The Other Mental Health Crisis – Older Men

According to this article, we are overlooking the demographic most at risk for suicide:

The people most at risk from suicide aren’t those in crisis in adolescence or midlife, but men age 75 and older. Some 38.2 deaths per 100,000 among men age 75 to 84 are by suicide, which increases to 55.7 among those over 85, according to data from CDC — more than 16 times the suicide rate for women in the same age group. Researchers are calling for a public health effort, much like the one to treat youth mental health, to help address suicide in older men.

Several risk factors are at play. Many of them, in my opinion, are societal.

What do we know about older men?

• They’ve likely retired from work, which has been their core identity in our society.
• They are unlikely to have a solid support network.
• They are very likely to be dealing with pain or disease.
• These medical issues become increasingly expensive with each passing year.
• They may require someone to assist them, something they have been told makes them weak.
• They have easy access to guns.

Add it all up, and it’s no wonder the numbers are so high.

What do we do about it? Not to sound too radical, but I think the steps to address this are the opposite of what we are currently doing.

• Create a society that values all contributions to the community in addition to work. Imagine a world where we could learn history from people who lived it through their shared stories, or one where older men could contribute writing and art to society and see it valued as highly as the next technological tool.
• Create community spaces accessible to all.
• Make healthcare available and affordable for everyone.
• Stop stigmatizing men by suggesting that “real” men don’t need assistance. We all do at various times in life!
• Make guns more difficult to get and easier to remove from people at risk.

I don’t think we are on a path to create that world. I think a world where human beings are valued based on how much money they make and how “strong” they are does not even care if older men are lost. They feel like a burden because society treats them like one. How much could they contribute to our community if we didn’t think that way? If we had a community that involved them instead of isolating them, and a healthcare system that didn’t cause people to go bankrupt because they grew old and became sick, perhaps we’d find out.