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MEN & SUICIDE
Men in their late 40s and 50s are more likely to take their own lives than any other group. Anna Moore investigates the silent killer
ON the last morning of his life, 24 September 2012, Terry Creasy came into the bedroom and lay beside Pippa, his wife of nearly 30 years. He’d already dressed for work. (Only afterwards did Pippa realise Terry hadn’t showered – he would never go to work without showering.) A consultant radiologist at the Royal Bournemouth Hospital, it was meant to be his first day back at work after a difficult six weeks when, for the first time in his life, he’d been signed off with depression.
‘I was due to play tennis – it sounds so superficial, but we were trying to do things normally,’ says Pippa, a 59-year- old mother of four. ‘Before I left the house I gave Terry a big hug and told him I was so proud, that he was amazing. As I reversed the car, he stood at the window and put his thumbs up – I can see it so clearly. Then I drove away.’ When she returned a few hours later, her husband’s car was still in the driveway. His body was in the garage.
‘The shock and the sadness are indescribable,’ says Pippa. ‘The guilt, the unanswered questions, the if-onlys. We didn’t have any idea how acute his problems were until six weeks before his death – that was the most shocking thing. You feel you hadn’t known this person. I felt so sorry that all the time I’d spent with Terry, I’d never understood. All his life he’d been able to cover it up.’
On the face of it, 55-year- old Terry had everything to live for: a long, stable marriage, a successful career and a loving family. ‘I’m not saying this in a boastful way, but we had such a lot going for us,’ says Pippa. And although you might think that by the age of 55 you’d be more resilient, more able to take the longer view and accept life’s peaks and troughs, this simply isn’t the case. While three times as many men die from suicide as women, it is men aged between 45 and 59 who are more at risk than any other group in the UK.
While most of these tragedies play out behind closed doors, a handful make headlines. In May this year, Zoë Ball was left devastated when her partner, cameraman Billy Yates, 40, took his life. (Billy reportedly suffered from depression and was a victim of fraudulent accountant Christopher Lunn.) His suicide came ‘out of the blue’, revealed a source close to Zoë at the time. ‘She had no feeling that this was coming and is in total shock.’
That same month, US musician Chris Cornell, 52, took his life in the MGM Grand Detroit hotel while mid-tour with his band Soundgarden. It was so sudden, so unexpected, that his wife is still searching for an answer. ‘Something clearly went terribly wrong and my children and I are heartbroken and devastated that this moment can never be taken back,’ she said in a statement.
In a recent interview, comedian Adrian Edmondson, 60, revealed that over the past couple of years he has lost two close friends to suicide. ‘You blame yourself for not knowing, not being there,’ he said. Other men who have died by suicide in middle age include fashion designer Alexander McQueen, 40, and Wales football manager Gary Speed, 42 (he was found hanged in his garage, but the coroner’s verdict was inconclusive).
Why is it such a vulnerable age? According to Professor Nav Kapur at the University of
I didn’t have any idea how acute my husband’s problems were
Manchester’s Centre for Suicide Prevention, many factors can play a part. One is financial worries. The suicide rate among middle-aged men began to rise in 2008 – around the time of the recession – and regions with high unemployment often show higher levels of suicide. ‘Middle-aged men are most vulnerable to losing their job and not getting another one,’ says Kapur, and research shows that men are far more likely to view their job, their financial success and security and their role as ‘breadwinner’ as central to their identity and self- esteem.
Divorce is another trigger. A 2012 report by Samaritans, Men, Suicide and Society, found that middle-aged men are often very dependent on female partners for emotional support – and, from the age of 30, tend to have fewer individual friendships than women. A divorce can leave them isolated – and three times more likely to attempt suicide or experience suicidal thoughts than married men. The average age of divorce is 45.
There is also evidence that the current cohort of middle-aged men is especially vulnerable, says Kapur. ‘They entered the workforce in the depression of the 1980s, so may have been scarred by economic adversity, found it hard to get started and remained vulnerable. They’ve been referred to as the “gap generation”. They grew up with strong, silent, stoical fathers and male role models, but they’re living in a society that now values open, sharing “new men”. They are a gap generation left not quite knowing who they are or how to be.’
In such cases, the usual male ‘coping mechanisms’ can be lethal. ‘When women become physically or psychologically unwell, they’re more likely to seek help, to see their GP or share with their peer group,’ says Kapur. Men are more likely to self-medicate with alcohol or drugs. ‘In the longer term, alcohol acts as a depressant on the brain; it lowers mood. In the short term, it can lead to impulsive decisions.’
BBC business editor Simon Jack lost his father to suicide when he was a teenager. His father, a solicitor, was 44, and grappling with financial, professional and relationship difficulties. Years later, when Simon reached 44, he made a Panorama special to try to understand why middle-aged men were such a high-risk group.
‘I think there’s a reason that time of life is one of maximum pressure for men,’ he says. ‘You’re at the height of your financial responsibilities. Your mortgage is a long way from being paid off. Your kids are at their most expensive and their least grateful. You’re not quite the man your wife married – the testosterone is draining out of your body – and realistically, your best years are behind you. It can feel oppressive.
‘You know you’re supposed to talk but it’s not clear who to. You don’t go to the pub so much any more or to a match with the lads. That community of friends has fragmented. Maybe your spouse is your rock – so if that relationship is under strain then you may feel totally alone.
‘On top of that, the idea of masculinity militates against the talking therapies that many women incorporate in their own lives. If I walked into the office and a female colleague was crying at her desk, a couple of women would rush over, they’d all go to the loo, come back later and we’d carry on. If I walked in and a male colleague was crying, no one would have any idea what to do.’
This certainly rings true for Debbie Watkins from Sunderland, who lost her middle-aged brother Steven to suicide. Steven had been hit hard when their mother died suddenly, just a month after a cancer diagnosis. ‘Steven wasn’t married and had no children. He took it really badly. I remember in the funeral car, a friend said that he’d told Steven that he had to be strong for his two sisters and be there for us. There’s a real pressure on men to be the strong ones. If they’re struggling, they can’t say so.’
The Samaritans report also points to personality traits that heighten suicide risk, including social perfectionism (the perceived need to meet perfect standards) and stoic ideas about masculinity – the belief that it’s unmanly to seek help.
This was Terry Creasy to a tee. ‘He could do everything better than anyone else,’ says Pippa. ‘Tiling, laying wooden floors. He studied medicine at Cambridge where he won a surgical prize as a student and he was an amazing doctor – he couldn’t let his patients down.’
To this day, Pippa isn’t sure what he was struggling with. There was no suicide note – though Terry left his affairs in perfect order. ‘I know work was more demanding than ever, the consultants were under enormous pressure, there were mergers going on, he was worried by changes in the NHS pension policy. He took two weeks off in August and when it came to going back, he just couldn’t.’
It was his first ‘failure’, but he refused to accept help. ‘He saw a psychiatrist and was referred for cognitive behavioural therapy, but disregarded that,’ says Pippa. ‘Terry was all about going back to work – and I think the fact that he couldn’t do that was too much for him. Whatever his issues were, if you are unable to talk about them, it must be torture.’
There have been improvements in recent years, including a government Suicide Prevention Strategy, which stretches from increased access to mental health support to barriers on bridges.
Meanwhile, organisations such as Calm
You know you’re supposed to talk but you’re not sure who to
(Campaign Against Living Miserably) are encouraging men to open up through football, music and photography. ‘Wagging a finger and saying, “You must be depressed, you need to see a doctor” isn’t working,’ says Calm CEO Simon Gunning. ‘But if we can encourage men to listen to people such as the rugby league player Danny Sculthorpe, who is three times the size of a door but can talk about the time he went into a downward spiral, considered suicide and how he managed to pull himself out of it, it might be helpful.
‘We have a Spotify playlist of songs that helped people cope with hard times – by contributing to it, you’re admitting you’ve had a hard time. We have a photography competition themed around what it means to be a man in 2017. It’s the stagnation where we stumble – and that stagnation can be more acute in middle life when we’re not going out and mixing with other groups. If we can get people cycling, running, playing pool, watching football and talking shoulder to shoulder, which men like to do, we might make progress.’
For Pippa, a combination of friends, family and talking has got her through. ‘I know so many single women now,’ she says. ‘They’ve lost husbands to suicide or illness or divorce. I think we’re better able to cope because we’ve always multitasked, adapted, had many interests and talked. When Terry died, I didn’t have the strength to get out of bed, but three friends sat on it and talked and talked.’
Life has gone on. ‘Since then, both our daughters have got engaged and then married,’ says Pippa. ‘One had my eldest son give her away and the other had my youngest. Standing at the church was overwhelming – it should have been Terry walking them down the aisle – but there was so much love and emotion. We’ve had our first grandson, too. Terry has missed out on so much happiness.
‘His awful way of dying has shown us that life is for living. You have to treasure every moment – and we do.’
If we can get men cycling, playing pool, watching football and talking shoulder to shoulder, which they like to do, we might make progress