My flirtation with suicide - I contemplated it only - derived from my
situation at the time where I felt that *I* had "failed" my marraige,
that I was no longer the "good boy", that I wanted out of my situation
and the only way out (the "hardy", "masculine" way out) which would
"satisfy" everyone was to commit suicide. Of course, this is errant
nonsense. I decided to get help which I guess is rare and I continue
my escape.

I guess my age comes into it: the stresses built up from childhood
finally catch up with you in middle-age, although I heard recently
that there are a lot more younger male suicides.

Recently, where I work, a (white, devout christian, husband and father
of 3, middle-aged, male) manager - and a friend of mine - committed
suicide under the twin weights of job stress and illness, the latter
strengthened by the former. His boss told him that he had to make the
journey from York to Cambridge twice a week; this didn't help. The
subject of masculinity never figured in the conversations about his
suicide. It's only now that I see my behaviour within the parvenu of
masculinity.

So, the "hollow constructs of masculinity" seem to be primers for the
most hideous of situations. The cold bloodless calculation of
statistics and theorising will always be wraiths to the reality; yes,
I can see the sense in these things; the grief and the anger, though.

I am truly sorry about your brother and your uncle.

Roger

On 4/1/06, Rebecca Seiferle <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> I don't know about these larger theories. It would
> seem from the statistics that if misogyny, homophobia,
> and hollow constructs of masculinity are behind the
> rates of middle-aged male suicide, as Alison
> suggested, then Australia has considerably more of a
> problem with these issues than the U.S. does.  And,
> yes, Aborigines commit suicide at a 40% higher rate
> than the white population of Australia. But in the
> U.S., white males commit suicide most often, followed
> by Native Americans. Oddly black women are least at
> risk, I say oddly because given economic and class
> factors, if those are the deciding factors, then that
> seems counter intuitive.
>
> Anyway, I don't know, but, truthfully, this
> conversation bothers me with its emphasis upon
> assumption and far reaching theory since it doesn't
> seem very connected to the realities of such
> experiences. I cannot talk about suicide without
> seeing my brother's body lying in the grass where he
> shot himself, not once, but twice in the chest, nor
> without seeing my uncle's shattered temples and blind
> eyes from his attempted suicide from which he died a
> couple of years later. There were a great many
> differences between them, my brother was in his early
> 40's, a cowboy, unemployed for some months, my uncle
> was in his early 60's, retired, well off, from his
> career as a captain in the Merchant Marines. What they
> had in common were: they were both not working and the
> sort of work they did was as much about who they were
> as what they did, they both drank too much and had for
> some time, they both wanted to make changes in their
> lives and had long term marriages and each of their
> wives (while very different too) were adamant about
> not changing anything, they both had no children, they
> had both been severely rejected, recently, by the same
> person, my father, they were both given 'help'
> diagnosis and treatment by family members who didn't
> know what they were doing and basically did just
> enough to keep their problems hidden from anyone else
> who might have actually helped. And there was an
> element of the random, being left a key to where the
> guns were locked up. I do think there was some element
> of this masculine construct, some way in which they
> were both caught in a hollow mold at a young age, but
> it's so difficult to separate out from any of the
> sheer unremitting damages of childhood, my uncle grew
> up in an orphanage, etc. It just seems to me that
> people damage one another horribly, they don't mean
> to, they intend otherwise and cannot see how they do,
> but they do. Which isn't to say that both my uncle and
> brother didn't chose to continue the damage to
> themselves.  I don't really think economics or
> education or considerations of misogyny would have
> made any difference. And, sorry, if I seem impatient,
>
> best,
>
> Rebecca
>
>
>
>
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