Born in the (40s, 50s, 60s): Depression and Suicide Rates Climb

The Washington Post looks at climbing suicide rates among the post-WW 2 baby boom generations and tries to assess why, here

The article also suggests: "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.” Despite the hardships of life in the first half of the 20th century, he said, older generations didn’t have the same kind of concept of being stressed out.


"Older generations also had clearer milestones for success. “They won the Great War, they saved the world,” said David Jobes, a professor of psychology at Catholic University and a clinician at the Washington Psychological Center in Friendship Heights."

"Baby boomers, on the other hand, have struggled more with existential questions of purpose and meaning. Growing up in a post-Freudian society, they were raised with a new vocabulary of emotional awareness and an emphasis on self-actualization."

Here at DITHOB, it seems often overlooked that the self-actualization issues that the baby boom generation is often tagged with doesn't fairly reflect the chaos and struggles for equality in the Civil Rights movement, feminism, and political activism that is reflected in the shifting political landscapes over the past several decades. Not only was it a question of the baby boom generation being at the front lines of these social and political movements, but we also have grown up as part of the social fabric of this era, and dealt with the political, economic and social struggles that made racial and sexual equality a reality for the most part in day-to-day life. At the same time, we grew up in the transition to modernity, or post-modernity, from manual typewriters to smartphones and personal computers, and have been forced to struggle with changes and adaptations that our parents never knew and our children, growing up in the post-modern era, don't understand. Hang in there, baby boomers. If it hasn't been an easy ride, we are still part of the "warp and woof" that tried to bring equality, progress and new ideas in the American social experiment into every day life.
-Anthony Napoli, Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn

Where to find help:


American Foundation for Suicide Prevention: www.afsp.org

National Alliance on Mental Illness: www.nami.org

National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255)