The divorce / male suicide link...

Certainly an interesting topic. A recent article (found via Reddit) led me to some interesting studies. The article:

American men are four times more likely than women to take their own lives. It's a troubling phenomenon, rooted in such factors as genetics, upbringing and even career choice. But a growing body of research suggests that divorce is one of the major culprits in suicides among adult males.

Women, however, seem immune to the stress and sadness that can be wrought by the end of a marriage.[...]

Denney's* research, published last year in Social Science Quarterly, concluded that men who are divorced are 39 percent more likely to commit suicide than those still married. The difference increases to 50 percent when a man is a widow.

Among women, differences in suicide risk among those who were married, divorced or widowed were statistically insignificant. [...]

And while married women often balance employment with child rearing, Denney said statistics suggest they're coping quite well. "Women remain the primary caretakers in most households," he said. "They're working more, yet feeling better."

That might be what explains a divorced or widowed woman's relatively low suicide risk. Denney's subsequent research, published in February's Journal of Marriage and Family, concluded that children offered a major protective effect against suicide. For each additional child in a household, adults were 6 percent less likely to commit suicide

*Dr. Justin Denney, a sociologist at the University of Colorado

.

The studies by Denney:

Denney, J. T., Rogers, R. G., Krueger, P. M. and Wadsworth, T. (2009), Adult Suicide Mortality in the United States: Marital Status, Family Size, Socioeconomic Status, and Differences by Sex. Social Science Quarterly, 90: 1167–1185. doi: 10.1111/j.1540-6237.2009.00652.x

Objective. This article addresses the relationship between suicide mortality and family structure and socioeconomic status for U.S. adult men and women.

Methods. We use Cox proportional hazard models and individual-level, prospective data from the National Health Interview Survey Linked Mortality File (1986–2002) to examine adult suicide mortality.

Results. Larger families and employment are associated with lower risks of suicide for both men and women. Low levels of education or being divorced or separated, widowed, or never married are associated with increased risks of suicide among men, but not among women.

Conclusions. We find important sex differences in the relationship between suicide mortality and marital status and education. Future suicide research should use both aggregate and individual-level data and recognize important sex differences in the relationship between risk factors and suicide mortality—a central cause of preventable death in the United States.

Denney, J. T. (2010), Family and Household Formations and Suicide in the United States. Journal of Marriage and Family, 72: 202–213. doi: 10.1111/j.1741-3737.2009.00692.x

Family support systems have been theoretically linked to suicide risk. But no research to date has investigated the effects of detailed living arrangements on individual risk of suicide. Using data on 825,462 adults from the National Health Interview Survey Linked Mortality File reveals that living in families with stronger sources of social support and integration decreases risk of suicide. These effects persist despite controls for important individual level characteristics. Risk of suicide decreases for persons in married as well as unmarried families when children are present and risk increases for persons living with unrelated adults. These results reveal the structural importance of family formation on the social integrative forces that contribute to an individual's risk of suicide.

The UK Study mentioned in the article:

Suicide rates in young men in England and Wales in the 21st century: time trend study - BMJ 2008 - Lucy Biddle, Anita Brock, Sara T Brookes, David Gunnell

Objectives To explore trends in suicide in young people to investigate the recent observation that after year on year rises in the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s, rates in young men are now declining.

Design Time trend analysis.

Setting England and Wales, 1968-2005.

Population Men and women aged 15-34 years.

Introduction

One of the most striking features of the epidemiology of suicide in the late 20th century was the epidemic rise in suicide among young men in most industrialised nations.1 From 1950 to 1998 in England and Wales, rates of suicide in men aged under 45 doubled, while rates in women and older men declined.2 During the 1990s, rates in young men aged 15-24 reached an all time high and were at their highest since the 1920s in men aged 25-34 years. Suicide accounted for about a fifth of all deaths in young men,3 and men aged 25-34 had the highest rate of all age-sex groups.2 Such trends have led to suicide becoming a major contributor to premature mortality4 and are thought to indicate deteriorating mental wellbeing in younger people.

The cause for these rises is uncertain, though time series data show parallel increases in a range of risk factors including unemployment, divorce, substance misuse, and income inequality.2 Furthermore, changes in the availability and use of common methods of suicide, particularly domestic gas, barbiturates, and motor vehicle exhaust gases, have had an important impact on suicide rates and trends in the past 50 years.5 6 7 [...]

With the exception of the marked increase in divorces in 1972 after the Divorce Reform Act 1969 came into effect, rates of divorce closely followed trends in suicide in young men at the end of the 20th century. Both increased into the 1990s and then showed a decline up to 2001 (fig 2)⇓. Unlike the trends seen for suicide, however, divorce rates increased from 2001 to 2004 but have since fallen once more.

And finally a huge article on suicide:

Suicide - The Epidemiology Of Suicide

Marital status has a strong association with rates of completed suicide. Suicide rates are higher in the divorced and widowed than in single people, who in turn have higher suicide rates than married people. This protective effect of marriage on suicide is stronger for men than for women, although it is found for both men and women (Gove 1972).

The strong association of divorce with suicide is found at the societal level as well as at the individual level. For example, nations with higher divorce rates have higher suicide rates, U.S. states with higher divorce rates have higher suicide rates and, within nations, years with higher divorce rates have higher suicide rates. This association is probably the most robust association found in suicidology. The associations between marriage rates and suicide rates and between birth rates and suicide rates are not as consistent, although they do tend to be negative associations more often than positive associations.

[...] Christopher Cantor and Penelope Slater (1995) found that the suicide rate in Queensland, Australia, was highest for men who were separated, as opposed to men who were single, married, divorced, or widowed. For women, the divorced had the highest suicide rate. The increase in the suicide rate in separated men was greater in those who were younger (age 15–19) than in those who were older (over the age of 55). These results suggest that the time during the breakdown in the marriage may be more stressful for men than for women, whereas the state of divorce may be stressful for both men and women.

The higher rate of suicide in widows as compared to those married of the same may be because bereavement increases the risk of suicide or because widows and widowers who are prone to suicide are less likely to get remarried. Some old data from Brian MacMahon and Thomas Pugh (1965) indicate that it is bereavement—and not differential remarriage rates—that is the factor responsible. However, research (for example, a study by Arne Mastekaasa [1993] in Norway) also indicates that, once age is taken into account, the higher suicide rate in the widowed as compared to the divorced is no longer found.

Even though those who are married have lower suicide rates than those in other marital statuses, Walter Gove (1972) has documented that marriage is more beneficial for men than for women, in that the reduction in the suicide rate (and also in rates of psychiatric disturbance) is greater for married men than for married women.

The presence of children appears to have a protective effect with regard to suicide. In a study of a large sample of women in Norway, Georg Hoyer and Eiliv Lund (1993) obtained a sample of almost one million single and married women in Norway in 1970 and identified which of them had completed suicide by 1985. They found that unmarried women had a higher suicide rate than married women without children for those aged twenty-five to sixty-four, but not for those over the age of sixty-four. Thus, marriage appeared to reduce the suicide rate in women.

Hoyer and Lund also found that married women with children had lower suicide rates than married women with no children for all age groups. Thus, the presence of children further reduces the risk of suicide in women above and beyond the protective impact of marriage per se. Furthermore, the more children, the lower the suicide rate of the married women.

This study is the best study on the topic reported hitherto, but it confirms the results of earlier studies on smaller samples and without such detailed analyses. For example, in Portugal women with children were found to have a lower suicide rate than childless women, and those with more than five children had the lowest suicide rate (de Castro and Martins 1987).

There is also some evidence that the presence of children reduces the severity of suicidality in suicidal women, for example, making attempted suicide relatively less common and suicidal ideation relatively more common.

And while we are at it, google scholar provided me also with:

Marital status and suicide in the National Longitudinal Mortality Study - Augustine J Kposowa - 1999

OBJECTIVES The purpose of the study was to examine the effect of marital status on the risk of suicide, using a large nationally representative sample. A related objective was to investigate the association between marital status and suicide by sex.

METHODS Cox proportional hazards regression models were applied to data from the National Longitudinal Mortality Study, based on the 1979–1989 follow up. In estimating the effect of marital status, adjustments were made for age, sex, race, education, family income, and region of residence.

RESULTS For the entire sample, higher risks of suicide were found in divorced than in married persons. Divorced and separated persons were over twice as likely to commit suicide as married persons (RR=2.08, 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) 1.58, 2.72). Being single or widowed had no significant effect on suicide risk. When data were stratified by sex, it was observed that the risk of suicide among divorced men was over twice that of married men (RR=2.38, CI 1.77, 3.20). Among women, however, there were no statistically significant differentials in the risk of suicide by marital status categories.

CONCLUSIONS Marital status, especially divorce, has strong net effect on mortality from suicide, but only among men. The study showed that in epidemiological research on suicide, more accurate results would be obtained if samples are stratified on the basis of key demographic or social characteristics. The study further observed that failure to control for relevant socioeconomic variables or combining men and women in the same models could produce misleading results. [...]

Data analysis revealed that marital status is associated with the risk of suicide, and that divorce and separation have the strongest association. Indeed, when adjustments were made for such potential confounders as age, race, education, income, and region of residence, divorce/separation was the only status category that showed a significant increased risk of suicide. [...]

Results have also shown that while marital status, especially divorce increases the risk of suicide in men, the same cannot be said of women. In other words, the effect of marital status on suicide depends on sex. One possible explanation for the observed differentials by sex is that perhaps women form greater supportive networks, such as meaningful friendships at a higher level than men, and regardless of their marital status. Accordingly, even if a marriage ends in divorce or widowhood, women can fall back on their friendship networks for emotional and social support. It may be that men form less meaningful and fruitful supportive social bonds and networks. Accordingly, when a marriage breaks, men have no safety net. [...]

It is important to note that socioeconomic status affects men and women differently in terms of suicide risk. Low educational attainment and income are significant risk factors for men, but not for women.

Suicide, ignoring boys and men....

Just added the whitehouseboysmen-blog to my google reader and already finding tons of interesting / horrible informations. Like this one:

Men and boys comprise nearly 80% of all completed suicides in the United States.(1) With this sort of number one would assume that there would be services that focus specifically on suicidal males. Surprisingly, there are almost no programs that focus on helping men and boys who might be suicidal. [...] Even more surprising is how difficult it is to secure funding to study this disparity. Lanny Berman, the Executive Director of the American Association for Suicidology, made the following statement in the San Francisco Chronicle in 2006: “As much as I would love to lead the charge [in finding out why boys kill themselves], try to go out and get funding for it.”(2) Berman’s statement expresses his frustration that funders aren’t interested in studying boys and men. Berman is not alone; organizations such as the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) have voiced similar sentiments. NASW ran a study on suicidal girls in 2008. When asked about their reasons for studying girls rather than boys, Elizabeth Clarke, the NASW Executive Director, stated that the funder specified the money was dedicated to studying girls.(3) In the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 200+ page document titled “National Strategy for Suicide Prevention: Goals and Objectives for Action,” they only mention men and boys once: in a sidebar that indicates: “Over half of all suicides occur in adult men ages 25-65.”(4) Even this important document seems to negate the stark reality of the 80% of suicides completed by males; there simply seems to be very little interest in learning about men and boys and why they are more prone to kill themselves or how we can help them.

References:
1. (2006) National Vital Statistics Reports, Deaths: Final Data 2006, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Volume 57, Number 14, April 17, 2009 http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr57/nvsr57_14.pdf

2. Ryan, Joan. “Sorting Out Puzzle of Male Suicide.” San Francisco Chronicle 26 Jan. 2006: b-1. Print. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/01/26/BAGHRGT0DV1.DTL&hw=suicide&sn=003&sc=490#ixzz0Y6EBcvdg

3. Personal correspondence 2009 with Elizabeth Clarke, Executive Director NASW.

4. (2001 )National Strategy for Suicide Prevention: Goals and Objectives for Action. Rockville, MD : U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, 2001. Includes index.

The article goes on with reasons and recommendations, read it, it is a good one. One point that stood out for me is this double bind:

A dependent male is a male that is judged harshly. Men are in a double bind. If they say they are not in need of services then they are held in high esteem but forfeit the help they need. If men admit they are in need of services, they are seen as worth less. Peter Marin, in an article titled “Abandoning Men: Jill Gets Welfare–Jack Becomes Homeless,” states:

To put it simply: men are neither supposed nor allowed to be dependent. They are expected to take care of others and themselves. And when they cannot or will not do it, then the assumption at the heart of the culture is that they are somehow less than men and therefore unworthy of help. An irony asserts itself: by being in need of help, men forfeit the right to it.(7)

A depressed and suicidal man is a dependent man. When we are hopeless and helpless we are far from being independent. Hopelessness and helplessness are the cornerstones of what underlies suicidal ideology. A man who feels hopeless and helpless will likely avoid letting others know his dependency and will avoid exposing his need by asking for help.

Reference:
7. “Abandoning Men: Jill Gets Welfare Jack Becomes Homeless.” Alicia Patterson Foundation. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 Dec. 2009.

Suicide attempts and sex

Another topic to research. It seems it is understood that while men kill themselves more often than women, women do attempt suicide more often. Using what some redditor found I look a bit into the numbers. Mostly CDC data though:

Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviors Among Adults Aged ≥18 Years --- United States, 2008-2009 - CDC

The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) is a national- and state-level survey of a representative sample of the civilian, noninstitutionalized U.S. population aged ≥12 years. NSDUH collects data on health-risks related to the use of illicit drugs, alcohol, and tobacco; initiation of substance use; substance use disorders and treatment; health care; and mental health. This report summarizes data on responses to questions concerning suicidal thoughts and behaviors contained in the mental health section among sampled persons aged ≥18 years in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. This report analyzes data on the prevalence of suicidal thoughts, planning, and attempts by age, sex, race/ethnicity, and state from 92,264 respondents in the 2008 and 2009 NSDUH.

[...] An estimated 2.2 million (annual average) adults in the United States (1.0% of the adult U.S. population) reported having made suicide plans in the past year. [...] The prevalence of suicidal thoughts was significantly higher among females than it was among males, but there was no statistically significant difference for suicide planning or suicide attempts.

[...]During 2008-2009, an estimated 3.8 million (annual average) adult males in the United States had suicidal thoughts in the past year (3.5% of the adult male population). Among males, the prevalence ranged from 1.3% in Mississippi to 7.1% in Rhode Island. During 2008-2009, an estimated 4.6 million (annual average) female adults in the United States (3.9% of the adult female population) had suicidal thoughts in the past year. Among adult females, prevalence ranged from 1.5% in Georgia to 9.1% in Nevada.

[...]During 2008-2009, an estimated 1.0 million (annual average) adult males in the United States (1.0% of the adult male population) made suicide plans in the past year. Among males, prevalence ranged from 0.1% in Georgia to 4.1% in Rhode Island. During 2008-2009, an estimated 1.2 million (annual average) adult females in the United States (1.0% of the female population) made suicide plans in the past year. Among females, prevalence ranged from 0.1% in Georgia to 3.1% in Nevada.

[...]During 2008-2009, an estimated 442,000 (annual average) adult males in the United States (0.4% of the adult male population) attempted suicide in the past year. Among males, prevalence ranged from <0.1% in Alaska, the District of Columbia, and Georgia to 2.2% in Rhode Island. During 2008-2009, an estimated 616,000 (annual average) adult females in the United States (0.5% of the adult female population) attempted suicide in the past year. Among females, prevalence ranged from <0.1% in Montana and Virginia to 1.3% in Connecticut.

According to this, not a huge difference between men and women, there is however other data and it might be the lifetime rate that is very different:

Suicide Facts at a Glance - CDC

• More than 34,000 suicides occurred in the U.S. This is the equivalent of 94 suicides per day; one suicide every 15 minutes or 11.26 suicides per 100,000 population.1
• Males take their own lives at nearly four times the rate of females and represent 78.8% of all U.S. suicides.1
• During their lifetime, women attempt suicide about two to three times as often as men.5
• Suicide is the seventh leading cause of death for males and the fifteenth leading cause for females.1
• Suicide rates for males are highest among those aged 75 and older (rate 36.1 per 100,000).1
• Suicide rates for females are highest among those aged 45-54 (rate 8.8 per 100,000 population).1
• Firearms are the most commonly used method of suicide among males (55.7%).1
• Poisoning is the most common method of suicide for females (40.2%).1

In 2009:
• 13.8% of students in grades 9-12 seriously considered suicide in the previous 12 months (17.4% of females and 10.5% of males).4
• 6.3% of students reported making at least one suicide attempt in the previous 12 months (8.1% of females and 4.6% of males).4
• 1.9% of students had made a suicide attempt that resulted in an injury, poisoning, or an overdose that required medical attention (2.3% of females and 1.6% of males).4

References:
1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS) [Online]. (2010). National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, CDC (producer). Available from URL: www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/index.html.
4. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance—United States, 2009. Surveillance Summaries, June 4. MMWR 2010; 59(No. SS-5).
5. Krug EG, Dahlberg LL, Mercy JA, Zwi A, Lozano R, editors. World report on violence and health. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2002.

Now this is confusing. While most of the data is CDC data, the only data that shows us a huge difference between attempts is by the WHO. So let us look at that:

World report on violence and health - WHO - Etienne G. Krug, Linda L. Dahlberg, James A. Mercy, Anthony B. Zwi and Rafael Lozano - 2002 / Chapter 7 - Self-directed Violence

Also, as a general trend, rates of non-fatal suicidal behaviour tend to be 2–3 times higher in women than in men. Finland, though, is a remarkable exception to this pattern (35). [...] There is evidence that women, including those in old age, are more prone to suicidal thoughts than are men (37). Overall, the prevalence of suicidal ideation among older adults of both sexes has been estimated at between 2.3% (for those having had suicidal thoughts in the past 2 weeks) and 17% (for those ever having had suicidal thoughts) (38). However, compared with other forms of suicidal behaviours, such as attempted suicide, suicidal ideation may not be a useful indicator of which adolescents or adults are most in need of preventive services.

Reference:
35. Schmidtke A et al. Attempted suicide in Europe: rates, trends and sociodemographic characteristics of suicide attempters during the period 1989–1992. Results of the WHO/EURO Multicentre Study on Parasuicide. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 1996, 93:327–338.
37. Linden M, Barnow S. The wish to die in very old persons near the end of life: a psychiatric problem? Results from the Berlin Ageing Study (BASE). International Psychogeriatrics, 1997, 9:291–307.

Hopping from study to study:

Attempted suicide in Europe: rates, trends and sociodemographic characteristics of suicide attempters during the period 1989-1992. Results of the WHO/EURO Multicentre Study on Parasuicide. - Schmidtke A, Bille-Brahe U, DeLeo D, Kerkhof A, Bjerke T, Crepet P, Haring C, Hawton K, Lönnqvist J, Michel K, Pommereau X, Querejeta I, Phillipe I, Salander-Renberg E, Temesváry B, Wasserman D, Fricke S, Weinacker B, Sampaio-Faria JG. - Psychiatric Department, University of Wuerzburg, Germany.

Abstract:
The World Health Organization/EURO Multicentre Project on Parasuicide is part of the action to implement target 12 of the WHO programme, "Health for All by the Year 2000', for the European region. Sixteen centres in 13 European countries are participating in the monitoring aspect of the project, in which trends in the epidemiology of suicide attempts are assessed. The highest average male age-standardized rate of suicide attempts was found for Helsinki, Finland (314/100,000), and the lowest rate (45/100,000) was for Guipuzcoa, Spain, representing a sevenfold difference. The highest average female age-standardized rate was found for Cergy-Pontoise, France (462/100,000), and the lowest (69/100,000) again for Guipuzcoa, Spain. With only one exception (Helsinki), the person-based suicide attempt rates were higher among women than among men. In the majority of centres, the highest person-based rates were found in the younger age groups. The rates among people aged 55 years or over were generally the lowest. For the majority of the centres, the rates for individuals aged 15 years or over decreased between 1989 and 1992. The methods used were primarily "soft' (poisoning) or cutting. More than 50% of the suicide attempters made more than one attempt, and nearly 20% of the second attempts were made within 12 months after the first attempt. Compared with the general population, suicide attempters more often belong to the social categories associated with social destabilization and poverty.

The rest was behind a paywall. Luckily, another study which is available online used the same data:

Relation between attempted suicide and suicide rates among young people in Europe - K Hawton, E Arensman, D Wasserman, A Hultén, U Bille-Brahe, T Bjerke, P Crepet,
E Deisenhammer, A Kerkhof, D De Leo, K Michel, A Ostamo, A Philippe, I Querejeta, E Salander-Renberg, A Schmidtke, B Temesváry - 1998

Abstract
Study objective—To determine if there are associations between rates of suicide and attempted suicide in 15–24 year olds in different countries in Europe. Design—Attempted suicide rates were based on data collected in centres in Europe between 1989 and 1992 as part of the WHO/EURO Multicentre Study of Parasuicide. Comparison was made with both national suicide rates and local suicide rates for the areas in which the attempted suicide monitoring centres are based.
Setting—15 centres in 13 European countries. Patients—Young people aged 15–24 years who had taken overdoses or deliberately injured themselves and been identified in health care facilities. Main results—There were positive correlations (Spearman rank order) between rates of attempted suicide and suicide rates in both sexes. The correlations only reached statistical significance for male
subjects: regional suicide rates, r = 0.65, p < 0.02; national suicide rates, r = 0.55, p < 0.02. Conclusions—Rates of attempted suicide and suicide in the young covary. The recent increase in attempted suicide rates in young male subjects in several European countries could herald a further increase in suicide rates. [...] Attempted suicide was defined according to the proposed ICD-10 definition: “An act with non-fatal outcome, in which an individual deliberately initiates a non-habitual behaviour that, without intervention from others, will cause self-harm, or deliberately ingests a substance in excess of the prescribed or generally recognised therapeutic dosage, and which is aimed at realising changes which the subject desired via the actual or expected physical consequences”. [...] Why should the association between suicide and attempted suicide in 15–24 year olds be stronger in male than female subjects? The findings must be interpreted against a background of generally much higher rates of attempted suicide in young female subjects than male subjects and the reverse for suicide. One reason is that the motivation, especially suicidal intent, involved in suicide attempts by young male subjects may show some differences from that of young female subjects, with the behaviour by male subjects being more clearly related to suicide in the sense of showing higher suicidal intent.12 On the other hand, such acts by female subjects often involve lower suicidal intent and are more usually associated with motives such as communication of despair and influencing others. A second reason is that the risk of suicide after attempted suicide in the young is much greater in male subjects than female subjects.13 14 References: 12 Bancroft JHJ, Skrimshire AM, Simkin S. The reasons people give for taking overdoses. Br J Psychiatry 1976;128: 538–48. 13 Otto U. Suicidal acts by children and adolescents. Acta Psychiatr Scand 1972;suppl 233. 14 Goldacre M, Hawton K. Repetition of self-poisoning and subsequent death in adolescents who take overdoses. Br J Psychiatry 1985;146:395–8.

Notice how wide the definition of attempted suicide is (causing self-harm instead of causing, well, death) and how the suicidal intend for men seem to be higher. Despite that, it is questionable how much relevance a 20 year old study from Europe that is not based on a randomized sample has for the USA. I am a bit surprised that the CDC cited it at all. Well maybe they did not correct their fact sheet after their recent survey.

To cite a relevant Science Daily article:

Why Women Are Less Likely Than Men To Commit Suicide

ScienceDaily (Nov. 12, 1998) — Many studies have identified a strong link between suicide and diagnosable mental illness, especially depression. So because women suffer from depression at a much higher rate than men, they would seem to be at higher risk for suicide. But women actually commit suicide about one-fourth as often as men.


Writing in the journal Comprehensive Psychiatry, George E. Murphy, M.D., an emeritus professor of psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, says that women may be protected because of the way they think about problems and interact with others.
"Women process their experiences with friends. They discuss their feelings, seek feedback and take advice," Murphy says. "They are much more likely to tell a physician how they feel and cooperate in the prescribed treatment. As a result, women get better treatment for their depression."
That treatment may help protect them from suicide, but Murphy says there is more to it. The approach to problem-solving is what lands a woman in a psychiatrist's office in the first place. And that approach may be keeping female suicide rates lower than those of men.

Suicide vs. attempted suicide
There are roughly 30,000 suicides in the United States each year, and three-fourths of those are men. But the number of attempted suicides is at least 10 times that, and even that estimate may be low because many suicide attempts are euphemistically classified as lacerations or accidental poisonings when patients receive treatment in hospital emergency rooms.
Although suicide rates are lower among women, women lead men two to one in suicide attempts. So, Murphy says at least 200,000 women are involved in suicide attempts annually. But he points out that attempted suicide most often is not an attempt to actually end one's life. Its purpose, he says, is to survive with changed circumstances.
"An attempted suicide is not really an attempt at suicide in about 95 percent of cases. It is a different phenomenon. It's most often an effort to bring someone's attention, dramatically, to a problem that the individual feels needs to be solved. Suicide contains a solution in itself," he says.
In attempted suicide, both men and women tend to use methods that allow for second thoughts or rescue. Murphy says that when people intend to survive, they choose a slowly effective, or ineffective, means such as an overdose of sleeping pills. That contrasts to the all-or-nothing means like gunshots or hanging used by actual suicides.
In the past, researchers who looked at the high rate of attempted suicide in women concluded that women were just not as efficient as men at taking their own lives. Murphy calls that "sexist baloney" and points to statistics that show that like men, women who commit suicide most often use guns. However, even as the number of women using the most lethal means increases, the suicide rate in women has slowly declined.
"So it really goes back to the same thing -- that women, when they intend to do it, can be just as effective as men in committing suicide. But they aren't so inclined," Murphy says.

Cognitive differences
Murphy believes women are less inclined to commit suicide because their thinking is more inclusive. While a man might tend to throw aside seemingly peripheral issues to get to the core of a problem, a woman might take more things into account. She may continue to seek input and process problems long after the point where men decide on a course of action.
"She'll consider not just her feelings but also the feelings of others -- her family, the children, even acquaintances, and how those people will be affected by a decision like suicide," Murphy says. "A man is much less likely to take those things into account. He makes his decision, and it's about him, so he doesn't feel the need to share it with anyone else."
But before they ever get to the point of considering suicide, Murphy says, women are much more likely to seek help with their problems. The classic example is asking for directions when driving. Many men refuse to do that, perhaps seeing it as an admission of weakness. They believe they are supposed to be competent in all areas. Because they are not, they are at risk. Women, on the other hand, are much more likely to seek advice and take it.
Even though depressed or alcoholic men are less likely to look for help, it still may be possible to prevent many suicides, Murphy believes. He says alert physicians might be able to pick up on risk factors and refer men into treatment to help them look for ways to solve their problems without ending their lives.
"Half of all people who commit suicide have seen a physician within a month of their fatal act," he says. "Mostly they didn't get diagnosed, and if they did, they didn't get treated very vigorously."
That requires recognition that depressed men may understate their pain or their difficulty with a particular problem. Murphy says such recognition is essential if men are ever to benefit from the treatments that protect women from suicide. Murphy and the late Eli Robins, M.D., conducted the first comprehensive study of suicide 40 years ago, studying every suicide that occurred in St. Louis and St. Louis County during a one-year period.

For every 100 girls...

Pretty good resource with nice hard data hat tip to r/mensrights for that one. Some excerpts:

Death and Suicide:

- For every 100 girls and women ages 15 to 24 years who die 292 boys and men die.

- For every 100 females ages 15 to 19 that commit suicide 549 males in the same range kill themselves.

- For every 100 females ages 20 to 24 that commit suicide 624 males of the same age kill themselves.

Education:

- For every 100 women enrolled in college there are 78 men enrolled.

- For every 100 women enrolled in the sixth year or more of college there are 70 men enrolled.

- For every 100 American women who earn an associate’s degree from college 61 American men earn the same degree.

- For every 100 American women who earn a bachelor’s degree from college 75 American men earn a bachelor’s degree.

- For every 100 American women who earn a master’s degree from college 66 American men earn the same degree.

- For every 100 American women who earn a first-professional degree 104 American men earn a first-professional degree.

- For every 100 American women who earn a doctor’s degree from college 91 American men earn the same degree.

Sources are in the original which is well worth reading.

New campaign will use "manspeak" to help men deal with suicidal thoughts

Nice that a group is going to give some focus on male suicide victims. Some stats from the article:

Working-age men, 21-65, die by suicide at twice the baseline rate of other Americans, according to studies.

[...]more than 90 percent of people who complete suicide had a mental disorder, such as depression, substance abuse or both, at the time of death, according to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.

In Colorado, men ages 25 to 54 account for the greatest number of suicide deaths each year. The state ranked sixth in the U.S. in suicide rate in 2007, the last year for which statistics are available.

[...]The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that suicide is the second-leading cause of death in men 25-34 years old.

Almost 75 percent of suicides are completed by white males, who are almost twice as likely to take their own lives as black males, according to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.

A five-year study of death rates released by the CDC in 2008 found the greatest increase in suicide rate was among 45- to 54-year-olds. Their rate increased 20 percent from 1999 to 2004.

Yet, Spencer-Thomas said, most suicide-prevention dollars are going to prevent youth suicide. She wouldn't divert those critical resources, she said. She simply aims to increase resources for working-age men.

Domestic Violence and Suicide...

Very interesting, but should be taken with a grain of salt:

ABSTRACT
An article in the NIJ Journal (Websdale, 2003) notes that domestic violence can provoke suicide. The 2003 Massachusetts Domestic Violence Homicide Report (Lauby et al, 2006) notes that suicide can be attributed to domestic violence incidents. Utah Domestic Violence Related Deaths 2006 (Utah Domestic Violence Council, 2006) notes that the majority of domestic violence–related suicides are not covered in their report. The report Domestic Violence Fatalities (2005) (Utah Department of Health, 2006) notes that there were 44
suicides and 21 homicide domestic violence-related deaths in Utah in 2005. Using data from the Surveillance for Violent Deaths – National Violent Death Reporting System, 16 States, 2005 (Karch et al, 2008), it is possible to extrapolate that as many as 7,832 male and 1,958 domestic violence-related suicides occur annually in the US. When domestic violence-related suicides are combined with domestic violence homicides, the total numbers of domestic violence-related deaths are higher for males than females. This paper recommends that to understand the broad scope and tragic impact of domestic violence, further research is needed concerning domestic violence-related suicide.

I said grain of salt because it is not that easy to tie a suicide to a domestic violence incident. But I suggest reading that article and forming your own conclusion like the author suggested. Especially keeping "This paper recommends that to understand the broad scope and tragic impact of domestic violence, further research is needed concerning domestic violence-related suicide." in mind. Besides that, it might be an aspect of DV that really is forgotten about and should be highlighted.

My personal highlight of that article:

Our sons are being raised in a society where the government focuses on the victimisation of our daughters while ignoring or minimising the victimisation of our sons (see www.ovw.usdoj.gov/domviolence.htm).

Our sons are growing up in a society where far more males than females are dropping out of high school
(Green & Winters, 2006).

Our sons are growing up in a society in which almost 60% of students entering college are female (National Center for Education Statistics, 2009).

Our sons are growing up in a society where males serve longer prison sentences than females (Staley, 1999).

Our sons are growing up in a society where women live longer than men (Blue, 2008).

Our sons are growing up in a society, as the NVDRS data clearly documents, where far more males are taking their own life than females.

And sadly this is only a partial list of our sons’ particular needs and concerns that are not being addressed.

So true, so true...

Another day, another study...

A bit older but a real keeper (if you like numbers as much as I do). I present  "Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance - 2007".

This one has it all apparently. It is official (by the CDC), it is pretty large (about 14,000 questionnaires answered by students in grades 9-12) and covers some interesting topics. So let us start.

Percentage of high school students who were in a physical fight and who were injured in a physical fight
Male 44.4% injured 5.5%
Female 26.5% injured 2.9%

Percentage of high school students who were threatened or injured with
a weapon on school property
Male 10.2%
Female 5.4%

Percentage of high school students who were in a physical fight on school property and who had their property stolen or deliberately damaged on school property.
Male 16.3% stolen/damaged 30.4%
Female 8.5% stolen/damaged 23.7%

No surprise here if you knew the police statistics. Males are more likely to be victims of any crime (except rape). This however is more interesting to me:

Percentage of high school students who did not go to school because they felt unsafe at school or on their way to or from school
Male 5.4%
Female 5.6%

I was a bit surprised as I somehow expected women to be more scared than men. The difference not so much.

Next DV and Rape:

Percentage of high school students who experienced dating violence and who were ever physically forced to have sexual intercourse
Male 11% raped 4.5%
Female 8.8% raped 11.3%

This is interesting and might be surprising to some males are more likely to be victims of dating violence and are about 1/3 of rape victims. Surely, not addressing more than half of all dating violence victims and ignoring 1/3 of all rape victims will not sound like a good idea to those at the CDC, if the US Government would just act accordingly.

If someone remembers the post I made with the meta studies, there is one I held back. It is taken from the book "Weibliche Gewalt in Partnerschaften" (Female violence in relationships) by German Researcher Dr. Schwithal. It is an analyses of 55 worldwide studies on sexual violence with a breakdown on gender. The reason I hold it back was simple. It mashes rape with sexual violence together. Of course one can not compare a full-on rape case with groping, he note however that the amount of male victims of sexual violence was very high. The results, 57.9% of the violence was committed by men. 40.8% of victims were also men.


Interesting in that regard also is the following

Percentage of high school students who ever had sexual intercourse and who had sexual intercourse for the first time and before age 13 years
Male 49.8% before 13 10.9%
Female 45.9% before 13 4%

I wonder how many of those before 13 are statutory rape cases.

We continue with depression:

Percentage of high school students who felt sad or hopeless
Male 21.2%
Female 35.8%

Percentage of high school students who seriously considered attempting suicide and who made a plan about how they would attempt suicide
Male 10.3% planed 9.2%
Female 18.7% planed 13.4%

Percentage of high school students who attempted suicide and whose suicide attempt resulted in an injury, poisoning, or an overdose that had to be treated by a doctor or nurse
Male 4.6% injury 1.5%
Female 9.3% injury 2.4%

And for completions sake from another source youth suicide rates:
In the United States, more than four times as many male youth die by suicide but girls attempt suicide more often and report higher rates of depression (CDC Data). To be honest I expected a larger gap on attempts and planed suicide in favor of women.

And on with drugs, drugs are an interesting topic because people argue that men die younger because they are doing more drugs

Percentage of high school students who ever smoked cigarettes
Male 51.8% daily 13.0%
Female 48.8% daily 11.8%

Percentage of high school students who drank alcohol
Male 74.3% current 44.7% Episodic heavy drinking 27.8%
Female 75.7% current 44.6% Episodic heavy drinking 24.1%

Percentage of high school students who used cocaine
Male 7.8% current 4.0%
Female 6.5% current 2.5%

Percentage of high school students who used heroin
Male 2.9%
Female 1.6%

And again, the gaps here, not so big. Good numbers to keep in mind once this discussion comes up again.

The following goes into the direction of body image:

Percentage of high school students who did not eat for 24 or more hours and who took diet pills, powders, or liquids
Male 7.3% diet pills 4.2%
Female 16.3% diet pills 7.5%

Percentage of high school students who vomited or took laxatives
Male 2.2%
Female 6.4%

Eating disorders / body image is something society sees as a mostly female problem. According to the last set of numbers that would exclude 1/4 of victims. When it comes to body image problems the following is also interesting.

Percentage of high school students who took steroids
Male 5.1%
Female 2.7%

Steroid abuse might be the opposite of eating disorders (excluding binge eating). The pumped up look one can only achieve with drugs. Quite frankly I was surprised with the high female rate (1/3).

In retrospect, a good resource when it comes to DV/rape numbers and some other numbers to keep in the back of your head for certain discussions.

Divorce Main Reason for male suicide

From MisForMalevolent:

Quote:

75% of all suicides being committed by men - over 22,000 men per year. And suicide rates for divorced men are even higher than that - divorced and separated men are TWICE AS LIKELY to commit suicide as other men, per the study "Marital Status and Suicide in the National Longitudinal Mortality Study" by Augustine J. Kposowa, Ph.D., at the University of California at Riverside. CBS News covered the report in some detail here. The study showed that being single versus being married made no difference in suicide rates. - Simply 'being married' does not provide singificant mental health benefits relating to suicide. Even more tellingly, for women marital status, married, single, separated or divorced, made NO STATISTICAL DIFFERENCE in suicide rates. - So somehow, divorce affects men in a much more significant way than women. One wonders what that way could be... Previous to this study, increased rates of suicide for men had been explained away by claiming that significant mental and physical health benefits were to be had from married life, and by 'congitive differences' between men and women - women purportedly spending more time 'processing' their problems and thinking more 'inclusively' than men, Well Dr. Kposowa's research has exposed that canard, (wait, let me speak plainly that misandrous, shovenist tripe for what it is. Let's take a moment and really reveiw those numbers, which we will extrapolate using the published rough perecentages in the CBS news article: Total Suicides: 30,000 per year Men's Suicides: 22,500 per year Women's Suicides: 7,500 per year Divorced/Separated Men's Suicides: 14,850 per year. Hmm. I wonder how many men committed suicide outside of a divorce/separation. ...Well, I know how to subtract, lets see... Non Divorced/Separated Men's Suicides: 7,650 per year. Wait... that's approximately equal to the number of suicides for women. So it seems reasonable to guess, that if it were not for the way men are treated in divorce, those 14,850 men PER YEAR would still be alive. Dr. Kposowa's study; the first study that cared enough about men to look at the details of why men kill themselves; shows us that if you hear about a man committing sucide the odds are better than 2:1 that he is either a divorcee or going through a divorce. SO NOW COMES THE BIG QUESTION: What is so terrible about divorce that men would kill themselves to escape it? The answer is simple: Slavery. To quote Adrian Banks' article on suicide and divorce: So what is the main cause of [divorced male] suicide? […] The answer to this question is not that difficult, but before someone can accept the truth of the main causes of suicide, one must first accept the truth that slavery is just as much an institution today as it has been throughout history. The more oppressive and cruel the enslavement, the more suicides there will be among the enslaved classes of society. Why do you think that, in pre civil war times, slaves were kept in the holes of ships and not allowed on the decks? Simple, it kept the slave trader's precious cargo of labor from jumping into the ocean. As Winston Churchill stated during World War II, "it is better to perish that to live as slaves." […] In a divorce situation today, there need not be any legitimate grounds thanks to no fault divorce. A man can be a hard working fellow who supports his family and loves his children, but if his wife decides to divorce him, there is nothing he can do. Kposowa cites "financial obligations," in explaining the preponderance of divorcees amongst male suicides noting that "The courts in the United States are in a position now whereby money is given to the woman, or the man is forced to pay alimony, child support. The man is also asked, in some [perhaps most] cases, to vacate the house." Kposowa also notes: "If a man loses custody of the children and the woman keeps those children, there are situations whereby she may not allow the man to see the children, and that causes some depression." -No kidding. Suicidal divorced men are merely slaves leaping from the decks – consider the facts: Most marriages end in divorce – over 60% by my numbers. 66% of these are initiated by the wife and few of them for abuse or any real fault. -No-fault divorces are initiated by women three times as often as by men. The courts award physical custody to the man about 3% of the time – the odds are 40 to 1 against the man winning physical custody. Truly shared custody is so rare that the courts don’t even know how to calculate support for it – their spreadsheets don’t support it. They have to fill out one for the father as primary, and one for the mother, and then average the two. - I believe that loss of access to one’s children and alienation are key factors in male suicide. Women commonly interfere with the visitation rights of the ex husband. 75% of men complain of this behavior, and 40% of women admit it. If one assumes complaints are lower than the actual number of abuses, the numbers must be staggering. Add the loss of the vast majority of the marital assets and the house, and everything that the man has worked for, financial contributions being where men are expected to excel, and what they are supposed to judge themselves by, and you have taken away a lot of the reasons that men have to live. Add alimony and child support, all while not being allowed to co-parent your own children. Add to all this the fact that the state’s machinery grinds very finely – loss of a job, ‘underemployment’, and bankruptcy are good enough reasons to lose almost any debt, but not alimony and child support, no, these continue unabated, plus penalties and legal fees. And if our poor man is unlucky enough to lose his job, or become ‘underemployed’, then the legal system in many of our states, including NJ, will take 60-65% of his income, even unemployment, irregardless of what his spouse is earning. Imagine, a spouse with a $150,000 salary, collecting 65% of the income of a man scratching by on $405 per week unemployment, or a $40,000/year job. NJ would do it in a heartbeat. I bet they already have. So divorced men have good reason to be casting themselves from the decks. Having lost their wives, their children, their assets, and finally their ability to earn a living, and being relegated to permanent poverty, divorced men are killing themselves in record numbers - over 15,000 men per year, killed by divorce. Our job is to support them, and encourage our government to notice, and care. -M

I wouldn´t say divorce is the only reason for higher suicide (it is a worldwide phenomen even in states where there are no legal divorces) but it is definately one main reason in the western world, as there are no biology differences between mothers and fathers, the female suicide rat would probably grow if children where taken awy from them at the same rate they are from men.

These articles are interesting as well (was linked from the above site)

Quote:

Research report Marital status and suicide in the National Longitudinal Mortality Study Augustine J Kposowa [...] OBJECTIVESThe purpose of the study was to examine the effect of marital status on the risk of suicide, using a large nationally representative sample. A related objective was to investigate the association between marital status and suicide by sex. METHODSCox proportional hazards regression models were applied to data from the National Longitudinal Mortality Study, based on the 1979-1989 follow up. In estimating the effect of marital status, adjustments were made for age, sex, race, education, family income, and region of residence. RESULTSFor the entire sample, higher risks of suicide were found in divorced than in married persons. Divorced and separated persons were over twice as likely to commit suicide as married persons (RR=2.08, 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) 1.58, 2.72). Being single or widowed had no significant effect on suicide risk. When data were stratified by sex, it was observed that the risk of suicide among divorced men was over twice that of married men (RR=2.38, CI 1.77, 3.20). Among women, however, there were no statistically significant differentials in the risk of suicide by marital status categories. CONCLUSIONSMarital status, especially divorce, has strong net effect on mortality from suicide, but only among men. The study showed that in epidemiological research on suicide, more accurate results would be obtained if samples are stratified on the basis of key demographic or social characteristics. The study further observed that failure to control for relevant socioeconomic variables or combining men and women in the same models could produce misleading results.

- from here

Quote:

Why Women Are Less Likely Than Men To Commit Suicide ScienceDaily (Nov. 12, 1998) — Many studies have identified a strong link between suicide and diagnosable mental illness, especially depression. So because women suffer from depression at a much higher rate than men, they would seem to be at higher risk for suicide. But women actually commit suicide about one-fourth as often as men. Writing in the journal Comprehensive Psychiatry, George E. Murphy, M.D., an emeritus professor of psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, says that women may be protected because of the way they think about problems and interact with others. "Women process their experiences with friends. They discuss their feelings, seek feedback and take advice," Murphy says. "They are much more likely to tell a physician how they feel and cooperate in the prescribed treatment. As a result, women get better treatment for their depression." That treatment may help protect them from suicide, but Murphy says there is more to it. The approach to problem-solving is what lands a woman in a psychiatrist's office in the first place. And that approach may be keeping female suicide rates lower than those of men. Suicide vs. attempted suicide There are roughly 30,000 suicides in the United States each year, and three-fourths of those are men. But the number of attempted suicides is at least 10 times that, and even that estimate may be low because many suicide attempts are euphemistically classified as lacerations or accidental poisonings when patients receive treatment in hospital emergency rooms. Although suicide rates are lower among women, women lead men two to one in suicide attempts. So, Murphy says at least 200,000 women are involved in suicide attempts annually. But he points out that attempted suicide most often is not an attempt to actually end one's life. Its purpose, he says, is to survive with changed circumstances. "An attempted suicide is not really an attempt at suicide in about 95 percent of cases. It is a different phenomenon. It's most often an effort to bring someone's attention, dramatically, to a problem that the individual feels needs to be solved. Suicide contains a solution in itself," he says. In attempted suicide, both men and women tend to use methods that allow for second thoughts or rescue. Murphy says that when people intend to survive, they choose a slowly effective, or ineffective, means such as an overdose of sleeping pills. That contrasts to the all-or-nothing means like gunshots or hanging used by actual suicides. In the past, researchers who looked at the high rate of attempted suicide in women concluded that women were just not as efficient as men at taking their own lives. Murphy calls that "sexist baloney" and points to statistics that show that like men, women who commit suicide most often use guns. However, even as the number of women using the most lethal means increases, the suicide rate in women has slowly declined. "So it really goes back to the same thing -- that women, when they intend to do it, can be just as effective as men in committing suicide. But they aren't so inclined," Murphy says. Cognitive differences Murphy believes women are less inclined to commit suicide because their thinking is more inclusive. While a man might tend to throw aside seemingly peripheral issues to get to the core of a problem, a woman might take more things into account. She may continue to seek input and process problems long after the point where men decide on a course of action. "She'll consider not just her feelings but also the feelings of others -- her family, the children, even acquaintances, and how those people will be affected by a decision like suicide," Murphy says. "A man is much less likely to take those things into account. He makes his decision, and it's about him, so he doesn't feel the need to share it with anyone else." But before they ever get to the point of considering suicide, Murphy says, women are much more likely to seek help with their problems. The classic example is asking for directions when driving. Many men refuse to do that, perhaps seeing it as an admission of weakness. They believe they are supposed to be competent in all areas. Because they are not, they are at risk. Women, on the other hand, are much more likely to seek advice and take it. Even though depressed or alcoholic men are less likely to look for help, it still may be possible to prevent many suicides, Murphy believes. He says alert physicians might be able to pick up on risk factors and refer men into treatment to help them look for ways to solve their problems without ending their lives. "Half of all people who commit suicide have seen a physician within a month of their fatal act," he says. "Mostly they didn't get diagnosed, and if they did, they didn't get treated very vigorously." That requires recognition that depressed men may understate their pain or their difficulty with a particular problem. Murphy says such recognition is essential if men are ever to benefit from the treatments that protect women from suicide. Murphy and the late Eli Robins, M.D., conducted the first comprehensive study of suicide 40 years ago, studying every suicide that occurred in St. Louis and St. Louis County during a one-year period. - Source

On the second article, This helps to argument aggainst feminist who say the high male suicide rate isn´t so bad, look females try to kill themselves more often (red text).

Some examples:

Quote:

Distraught Father's Courthouse Suicide Highlights America's Male Suicide Epidemic By Glenn Sacks A distraught father struggling with overdue child support obligations and adverse family court decisions committed suicide on the steps of the downtown San Diego courthouse Monday. Angrily waving court documents, 43 year-old Derrick Miller walked up to court personnel at the entrance, said "You did this to me," and shot himself in the head. Miller is one of 300,000 Americans who have taken their own lives over the past decade--as many Americans as were killed in combat in World War II. America is in the throes of a largely unrecognized suicide epidemic, as suicide has become the eighth leading cause of death in the United States today, and the third leading cause of death among adolescents. All Americans recognize that our country is rife with violent crime, but few know that 50% more Americans kill themselves than are murdered. Who is committing suicide? For the most part, men. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, males commit suicide four times as often as females do, and have higher suicide rates in every age group. There are many risk factors for suicide, including substance abuse and mental illness, but the two situations in which men are most likely to kill themselves are after the loss of a job, and after a divorce. Because our society strongly defines manhood as the ability to work and provide for one's loved ones, unemployed men often see themselves as failures and as burdens to their families. Thus it is not surprising that while there is no difference in the suicide rate of employed and unemployed women, the suicide rate of unemployed men is twice that of employed men. It is for this reason that economic crises generally lead to male suicide epidemics. During the Midwest farm crisis of the 1980s, for example, the suicide rate of male farmers tripled. A sharp increase in male suicide occurred after the destruction of Flint, Michigan's 70 year-old auto industry, as documented in the disturbing 1989 film "Roger and Me." Some suicide experts fear a rise in suicide related to our current economic downturn. The other most common suicide victims are divorced and/or estranged fathers like Derrick Miller. In fact, a divorced father is ten times more likely to commit suicide than a divorced mother, and three times more likely to commit suicide than a married father. According to Los Angeles divorce consultant Jayne Major: "Divorced men are often devastated by the loss of their children. It's a little known fact that in the United States men initiate only a small number of the divorces involving children. Most of the men I deal with never saw their divorces coming, and they are often treated very unfairly by the family courts." According to Sociology Professor Augustine Kposowa of the University of California at Riverside, "The link between men and their children is often severed because the woman is usually awarded custody. A man may not get to see his children, even with visitation rights. As far as the man is concerned, he has lost his marriage and lost his children and that can lead to depression and suicide." There have been a rash of father suicides directly related to divorce and mistreatment by the family courts over the past few years. For example, New York City Police Officer Martin Romanchick, a Medal of Honor recipient, hung himself after being denied access to his children and being arrested 15 times on charges brought by his ex-wife, charges the courts deemed frivolous. Massachusetts father Steven Cook, prevented from seeing his daughter by a protection order based upon unfounded allegations, committed suicide after he was jailed for calling his four-year-old daughter on the wrong day of the week. (Feck: Insane I stranger would not be imprisoned for calling her any damn day of the week. But its only her father) Darrin White, a Canadian father who was stripped of the right to see his children and was about to be jailed after failing to pay a child support award tantamount to twice his take home pay, hung himself. His 14 year-old daughter Ashlee later wrote to her nation's Prime Minister, saying, "this country's justice system has robbed me of one of the most precious gifts in my life, my father." We'll never know exactly why Derrick Miller took his life and if his suicide could have been prevented. What we do know is that male suicide is one of America's most serious public health issues, and it is time to address it. This column first appeared in the San Diego Union-Tribune (1/11/02).

- from here

Quote:

Man kills himself on courthouse steps UNION-TRIBUNE January 8, 2002 A 43-year-old Paradise Hills man, reportedly depressed about a court ruling on overdue child support, fatally shot himself early yesterday on the steps of the downtown San Diego courthouse. The man was identified as Derrick K. Miller Sr., of Alta View Drive, a spokeswoman for the Medical Examiner's Office said. Witnesses told police that Miller, carrying court documents, walked up to a security guard at the entrance to the courthouse at 220 W. Broadway and began raving. "You did this to me," he told the guard about 6:25 a.m., apparently referring to court officials, the Medical Examiner's Office spokeswoman said. Then, Miller pulled out a handgun and fired one shot into his head. The blast killed him instantly, the spokeswoman said. Miller apparently was depressed about a ruling on child support from a previous relationship, said San Diego Police spokesman Bill Robinson.

- from here 

Quote:

Last Road Out of Hell January 15, 2002 by James Hanback, Jr. We have provided for the survival of man against all enemies except his fellow man. --Lyman Lloyd Bryson Good men must die, but death cannot kill their names. --Proverb On Jan. 7, a 43-year-old man, apparently depressed about a recent overdue child support ruling against him, shot himself to death on the steps of the San Diego Courthouse. According to reports in the San Diego Union Tribune, Derrick K. Miller walked up to a security guard around 6:25 a.m. and began raving about injustices thrust upon him by the legal system. Court papers in one hand, he produced a handgun with the other and fired one shot into his skull, instantly killing himself. What the six-paragraph story in the Union Tribune doesn’t say, however, is that Miller’s actions represent a small sampling of a disturbing trend all over the world. Men who are fed up with what they see as injustices perpetrated upon them by court systems that, in cases of child custody, child support, and divorce, generally favor women, are increasingly taking their own lives. The problem has become so widespread, in fact, that some governments—Australia’s, for instance—have implemented new programs aimed at getting suicidal men help in overcoming the urge to end it all. Likewise, official studies from both Australia and Ireland within the past year have connected an alarming increase in male suicide in their respective countries to the breaking down of family structure, and a perception by men of wrong-doing to them perpetrated by the legal system. According to the Irish study, five times more men than women in that country die from suicide each year, and more than 40 percent of those are men under 30. The principle cause of death for men between the ages of 15-34 in Ireland, in fact, is suicide. Once upon a time, more men died from traffic accidents. The Irish report further stated that the "strong protective effect of marriage" was confirmed as prevention for male suicide. Single, separated, divorced, or widowed individuals all had higher suicide rates. In similar fashion, the Australian study found that younger men in that country were particularly susceptible to suicide upon divorce or separation from their children. "Recent research into male suicide in this age group revealed that males in the 'separation phase' of a marriage break-up were most at risk of suicide, compared with widowed or divorced males," the report’s authors wrote. "Marriage breakdown is a significant characteristic of male suicide in the 24-39 age bracket. The anxiety and emotional pain of separation and divorce appear to effect [sic] men differently. "Whilst suicides may simply be recorded as statistics, it is the increasing number of murder/suicides, involving children that have brought the tragic reality of male suicide, and male mental health issues in general into the public arena. "Where children are concerned, there is evidence to suggest that many men sense they are being discriminated against in family court judgements, and often find themselves in financial straits having to pay legal fees and child support payments. The difficulty in maintaining access to children also heightens the frustration and isolation of separated and/or divorced men." Two studies, two separate nations, and a plethora of social scientists have thus apparently confirmed what individual families have known and news reports have ignored for years: family courts all over Western society are unfair to men, and some men are dying as a result. In the U.S. alone, statistics from the Centers for Disease Control estimate that approximately 80 percent of all suicides every year are by men. Compared to homicide rates recorded by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the number of suicides every year in this country is about 32 percent higher than the number of homicides. Although both the Irish and Australian studies suggest that mental health professionals should focus more on men and getting men to help themselves out of the depressions which result in suicide, perhaps a greater contributor to men’s well-being would be to reform family courts. Perhaps it’s time to change things so that men going through divorce, child custody battles, and child support hearings are given a fair shake. Even in these days of Western feminine liberation there are men who pay alimony. Why? Women in Western culture have been welcomed into the workplace. Everyone knows a woman can make her own ends meet if she so chooses. If, in divorce, the female is absolved from all marital obligations to her former husband, why should he still be forced to be her breadwinner? Likewise, child support is no longer about providing for children. It is a multi-million dollar industry designed to generate revenue for individual state governments, at least in the United States. Visit any fathers advocates forum on the Internet and you’ll find a variety of horror stories about child support rulings which deprive a man of his own livelihood, while his ex-wife maintains custody of the children, denies him visitation, and has married another man who is also providing for her. Adding insult to injury, there’s even a Yahoo! Group dedicated to informing women about how to achieve this particular lifestyle. It’s called "Ex-husband Is Now My Slave" and currently has more than 900 members. You can find it here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Ex-hus..._now_my_slave/. So if the family court situation is the root cause of so much trouble--and is creating a world where men take their own lives out of desperation and women brag about it on the Internet--why, apparently, is nothing being done to change it? That answer lies in the media. No matter who you are or where you live, chances are there is a man in your life, or in your extended family, who has been through some of the pain and anguish associated with divorce, child custody, or child support battles. Chances are that the toll of that situation was much greater on him than his former spouse. In America, divorce court is routine, and fictionalized accounts of it are even broadcast on daytime television. Unfortunately for the men involved in genuine cases, though, the media tends to ignore the courts’ consistent discrimination against them as simple facts of life which cannot (or should not) be changed. Miller--he who shot himself on the San Diego Courthouse steps--is the exception which proves the rule. His case was so dramatic--and public—as a result of his suicide that the Union Tribune could not ignore it. But what happens now that his brief story has been told? Will an intrepid reporter examine the suicide rates of divorced men in San Diego and discover a pattern? Will said reporter examine the family court system from the inside out and determine for himself whether justice is routinely served or men routinely discriminated against? It’s not probable. Instead, the Union Tribune reporters will do precisely what I did when I faced a similar story as a police reporter for The Review Appeal in Franklin, Tenn., in the mid-1990s. They’ll simply go on about their business--writing about budgets, schools, police chases, and criminal trials--until the next man kills himself on the courthouse steps in similar dramatic fashion. Then they’ll write six more paragraphs about it and move on again. That’s what good police reporters do. Sometimes I think back on that bright production day at The Review Appeal. I remember I was writing a small two-paragraph note for what we called "The Police Blotter" about someone who had exposed himself (and escaped police) at a local mall. The radio scanner had been silent all afternoon and, just two hours before we were to put the paper to bed, I heard two sentences from a preternaturally calm female voice creep across the airwaves on the Franklin Police Department’s frequency: "He’s on the Square. He’s got a gun to his head." My office chair was probably still spinning as I ran out the door. Two streets down was Public Square, the Franklin town center where there were several shops, Franklin City Hall, and the Williamson County Courthouse. No sooner had I turned the corner where I could see the tall statue in the Square gleaming against the afternoon sun than I heard the gunshot, and saw a crowd of police and emergency personnel swarm in upon the man as his formerly seated body crumpled to the concrete. While my photographer snapped away at the scene, I talked to witnesses and police officers. I asked where the man had come from, who he was, and why he might have committed such an act. Some faces in the crowd told me they had seen the man walk out of the courthouse, so while my editor continued to interview witnesses, I went to see the Williamson County Court Clerk. There, I learned the man’s identity and that he had spent most of the day in divorce court. After apparently losing his job, his wife, and a battle with depression, he had finally given up hope. The article I wrote for the paper the next day contained all the details a good police reporter includes: who, what, when, where, and some possible reasons why. I had quotes from the officers who worked the scene as well as a few notes from the court filings. When I finished writing, I walked outside and smoked a Marlboro I bummed from someone in the production department (even though I’m not a smoker). The image of that man with the gun played over and over in my head, and as I exhaled the stale smoke of the cigarette from my lungs, I wondered what smoke and gunpowder from a firearm must taste like at such close range. Sometimes I think back on that bright production day, and I wonder why I didn’t continue to follow up on that story. I wonder why I felt that examining that man’s case in the cold light of an objective reporter’s eye wasn’t worth pursuing. I wonder what I might have found had I been persistent. Most of all, though, I wonder if I might not have been able to shed some light and create change in some small way. And maybe saved someone else’s life. That’s what a good reporter should have done.

- from here

MY EX HUSBAND IS NOW MY SLAVE 8 May 2002

Quote:

This site requires a warning as reading the content is likely to produce high blood pressure and a possible heart attack you have been warned !!!!!!! http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Ex-hus..._now_my_slave/ Category: Adult A serious and supportive discussion forum for divorced or legally separated women to discuss how they have used divorce, child support, alimony and the courts to make their ex-husbands their financial slaves. Also how ex-wives have used the psychology of divorce to turn their ex-husbands into servants and slaves for their own amusement and enrichment. A forum for women to share their success stories in humiliating and bankrupting ex-husbands--and then moving on, with their ex's money, to better relationships with more attractive men. Humiliation. Revenge. Female power. Female financial domination. No doubt about it: For many women, divorce can be the road to the easy life--and wealth and riches. And the beauty of it all is that it's all done at the expense of your ex, who now is your financial slave. This list is about placing your ex in psychological and financial bondage. Discuss the tactics--and laugh about it--here.

Sick...that group seems to be gone by now.


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EDIT:

Found via Male Matters blog

Divorced men were over eight times more likely to commit suicide than divorced women (RR=8.36, 95% CI=4.24 to16.38). After taking into account other factors that have been reported to contribute to suicide, divorced men still experienced much increased risks of suicide than divorced women. They were nearly 9.7 times more likely to kill themselves than comparable divorced women (RR=9.68, 95% CI=4.87 to 19.22). Put another way, for every divorced woman that committed suicide, over nine divorced men killed themselves.

[...]

[Co]nsequence, in a divorce settlement, custody of children is more likely to be given to the wife. In the end, the father loses not only his marriage, but his children. The result may be anger at the court system especially in situations wherein the husband feels betrayed because it was the wife that initiated the divorce, or because the courts virtually gave away everything that was previously owned by the ex-husband or the now defunct household to the former wife. Events could spiral into resentment (toward the spouse and ‘‘the system’’), bitterness,
anxiety, and depression, reduced self esteem, and a sense of ‘‘life not worth living’’. As depression and poor mental health are known markers of suicide risk, it may well be that one of the fundamental reasons for the observed association between divorce and suicide in men is the impact of post divorce (court sanctioned) ‘‘arrangements’’.

Clearly this is an issue that needs further investigation. [A J Kposowa]

from here

15,000 to 18,000 Divorced Men Commit Suicide Every Year

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http://www.fathers.ca/government_and_terrorist.htm

Quote:

The Media Doesn't Publish & the Government Won't Release" Every year 24,000 men commit suicide. Every 22 minutes one male commits suicide. Based on the fact that a divorced male is 2.5 to 3 times more likely to commit suicide than the average male, the estimate for divorced men, most likely fathers since there is tremendously more trauma placed on them, committing suicide every year would be 15,000 to 18,000 men.

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/HEALTH/03/15/...ce.suicide.wmd/

Quote:

Men more likely to commit suicide after divorce, study finds Men seeking a good reason to salvage their marriages may want to consider this: A new study finds that divorced and separated men are two and a half times more likely to commit suicide than married men. Divorce, however, doesn't seem to lead more women to commit suicide -- a surprising finding considering the popular wisdom that women suffer more than men after a divorce, according to the study, published this week in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

Listen to the typical shaming language in the cnn article above (published in 2000). Little did this idiots know that the obvious other recourse was not to marry in the first place.

glennsacks.com | Distraught Father's Courthouse Suicide Highlights America's Male Suicide Epidemic

Quote:

The other most common suicide victims are divorced and/or estranged fathers like Derrick Miller. In fact, a divorced father is ten times more likely to commit suicide than a divorced mother, and three times more likely to commit suicide than a married father. According to Los Angeles divorce consultant Jayne Major: "Divorced men are often devastated by the loss of their children. It's a little known fact that in the United States men initiate only a small number of the divorces involving children. Most of the men I deal with never saw their divorces coming, and they are often treated very unfairly by the family courts."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/03/14/...ain171971.shtml

Quote:

Men Wear Divorce Badly Divorce may elevate suicide risk with raised psychological distress. (AP) Divorced men face twice as high a risk of suicide as their married counterparts. (CBS) How do married men fare after a divorce? When it comes to some American men, apparently not well, according to a University of California sociologist who just published a large national study on divorce and suicide. Augustine Kposowa of the University of California at Riverside, spoke from Los Angeles on his findings with The Early Show's Jon Frankel on Thursday."Divorced and separated persons were over twice as likely to commit suicide as married individuals," Kposowa states in his study. In fact, divorced men end up with twice as high a risk of suicide as their married counterparts. He did not find such a high suicide rate among divorced women, however. Kposowa gave three possible explanations, based on opinion. First, he cites "financial obligations," adding that "The courts in the United States are in a position now whereby money is given to the woman, or the man is forced to pay alimony, child support. The man is also asked, in some cases, to vacate the house." Kposowa also notes familial factors. "If a man loses custody of the children and the woman keeps those children, there are situations whereby she may not allow the man to see the children, and that causes some depression," he says. And there are the methods used. "Generally the methods that men and women use to commit suicide are different. Men tend to use guns, for the most part, in the United States. In fact, in 60 percent of suicides that are committed are by a firearm, a gun." "Women are, on the other hand, attempt suicide more often than men," Kposowa says. "Men are more likely to take their own life." "Women tend to initiate divorce more than men," Kposowa notes. "They do think about suicide. They attempt suicide more often than men do, but men (are more likely to go through with it) because men use more lethal weapons, whereas women use less lethal weapons. If a man uses a gun, he's less likely to survive. If a woman uses drugs, medications,...her chances of survival are higher." Read Sociologist's Study Click here to read part of the report. Here are some key points, excerpted from the study's findings, when adjusted for the effects of socioeconomic status: * Men were nearly 4.8 times as likey to commit suicide as women. * African Americans experienced a risk of suicide that was 61 percent lower than that of whites. * In general, the lower the level of education, the higher the risk of suicide. * As for income, only those in households with incomes between $5,000 and $9,999 (inclusive) had a significant suicide risk. * Residents of Western states had much higher risks of suicide. * Persons 55 to 64 years old were 41 percent more likely to kill themselves than youths (15 to 24). * Those 65 years or older had a suicide risk that was 61 percent higher than the risk exhibited by individuals 15 to 24 years of age. How does Kposowa explain the connection? "It may be marriage confers health and many other advantages which divorced persons lack," he writes. The different findings by sex occur, he argues in the report, because "Perhaps women form greater supportive networks, such as meaningful friendships at a higher level than men, and regardless of their marital status." So when their marital status changes, women have their friends. Suicide Prevention Resources Call 800-SUICIDE (800-784-2433) "Although divorce is a crisis and a profoundly stressful life event for many people, men and women react to the crisis and stress differently. Men kill themselves, but women do not," he further writes. The study, "Marial Status and Suicide in the National Longitudinal Mortality Study," published this month in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health considered data from the National Longitudinal Mortality Study, from 1979 to 1989. The samples came from the Current Population Survey, by the U.S. Bureau of the Census.

The deaths of these men is equivalent to 5 or 6 9/11 incidents per year with children left without fathers and it doesn't cause a ripple in the pond of public, media or (big)government interest.