Last spring, Frank Turkaly tried to kill himself. A retiree in a Pittsburgh suburb living on disability checks, he was estranged from friends and family, mired in credit-card debt and taking medication for depression, cholesterol, diabetes and high-blood pressure.
It was not the life he had envisioned as a young man in the 1960s and ’70s, when “people were more in tune with each other, people were more prone to help each other,” said Turkaly, 63, who owned a camera shop and later worked at Sears. “There was not this big segregation between the poor and the rich. … I thought it was going to continue the same, I didn’t think it was going to change.”
Turkaly said he regrets his attempt to overdose on tranquilizers, which he attributes to social isolation. But in one grim respect he is far from alone: He is part of an alarming trend among baby boomers, whose suicide rates shot up precipitously between 1999 and 2010.
It has long held true that elderly people have higher suicide rates than the overall population. But numbers released in May by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show a dramatic spike in suicides among middle-aged people, with the highest increases among men in their 50s, whose rate went up by nearly 50 percent to 30 per 100,000; and women in their early 60s, whose rate rose by nearly 60 percent (though it is still relatively low compared with men, at 7 in 100,000). The highest rates were among white and American Indian and Alaskan men. In recent years, deaths by suicide has surpassed deaths by motor-vehicle crashes.
As youths, boomers had higher suicide rates than earlier generations; the confluence of that with the fact that they are now beginning to grow old, when the risk traditionally goes up, has experts worried. The findings suggest that more suicide research and prevention should “address the needs of middle-aged persons,” a CDC statement said.
There are no large-scale studies yet fleshing out the reasons behind the increase in boomer suicides. Part of it is likely tied to the recent economic downturn — financial recessions are in general associated with an uptick in suicides. But the trend started a decade before the 2008 recession, and psychologists and academics say it likely stems from a complex matrix of issues particular to a generation that vowed not to trust anyone older than 30 and who rocked out to lyrics such as, “I hope I die before I get old.”
“We’ve been a pretty youth-oriented generation,” said Bob Knight, professor of gerontology and psychology at the University of Southern California, who is also a baby boomer. “We haven’t idealized growing up and getting mature in the same way that other cohorts have.”
Even as they become grandparents and deal with normal signs of getting old, such as hearing and vision losses, many boomers are reluctant to accept the realities of aging, Knight said.
Compared with their parents’ generation, boomers have higher rates of obesity, prescription and illicit drug abuse, alcoholism, divorce, depression and mental disorders. As they age, many add to that list chronic illness, disabilities and the strains of caring for their parents and for adult children who still depend on them financially.
“We know that what men want to do is work — that’s a very strong ethic for them,” said Patrick Arbore, director and founder of the Center for Elderly Suicide Prevention at San Francisco’s Institute on Aging. “When their jobs are being threatened, they see themselves as still needing to be in that role; they feel ashamed when they’re not able to find another job, or when their home is being foreclosed on. … The idea that so many of us in this country have been brought up with — that you work hard, you get your house, you get your American dream, everything is rosy — it hasn’t worked out. A lot of these boomers aren’t going to earn as much money as their parents did. They aren’t going to be as secure as their parents were. And that’s quite troubling for the boomers.”
A troubling trend
Suicides per 100,000
Men ages 50-54
1999
20.6
2010
30.7
Women ages 60-64
1999
4.4
2010
7
Where to find help
American Foundation for Suicide Prevention:
National Alliance on Mental Illness:
National Suicide Prevention Hotline:
1-800-273-TALK (8255)
