SUICIDE STUDY

Caucasians over 65 may be psychologically brittle

Older white men have higher suicide rates than older men of African, Latino or indigenous descent — and a “manly code” exists that implicitly justifies it, a Colorado State University professor has found.

Hunter S. Thompson’s 2005 suicide attracted media and celebrity attention, some of it almost fawning over his decision to end his life before age and disease turned him into just another depleted old man.

At least that’s the view of Colorado State University psychology professor Silvia Sara Canetto, who has studied the cultural links to suicide for more than 30 years. She says Thompson — who fatally shot himself at age 67 at his Woody Creek home in Colorado — was sticking by a manly code that kills older white men more than other demographic groups in America.

“The script suggests that suicide and masculinity is accepted,” said Canetto. “That real men kill themselves and not put up with aging.”

Canetto recently laid out her conclusions about why older white men have higher suicide rates than those of older men of African, Latino or indigenous descent — or of older women across ethnicities — in the journal “Men and Masculinities.”

In fact, white men over 65 have three times the suicide rate of any other group and eight times the suicide rate of women over 65, said Dr. Carl Clark, president and CEO of the Mental Health Center of Denver.

Still, older white men tend to end their own lives despite bearing fewer of the burdens that come with aging.

For instance, they are less likely to experience widowhood and have better physical health and fewer disabilities than older women. They also have more economic resources than ethnic minority older men, and than older women across ethnicities, according to Canetto.

But white men may be less psychologically equipped to deal with the normal challenges of aging, likely because of their privilege up until late adulthood, she said.

A white man’s “psychological brittleness and vulnerability” to suicide make them vulnerable to a masculine outlook that implicitly justifies, and even glorifies, suicide among men, Canetto said.

In Thompson’s case, she said, “he had promised himself and others he would die before he got old.”

Both the suicides of Thompson and Eastman Kodak founder George Eastman, who died of suicide in 1932, at age 77, fall into this pattern.

His biographer said Eastman was “unprepared and unwilling to face the indignities of old age.”

Friends of Thompson described him as beating “the indignities of aging.”

“The dominant story was that their suicide was a rational, courageous, powerful choice,” said Canetto.

But there could be more factors at play among older white men than just cultural influences, said Clark.

Some older men can successfully hide their severe depression while still going about the business of living, he said. “I’m still paying the bills, I’m still taking care of the family, I couldn’t be depressed,” Clark said.

People also handle depression and suicidal tendencies differently, he added. “When it comes to suicide, it’s an individual thing that is happening,” said Clark.