Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the US and causes more deaths than breast cancer (45K vs 40K) and over 6x deaths from HIV (~7K). 90% of suicides are related to mental illness.<p>It also takes younger lives than other disease. When combined with deaths due to "poisoning" (generally due to heroin / opioid overdose), suicide + poisoning cause more lost years of life before age 75 than any other major disease reported by the CDC [1]<p>Imagine how many more people have attempted or considered suicide, and how depressed these people are, and how much lost productivity is and unhappiness is involved in this<p>Really tragic how little attention is paid to this<p>[1] <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus16.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus16.pdf</a>
This is a really difficult and emotional subject that will hit a nerve for a lot of people. I'm a woman and I am quite open about having attempted suicide in my teens and about ongoing struggles with being prone to being suicidal, though I don't really suffer depression. I don't think I'm really the right person to try to lead this discussion about male suicide, at least not today, not now.<p>But I will ask that people try to say something substantive, per HN guidelines. It's a hard subject that can easily go sideways and frequently does. That doesn't mean it has to.<p>I don't think it is really helpful to implore people to "get help" while making it clear you don't really want to talk about it in earnest here and now. Having spent a lot of time suicidal, my view is that "Well, yeah, sure. Everyone would like me to get better and most people don't want to deal with it. That feels to me like a very dismissive <i>not my problem, go get your broken self fixed, but don't bother me with it</i> kind of position."<p>I really rather dislike seeing comments of that sort.
It's a difficult subject. I've lost one close friend to suicide, and one acquaintance; I know a huge swathe of people who've suffered from depression and achieved varying levels of help for it.<p>From the comments in this thread already I don't think HN is really equipped to handle the conversation. I would say not only that if you're struggling, you should reach out, but that people should "reach in" more and check in on their friends, especially those who seem to be suffering in silence.
"At present, men account for 80 percent of all suicides." Yet, "There’s more funding on research into women’s mental health and the suicidality of women and in young people."
In my opinion it is very disingenuous to talk about suicide and ignore the medications these people were taking.<p>In many cases the medications have been reported to be correlated with a strong increase of suicidal tendencies when interrupted abruptly or without warning.<p>This is the case for some prescribed anxiolytics, and also for the drug Bourdain was allegedly taking to combat his tobacco addiction.
Tangential...<p>I'm still not ready to accept incels as people essentially needing assistance, but: <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/6/20/17314846/incel-support-group-therapy-black-pill-mental-health" rel="nofollow">https://www.vox.com/2018/6/20/17314846/incel-support-group-t...</a><p>I mean, if you react to depression with misogyny and by lashing out at women, I find it hard to pull up compassion for you, but at the same time, is this because our society is failing to <i>treat depression</i> or emotional damage properly ("getting sex for incels," via prostitution or whatever, is a complete non-starter -- the very last thing we need in our society is <i>more</i> impetus on women to just close your eyes and "do it")?
It took the death of someone catering to diversity, women and minorities to even bring this subject into any measure of media spotlight.<p>When you classify issues into "trendy" and "real", the disproportionate focus distribution between the two reveals a key metric of society.