What Drives a Young Man to Suicide

The story of someone who’s been there

I am pretty stingy when it comes to guest posts on my website. I probably get three to five offers each week from people who want me to publish a post there. And it goes without saying, most of the proposals are either unoriginal or just downright bad.

A few weeks ago a reader named Dave emailed me offering to write an article about suicide and his attempt when he was in university. A number of articles have been published recently¹ about how suicide rates in men have been rising over the past couple of decades and that they now outpace women by more than three male suicides for every female suicide.

The problem is that few people talk about this. And I don’t mean just about men’s suicide rates, but suicidal men don’t talk about their suicidal thoughts. Men also don’t talk about other men’s suicidal thoughts. Men are socialized to keep quiet about their problems and handle them on their own, especially any problems with their mental health. Obviously, this is having some tragic repercussions.

It was for this reason that I took Dave up on his offer. He wrote a great piece and I spent some time editing and refining it. I’m proud of the result.

I don’t expect this to be necessarily earth-shattering. But I do hope it can give…