Baby boomers killing themselves at alarming rate

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 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."

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 between 1999 and 2010.

It has long held true that elderly people have higher suicide rates than the overall population. But statistics released last month by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) 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 Native American and Alaskan men. In recent years, death by suicide has surpassed death 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 studies fleshing out the reasons behind the rise in boomer suicides. Part of it is likely tied to the recent economic downturn - 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 those over 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. To those growing up in the 1950s and '60s, America seemed to promise limitless possibilities. The Great Depression and World War II were over; medical innovations such as the polio vaccine and antibiotics seemed to wipe out disease; the birth-control pill sparked a sexual revolution. The economy was thriving, and as they came of age, boomers embraced new ways of living - as civil-rights activists, hippies, feminists, and war protesters.

"There was a sense of rebelliousness, of 'I don't want to live the way my parents did,' " said Patrick Arbore, director of the Center for Elderly Suicide Prevention in San Francisco. "There was a lot of movement to different parts of the country. With that came a lot of freedom, but there also came a loss of connections. It was not uncommon to see people married three or four times."

How did a generation that began with so much promise end up so despondent in midlife? It could be that those very advantages made it harder to cope with setbacks, said Barry Jacobs, director of behavioral sciences at the Crozer-Keystone Family Medicine Residency Program in Springfield, Delaware County.

"There was an illusion of choice - where people thought they'd be able to recreate themselves again and again," he said. "These people feel a greater sense of disappointment because their expectations of leading glorious lives didn't come to fruition."

Instead, 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 parents and for adult children who still rely on them financially.

Perhaps a little more adversity in youth could have helped prepare them for the inevitable indignities of aging, Knight suggested, adding that "the earlier-born cohorts are sort of tougher in the face of stress."

Women tend to be better connected socially and share their feelings more freely - protective factors when looking at their risk for suicide. And African Americans and Hispanics tend to have lower rates of suicide than whites, possibly because of stronger community connections, or because of different expectations.

Combine high expectations with a faltering economy, and the risk goes up.

"We know that what men want to do is work," Arbore said. "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."