have available to us are so blatently biased.

~* If you never try anything new, you'll miss out on so many of life's great disappointments! *~

Edited 20 Feb 08, 12:52 AM by Diablos_patience

It depends on the statistic you look at. Some suicide statistics also include deaths where there was an open verdict recorded. However, I think the influence of religion on these stats does make it difficult to take a longer-term perspective on rates of suicide and the multiple factors that effect them.