Baby boomers are killing themselves at an alarming rate, raising question: Why?

[wickerwoman]

67. Yes,

most people in their 20s still have parents or other older family to fall back on. It sucks being 21 or 22 and having a worthless university degree and lots of college debt and no job prospects and having to move back in with your parents.

But by your 50s, most likely either your parents have died or they are old and ill and looking for financial support from you. You may also have college age kids that are depending on your help. Those kinds of pressures and the guilt associated with them can really build up.

Most people expect 20 year olds to be finding their way financially. By your 50s the expectation is that you would have sorted it out and if you haven't that you're a failure. It's also the age where people begin to face their mortality and the first signs of progressive degenerative illnesses start to show up. My dad had to take early retirement at 49 because the neuropathy from his diabetes left him in such excruciating pain he couldn't sleep or sit down for more than 10 minutes at a stretch. So it's not true in many cases that the serious quality-of-life impacting diseases don't show up until your 70s.

Many people who would have simply died in their early 50s of things like heart disease, cancer or diabetes two or three generations ago are being kept alive through medical interventions that compromise their quality of life to the point that they consider suicide.