I don't understand!

In the past six months, I know of five men over 50 (two I knew well) who passed away.  All were suspected to have committed suicide.  It is even more alarming when they all had great jobs, successful children, and did not seem to have much in life to be concerned about.  Yet they decided that they had enough.  We will never know what enough entails.  I tried searching for an explanation but only became more confused.

Suicide is the eighth leading cause of death in the United States, resulting in over 30,000 deaths per year recorded. This is clearly an underestimate of the true figure since many suicides are not recorded as such because of social stigma, financial considerations, and other factors. For as long as statistics about suicide have been collected in the United States, there has been a very consistently strong association between suicide and 3 factors: age, gender, and race. Though women have many more suicide attempts than men, per attempt, a man is 4 times more likely to die than a woman.  What is even more alarming is white males accounted for 73% of all suicides in the US in 1996.  Overall, the United States suicide rate is overwhelmingly white, male, and older than age of 50.

There is a well-established strong association between depression and suicide. So I wonder, should I have seen the signs?  I noted amongst them all that they worked hard, and work was their life.  They may have lost touch with reality and become depressed; I just do not understand.  I only wish I could have seen this coming and intervened.

I had a wrong thought. Those who followed the rules and did well seemed in the worst emotional shape. These folks believed that if they always did the right thing, the responsible thing, nothing bad would ever happen to them.

I wonder if someone like me, who's weathered economic extremes for decades, weathered a divorce, had major issues with most imaginable situations, and had great friends die when I was in my teens, 20s, 30s, 40s, and now 50s, had any advantage.  I wonder if I am better emotionally prepared for the arbitrary turns of life's wheel. I already know how to be poor and get by, to be alone and survive, to have a child despise you and live, to see death and live.  Most of my friends didn't.

So why are baby boomers somehow inherently suicidal? They're just so self-centered and childish; of course, they throw the ultimate tantrum when they can't get their own way?  Or not. Maybe they're just human beings whose lives have been ruined by the lawless actions of the Wall Street elite, enabled by the austerity fever dreams of the media elite.  Politicians are worried about gun control and birth control rather than providing proper mental health training.  I may be so far off, but after the fifth assumed suicide, and that being a close friend, I just look for answers, and that may be an impossible quest for answers.

Carry on, my friends...  Carry on...