Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Veneration and Vulnerability: Suicide in the Midst of Prosperity
Man does not live by bread alone. As bread was being earned at a record clip, and more people got off the dole, more people in their prime years cut their own lives short. Reflecting back on the U.S. military’s Herculean effort to end suicide in the service, an unwon battle, I am painfully aware there is no clear solution, no magic pill or words. And. I wonder if our changing societal habits and beliefs make vulnerable people more vulnerable.
2017 brought unbroken good economic news, and not just for stockholders. President Trump repeated at every occasion the good news for everyone, including demographic groups who had been lagging in employment. Wages started to rise. And in the midst of all this, the suicide rate increased to a 50-year peak.
[I]t’s deaths in younger age groups — particularly middle-aged people — that have had the largest impact on calculations of life expectancy, experts said.
[…]
The suicide death rate last year was the highest it’s been in at least 50 years, according to U.S. government records. There were more than 47,000 suicides, up from a little under 45,000 the year before.
The alarm was sounded by the CDC Director.
CDC Director’s Media Statement on U.S. Life Expectancy
For Immediate Release: Thursday, November 29, 2018
Contact: Media Relations,
(404) 639-3286“The latest CDC data show that the U.S. life expectancy has declined over the past few years. Tragically, this troubling trend is largely driven by deaths from drug overdose and suicide. Life expectancy gives us a snapshot of the Nation’s overall health and these sobering statistics are a wakeup call that we are losing too many Americans, too early and too often, to conditions that are preventable. CDC is committed to putting science into action to protect U.S. health, but we must all work together to reverse this trend and help ensure that all Americans live longer and healthier lives.”
— Robert R. Redfield, M.D., CDC Director
Consider this from Mayo Clinic’s advice on suicide and suicidal thoughts:
Suicidal thoughts have many causes. Most often, suicidal thoughts are the result of feeling like you can’t cope when you’re faced with what seems to be an overwhelming life situation. If you don’t have hope for the future, you may mistakenly think suicide is a solution. You may experience a sort of tunnel vision, where in the middle of a crisis you believe suicide is the only way out.
There also may be a genetic link to suicide. People who complete suicide or who have suicidal thoughts or behavior are more likely to have a family history of suicide.
Genetics are a baseline, not a reasonable explanation for annual changes in suicide numbers. Something has yielded more hopelessness, in the midst of increasing material opportunity for all demographic groups. So, how might we decrease hopelessness, or increase hopefulness?
Might part of the problem, and so part of the solution, be changing societal habits and beliefs? Might we be seeing part of the outworking of an increasingly hedonistic culture, rejecting the restraints of higher callings and purposes? I do not mean to pitch religious service attendance, per se, as an answer—not when I have already raised the issue of “religious” leaders who invite our veneration of nothing above them, or our own egos.
If we are invited by every arm of society to do our own thing, to set our own standards (so long as we conform to the latest politically correct rules), why would we ever develop “respect or awe” for anyone beyond the image captured in our selfies? And if we are vulnerable and cannot see a basis in ourselves for hope, where are we inclined to turn? What if we have made a habit of contemplating an exemplary person, until we develop “respect or awe, inspired by [their] dignity, wisdom, dedication, or talent?”
Might we have more hope, inspired by our understanding of the object of our veneration? Might we see a path through life’s storms, already weathered by another? Would it help to have a point of reference, a measure of worth, beyond ourselves? This is in no way to discount medical treatment, nor to suggest we can just pray it away. Instead, as the Puritans recognized, the whole person must be considered in depression: spirit, mind, and body.
Though the disease begin in the mind and spirits, and the body be yet sound, yet physic [medication], even purging, often cureth it, though the patient say that drugs cannot cure souls, for the soul and body are wonderfully co-partners in their diseases and cure; and if we know not how it doth it, yet when experience telleth us that it doth it, we have reason to use such means.
Mind you, this wisdom was written in a day before any modern scientific understanding of the body and brain chemistry. Yet, it was sound, based on long, practical observation. With our modern understanding of medicine and the mind, we should appropriately address depression or other mental disorders that increase vulnerability to suicide, and challenge the record of elevating self and tearing down anything that would inspire us to look up beyond ourselves.
The economic picture continued to brighten through 2018, with rising employment and wages. How tragic it will be if 2018 suicides equal or surpass the 50-year high toll of 2017. What if there were more public and private encouragement, from however many sources, to lift our eyes up from ourselves, fixing them more on someone worthy of respect and awe, perhaps having overcome great adversity and suffering?
Published in Group Writing
In happier news, we have become incredibly good at treating PTSD with new drugs. And most importantly, it we are getting much better at treating the very difficult cases of PTSD.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/01/health/mdma-psychotherapy-ptsd-study/index.html
Aaand there ya go.
I agree with SECDEF Mattis: treated properly, the after-affects of combat psych trauma can be nurtured into a feature, not a bug. Hyper-vigilance, contained/constrained paranoia, and more appropriate endocrine responses to combat can make someone who is post-traumatic even more valuable to the team. The problem is, out the gate, the residue of trauma is categorized as a disorder. Helping troops realign the mind so that they understand it can be value added is and should be the goal.
The flip side of that coin is offering the appropriate aid to troops that have adapted to combat successfully to give them the tools to modify those upgrades to be able to reintegrate into civilian life when that time comes.
It’s not a sharp line. Everything has pros and cons. I think that there is far too much (encouraged) fraud, and I don’t want a leader who admits to being mentally ill.
:) I’m guessing this was sarcasm. They used to say similar things about LSD, just ask Timothy Leary.
No, I think he is genuinely hoping to bring the science and the peace.
Same team.
You might be right about the fraud.
The defrauders will always be among you.
Indeed, I sometimes think that is what separates us from the animals; we make systems and then find ways to bend them over and redact them.
Tell any soldier that the government isn’t doing enough for them in relationship to what they are tasked to do and you’re unlikely to get much resistance. It’s not so very far from there to finding ways to take advantage – and PTSD is a moving target. Even civilians are claiming to have it.
I recently heard Scott Adams and Jordan Peterson seperately voice the opinion that much of the depression, anxiety etc that people suffer from could be cured by a change / improvement in diet.
Thanks for the warning about MSG. I have one friend who suffers from depression and she’s the worst eater I know.
Whenever I was depressed in China, I liked eating spicy Sichuan food and it made me feel better. However, is your depressed friend eating badly because she is depressed or vice-a-versa. We need a alot more individualized science to figure this out.
True. Whenever I use MSG it makes me smile, because MSG is short for “Makes Stuff Good.”
Chicken or egg arguments just leave me feeling hungry. For MSG.
Someone once told me that it was LSD for the palate.
I’m inclined to believe it is bad mojo until science can demonstrate that it is poison.
Honestly, how much can you trust anything or anyone that has that many aliases?
Chalk it up to erosion of family, faith, and flag (patriotism), removing opportunities to sacrifice one’s self for others.
“Those who have nothing to die for have nothing to live for either.”
Remarkably succinct, yet insightful and covering quite a lot of ground.
I also retired in 2016. What you describe sounded more like pre-2010 or 2011, from what I was seeing. Hence the question, especially after I wrote in the OP:
As to your toughen-up suggestion, how does that test out in Japan or South Korea? Scanning the most recent suicide rates by county, I’m not seeing it.
First, @skyler and @cliffordbrown, here’s to the Inglorious Curmudgeons, Class of ’16.
I won’t address the fraud issue; different discourse. Although I will say that with my career track, the PTSD allocation was automatic, and you actually had to perform some bureaucratic reindeer games to get it taken off the VA rap sheet.
When I went on terminal leave, I did get a headshrinker–on the advice of a retired CSM who was both a hero of mine and a mentor. This guy had been there, done that; from Operation Eagle Claw, through the rescue of Kurt Muse, the Battle of Mogadishu, and the initial push into Afghanistan. CSM(R) said, “Brother, you’re about to have everything you ever knew jerked out from under you. Lay on an assist before you get out.”
MTF, I just realized the time…
wrt the bolded passage above, the mass-murdering of students and teachers has been pre-occurred to all of our children by way of Columbine, or possibly by the post office killing spree that gave us the ‘going postal’ phrase.
What was once unthinkable – in a literal sense – is now merely an extreme option.
I’ve had suicidal thoughts my entire life, since I was a young teenager. It is partly genetic inclination, partly a response to excluding eccentricities, partly bad habits of mind, and partly emotional exhaustion. Besides, I’m an artist!
A few things spared me that ultimate fruition of despair and self-hate. First is the knowledge and belief that my life does not belong to me. It belongs to my Creator. Second, because He is a good and loving God, and because He suffers greatly for us, I know at all times that there is value and hope in my life beyond my understanding; otherwise, He would end me. Third, I would not hurt my family that way.
It gets easier with age. Suicide isn’t just an impulse. It’s a decision. After you reaffirm a decision for so many years, deepening or hardening your reasons for doing so, and getting tired of the same ol’ rigmarole, the decision becomes instinctive and quicker. “Woe is me!” becomes “Blah, blah, blah… whatever” and onto a distraction.
So, yes, I would argue that beliefs are important and the God of Abraham is a strong defense against self-destruction.
It might also be helpful to de-emphasize feelings in our culture and restore public respect for hard discipline. It’s harder to follow self-absorbed fancies when work, projects, and social engagements demand your attention. The pursuit of happiness is a privilege, not a right.
As a Catholic, the story of Therese the Little Flower also helped. Her story echoes tales throughout the Bible and history. Essentially, it is a story of service through small and simple things.
A good life serves. But it needn’t make big waves. It needn’t be particularly impressive or memorable. Our small acts of kindness, productivity, and duty are worthwhile and enough to make one’s life a blessing to others.
One of my favorite films is The Remains of the Day because of its example of such humble, straightforward service. He doesn’t get the girl, but oh well… there are no promises in life.
On the other hand, if you happen to get a chance to be the Duke or John McClane for a day, blow it up!
Please forgive me this brief piggy-backing, but do you suppose that kids who shoot up schools are at least in part seeking their own deaths either through police or through making their futures so bleak that they will have the will to kill themselves (they already have the means)?
They are living fantasies. I don’t mean that they imagine their massacres great accomplishments or imagine themselves heroes, though some might. I mean only that they are imposing wild impulses of imagination onto their real environments. It is the typical temporary insanity of pubescent teenagers as filtered through atypical minds and inspiration by vile fiction in movies, novels, and games. If suicide-by-cops ends the fantasy, it is just one part of the mental story.
I wrote once before about an extraordinary episode during my teenage years that could have landed me in prison. Without getting into details, I was fortunate that a sympathetic school counselor understood that I was simply acting out fantasies without thought to real consequences — like any teenager — but with an abnormal imagination and extraordinary powers of persuasion. Twice, she had to save me from expulsion. At least one could have gotten people seriously injured.
I suppose for every news-breaking epic tragedy, there are probably dozens of teenagers and adults for whom suicide is likewise part of some grim fantasy without deep or prolonged reflection on real consequences. Teenagers don’t understand Romeo and Juliet as elder adults do. Though both see tragedy, kids see heroism where elders see brutal waste and foolishness. Suck it up, Romeo!
R & J is lurid and sensationalist.
The excellent film “Wit” portrays how it is to live without family when the dirt hits the fan. While a woman tends to her new arrivals, changing diapers and wishing for adult conversation, she may descend into wishes she had pursued a more academic life. Or she may be wishing she had not decided to be a stay at home mother.
But in the end, family is there for you while your career colleagues may not be.
We as a society need to come together to realize that Romeo and Juliet is a dumb story, if we interpret the protagonists as heroes.
Although modelled on “R & J,” West Side Story had a better plot line, as the way Tony met his demise had to do with the prejudices and violence of the gang lifestyle. So I found myself a lot sadder over that death than the self inflicted deaths in Romeo and Juliet.
If I remember correctly, St Therese also grappled with depression. So did Winston Churchill; so have many very successful people through the ages. As someone who has experienced depression off and on since being a teenager, I think it helps a great deal if those prone to depression understand that being prone to depression doesn’t make you a failure at life.
The worst years were in high school; I was depressed, and extremely ashamed of it, and unwilling to talk about it with anyone. Then, in my late teens, two things happened: I read “The Road Less Traveled” by Scott Peck, and I became good friends with a guy who also dealt with depression and didn’t hate himself for it, and was willing to talk about it. Scott Peck was for the most part a lefty, and he absolutely hated the military: I disagree with him about almost everything. Almost. He was a pychiatrist who freely admitted that he grappled with depression himself. He didn’t offer a cure: he just presented it as something that you could and should learn to live with, and hopefully benefit from spiritually. He was a fierce believer in God, and in the value of redemptive suffering. I found his books very helpful. My depressed friend was also extremely helpful; I had always thought that being depressed made me a loser, but this guy was the furthest thing from a loser: he had more ups and downs than most people do, but he was smart and funny and charming and talented, and despite the dark times, he was generally a very happy person.
Neither Scott Peck nor my friend cured my depression, but they both made it a million times easier to live with. The floggings that I used to give myself for being depressed were far worse than the depression itself. Once I stopped flogging myself, things improved greatly. :)
I dated a woman in college who tried to commit suicide because of me. It was a very distressing experience. Someday I may do a post about it.
From what I hear the increase is mainly among rural white males. I have even heard this cheered on the Left so the government is probably cool with it. So are we actually seeing mental issues or just the successful result of the Left’s campaign against this demographic?
Someone said that, “Depression = suffering-meaning.” If people have meaning it they can endure crazy amounts of suffering. Without meaning, they fold like a house of cards.
Another comment that reminds me of Boethius!
Boethius reminds me of Confucius. Though you have to replace G-d with Dao.