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The New York Post reports:
“About 49,500 people took their own lives last year in the U.S., the highest number ever, according to new government data posted Thursday.
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which posted the numbers, has not yet calculated a suicide rate for the year, but available data suggests suicides are more common in the U.S. than at any time since the dawn of World War II…
“The largest increases were seen in older adults.
“Deaths rose nearly 7% in people ages 45 to 64, and more than 8% in people 65 and older…
“Suicides in adults ages 25 to 44 grew by about 1%.
“The new data indicates that suicide became the second leading cause of death in that age group in 2022, up from No. 4 in 2021.”
So, of course, the question any American should ask is: Why?
The quoted article cites the following reasons, as given by suicide experts: “higher rates of depression,” “limited availability of mental health services” and “the growing availability of guns.”
While all three may well be factors, I do not believe these are the primary reasons for the increase in suicides.
Let’s take each one:
“Higher rates of depression.”
Since we can assume that happy people do not kill themselves, we all assume that as the number of depressed people increases, so will the number of suicides. Therefore, “higher rates of depression” explains nothing. All it does is kick the can down the road. It would be like saying that more people are being killed by drunk drivers because more people are getting drunk. That’s true, but it doesn’t answer the relevant question: Why are so many more Americans getting drunk? Similarly, “higher rates of depression” only raises the more important question: Why are so many more Americans depressed?
“Limited availability of mental health services.”
This, too, may be true. But, like “higher rates of depression,” this answer avoids the question it raises: Why are so many more Americans in need of mental health services?
“The growing availability of guns.”
Undoubtedly, easy access to a gun makes suicide more probable. Shooting oneself may be the quickest and most likely to be painless way of committing suicide. But, again, this is hardly an explanation. Guns were ubiquitous in American life 10, 25, and 50 years ago. Yet, the suicide rate was always lower.
I would like to offer two other explanations.
No. 1: Loneliness
More Americans are living alone than at any time in American history. And not only older Americans. Twenty-five percent of all Americans aged 40 have never been married, by far the highest percentage of never-married people at age 40 in American history.
In addition, there are fewer associations than ever. Already in the 1990s, Robert Putnam wrote his classic book, “Bowling Alone,” which described the decline of clubs, associations, study groups and even bowling leagues — the decline of what he called “social capital.”
When I was a child, my mother was a member of the synagogue sisterhood; my father was a member of the synagogue brotherhood and of the synagogue’s board of directors. Every other week, my parents met with others, in one another’s homes, in a “study group.” Every Saturday, they attended synagogue, which was as much a social occasion — which was a good thing — as a religious one. And every Saturday afternoon my parents’ friends came to our home for a late-afternoon meal.
Many Christians, of course, had a similarly rich social life rooted in religion.
After the 1960s, almost everything changed. The spoiled and arrogant baby-boomer generation rejected almost everything that made life meaningful.
Many came to hold their parents in contempt. They, after all, went to college, and therefore believed they understood life much better than their less formally educated parents.
Women no longer believed they needed a man. As the infamous feminist saying put it, “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.” Marriage and family became less and less important. Women were brainwashed into believing they could enjoy sex with no commitment as much as men could. And so began the downward spiral of women’s happiness. Today, more young women are depressed than at any time since such data began to be measured.
Meanwhile about 7 million physically healthy men between the ages of 25 and 54 have opted out of both work and marriage.
In other words, almost every institution that provided companionship — marriage, children, church, service clubs (Rotary, Kiwanis, Lions, etc.) — has been in decline.
No. 2: Loss of Meaning
Add to this an ever-increasing loss of meaning.
Aside from food, the greatest human need is for meaning. It is even greater than the need for sex. People who have sex but lack meaning are not happy people, while most people who lack sex but have meaning are happy.
The boomer generation did its damage here, too. It disposed of virtually every institution that gave most Americans meaning — the most important being marriage and the nuclear family, religion and patriotism. Beginning in the 1960s and continuing to this day, all were dispensed with. The very term, “God and Country,” which provided every generation of Americans with deep meaning, came to be regarded as foolish and even quasi-fascistic. God and religion were for simpletons, and how could one be patriotic when one’s country was essentially racist, unequal, chauvinist, imperialist, capitalist and patriarchal?
So long as the ideological heirs of the 1960s conduct these studies, provide the reasons, and offer their solutions — more mental health professionals and fewer guns — things will only get worse. And more Americans will kill themselves.
There is another issue you may not be fully aware of but you need to be as does everyone else. Current training of mental health professionals as well as their and guidelines lean heavily toward using sessions for critical race theory and gender ideology. For example, a depressed white man, will be asked to recognize his white privilege and atone. Obviously, this changes treatment into advocacy. which doesn’t address the patient’s needs. Sone of this occurs in physical medicine as well.
It is harmful. There is pushback to this approach by some mental health practitioners and academics in the UK. But so far, almost none in the US.
So, unless the depressed person lucks into a non-“woke” professional, they may be denied appropriate treatment even if they find an appointment. And yes, since Covid lockdowns and the many losses of life associated with Covid infection, especially among the older people, mental health is overwhelmed and waitlists for appointments can be long.
You are right about uk therapists they are pushing back, a friend is a professional therapist.
You also missed the massive increase in sudden deaths caused by the vaccine which nobody who submitted to the pressure from the World pHarma Organisation wants to admit.
A lot of so called ”depressed folk” have simply failed to Grow Up
Yes, absolutely!
1 Corinthians 15:19
King James Version
19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.
Read full chapter
Articles like this are why Dennis Prager is one of our nation’s great intellectuals.
Why, you wouldn’t be Fielding Melish, would you?
Take away God and their is no innate meaning in life, so the Left have created their own substitute secular religion of utopia building as it’s the natural religious impulse shoe horned into secular ”sacred causes” …to crusade against Homophobia, Mysogyny and racism with the added ”climate change emergency’ to give added gravitas … they are burning with the zeal of the converted
The heirs of Ayers . . .
Clever, and quite true.
Another factor is the loss of hope.
Even amidst the turmoil of the 1960s and 1970s, people on all sides had hope that there would be progress and things would get better.
Today, there is no hope for a better future—we are told that climate change and/or COVID will kill us all unless we accept a diminished standard of living and fewer personal freedoms—you will own nothing, eat bugs, live in a 15-minute city, and be happy with that.
We are told that the West is responsible for all the world’s problems because it is colonialist and imperialist, that white, Judeo-Christian, straight, middle and upper class men are evil, or necessarily because of what they’ve done, but who they are.
We are told that this life is all there is and that when you die you’re dead, and that’s it.
So you can see why hope is in short supply.
I think you’ve hit on it. KGB defector Yuri Bezmanov spoke in the 1980s of the KGB focusing more on demoralizing the West than it did on intelligence collection. Even though the KGB is gone, the memory lingers on and its destabilizing efforts have been continued by our resident Leftists who have been relentless in their criticism of the West, the U.S., white people, our history, institutions, and values for decades. Certainly, this must contribute to depression and resultant suicides.
The KGB is gone but its toxic legacy lives on. As does even Lenin, now nothing but a wax figure in its beautiful Kremlin tomb and a soul in eternal torment. Lenin was the inspiration and continued support of the CPUSA, founded in Chicago in 1920 or 21 (depending on which account you read), even before he consolidated his hold on Russia in its civil war. He knew that the only country that could threaten his envisioned Soviet Union was a strong, predominantly Christian and largely religious US. He was determined to destroy it as soon as he could, and planted the seeds early. When the nascent USSR did not have cash to send to support its American baby, they sent icons and jewelry, looted from churches, and the middle and upper class ladies who were condemned to poverty or worse, to the gulag or summary execution.
V. I. Lenin was arguably one of the most evil men to hold power in the bloody twentieth century, and he was out to get our country. See the 45 goals of communism for the West if you doubt me.
The American Communists set up the Council on Foreign Relations to brainwash corporate and governmental types. It was founded in 1921, as well. Many famous, more at infamous, members include the Clintons, Kissinger, Soros, Biden, et al.
It doesn’t surprise me that the expert opinions about why suicide rates are high are mostly addressing the symptoms and not the cause. Why?
It’s simple. To address the cause of depression would mean to admit that societal pressures created by western cultures, woke-ness, environmentalism, anti-religion are to blame.
There isn’t a big enough supply of therapists, anti-depressant drugs to treat the symptoms of a woke society… only returning to traditional values can do that.
People need to look around them and realize that they are too blessed to be stressed — or depressed. Got a roof over your head? Got pretty much enough to eat? Got shoes on your feet that keep out the snow? Got a living parent, or even good memories of deceased ones? You’re far too blessed to be depressed, and since many of us have a whole lot more than that, well, we ought to be pretty damned happy.
In Canada “suicide by State” is the third leading cause of death, it is called ” MAID service ” . Suicide hotlines are for booking appointments. Sick, products of Population Bomb mentality.
American Dream unattainable
Opioids
Onslaught of Ads
Street thugs
Double digit inflation
Indoctrination of school children
Open borders
Democrat corruption
Election fraud
Number of Karens rising exponentially
Let’s not forget the inflation.
Cost of living has doubled.
Older people see homelessness in the future instead of a minimalist retirement.
Virtually all of our social pathology comes from the left. For additional insight look at Mark Tapson’s article today on FrontPageMag (Monday, Aug. 21, 2023 “The Gender Revolution Dehumanizing Our Kids”
Among the new “genders” are …
Gender fluid, Gender smoothies, Gender hybrids, Gender Prius, Gender minotaur, Gender-by-season, Gender-by-location, Genderqueer youth, Protogay, Gender Tootsie Roll Pops, gender-ambidextrous, and gender Tesla. There are more coming.
Make folks (including children) this mixed up about sex and you’ll suicides … lots of them.
“Virtually all of our social pathology comes from the left.”
That’s correct.
Modern leftists are a re-incarnation of the ancient pagan barbarians and their cults to the gods.
Moloch, Baal, Ishtar etc. were the gods Moses warned the people against.
They all demanded human sacrifice.
The problem is The Pusher. Drugs to make you happy do not work. They add to your problems but help pay for the beach house of your MD. If you have time to be depressed go outside and weed your garden after you run 5 miles.
Dennis, When the “intellects” on the Supreme Court in 1962, devoid of wisdom, thumbed their nose at GOD and removed prayer from our schools, our decline began.
The Jab. Besides the spike proteins in the brains of many people which impair cognitive functions, many people who got the jab suffer from horrendous and permanent debilitating side effects.
“Suicidalism” is the term I use regarding modern culture.
When a civilization has reached the end of its lifespan it will commit suicide if not destroyed by outside forces.
Suicidalism is the process by which a culture becomes an ANTI-culture.
ALL of the institutions of the West are collapsing due to the suicidal impulse.
Moses’ last address to the people in the Book of Deuteronomy before he died was to reject suicidalism.
All of the pagan gods of Canaan had a dark, self-destructive ethic.
“Today I set before you……..the blessing and the curse. Choose life so that you and your descendants might live.”
Just like the ancient Hebrews rejected Moses’ warning…………so have modern Americans.
Social organizations that instilled virtues for positive attitudes, productive interests, and a sense of stewardship for nature and community among our youth were the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and Campfire Girls.
Elementary school had song books for every grade level when I was growing up as a baby boomer. Students learned the words for patriotic songs, Christmas and Hanukkah music, spirituals, folk songs and lyrics to Sidewalks of New York, Red River Valley, Clementine, Swanee River, Shine on Harvest Moon… even if you forget the words years later you could whistle or hum a melody. Research shows how therapeutic music is because it incorporates areas of the brain for memory, motor function, speech and hearing.
It would seem this aspect of today’s culture is more focussed on beats and rhythms than melody with meaningful or fanciful lyrics. The music of the last century gets little exposure. Television variety shows were a feature of the viewing schedule… Perry Como, Andy Williams, Dina Shore, Dean Martin (Saturday night Lawrence Welk… who didn’t like the Lennon Sisters? And the King Sisters had a show)… they had guest stars singing standards of Gershwin, Berlin, Mercer, Porter. They were our parents’ generation… those performers maybe provided a sense of stability. Later there was Sonny & Cher, Donny & Marie, Barbara Mandrel, Captain & Tennille and specials that capitalized on entertainment. Reality shows and crime series are depressing!