Photo Credit : Huffington Post

Two recent celebrity suicides sparked off a lot of discussions about mental health issues. Both Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain were unlikely victims of suicides because they appeared happy, perky and financially sound. Yet, both of them had suffered from depression and addiction for a long time and they both chose to hang themselves to end their “misery”.

Their deaths coincided with a new report released last week by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Suicide rates rose in all but one state between 1999 and 2016, with increases seen across age, gender, race and ethnicity. In more than half of all deaths in 27 states, the people had no known mental health condition when they ended their lives.

Increasingly, suicide is being viewed not only as a mental health problem, but a public health one. Nearly 45,000 suicides occurred in the U.S. in 2016 – more than twice the number of homicides – making it the 10th leading cause of death. Among people aged 15 to 34, suicide is the second leading cause of death.

In Canada, the situation is equally stark. According to The Globe and Mail, about 3,000 people worldwide die by suicide every day – including 125 in the United States and 10 in Canada. Statistics Canada figures indicated that in 2009, there were 3,890 suicides in Canada, a rate of 11.5 per 100,000 people. The suicidal rate for males was three times higher than the rate for females (17.9 versus 5.3 per 100,000). Although suicide deaths affect almost all age groups, those aged 40 to 59 had the highest rates. Married people had a lower suicide rate than those who were single, divorced or widowed.

For seniors, the situation is even worse. Over 10 seniors (60+) die by suicide every week in Canada and approximately 1,000 older adults are admitted to Canadian hospitals each year as a consequence of intentional self-harm. Seniors are, in fact, one of the most at-risk demographic when it comes to suicide. Of that demographic, men over the age of 65+ are the most at risk.

For older adults, in particular, depression is the most common mental health problem due to loss of family and friends, debilitating sicknesses or disease, and a loss of independence and the isolation that can ensue. In an interview with CTV, Dr. Leon Kagan, the director of Geriatric Psychiatry at the University of Alberta, suggests that isolation is a key factor in driving thoughts of suicide among seniors. “These older individuals are having everything taken away from them in terms of their work, their health, their families and finding their role diminished. For some of them, taking their own lives seem to be the only option that they have.”

But suicide rates can be reduced by confronting and talking about depression and offering help to those suffering from prolonged sadness. The Globe and Mail pointed out one of the saddest aspects of the stories about Kate Spade was the revelation that she hesitated to get help for her crushing depression because she worried it would hurt her brand, built on cheerful and brightly-coloured handbags and clothes. Depression is often hidden behind a front of happiness. There is also the stigma of mental illness – victims and family members often feel ashamed of talking openly about their condition. Although this stigma has gradually been fading, the greatest barrier for many is not fear of seeking treatment, but access to treatment.

In Canada, the waits for psychiatric care are disturbingly long. The barriers to accessing psychological services tend to be financial – psychotherapy is not covered by publicly-funded health insurance and private insurance tends to offer limited coverage. The media should tell people that mental illnesses are treatable and instead of glorifying celebrity suicides, they should report on cases in which mentally-depressed patients have recovered by seeking proper treatment. Many people who consider or attempt suicide do get help and they get better.

For older adults, the magnitude of death by suicide is a fact that is under-reported and needs to be discussed more openly so that caregivers and families of older adults can better understand the warning signs of depression and suicide and offer up the help they need.

According to the Canadian Association of Suicide Prevention (CASP), the events that trigger suicide thoughts in seniors are unique and can differ from those that might lead to depression or mental health struggles within a younger demographic. While sadness is the most obvious system of depression, depression can actually exist without sadness.

The CASP website indicated that if an older adult is exuding the following traits, they might be at risk for depression or suicide:

• Fatigue (difficulty falling asleep)
• Loss of interest in hobbies or pleasurable pastimes
• Social withdrawal and isolation
• Loss of self-worth
• Weight loss or loss of appetite
• Fixation on death
• Recent passing of a loved one
• Lingering health problems

The most useful way to offer help to anybody suffering from depression is to to tell them that they are not alone. Let them know that there are people who want to help, and that with the right support, they can find hope again. In addition to having an open conversation about depression and suicide, you can suggest a change in routine by encouraging the people at risk to be involved in activities within their community. Some people need to talk regularly about how they feel in order to shift perspectives, so you can help them out by doing the research on professionals to talk to and, if possible, offer to drive them to and from appointments. When someone knows that others need them to live, it can discourage them from taking their own life. You can organize family time whenever possible and surround the person at risk with love, affection and reassurance that they are not alone.

We also need to tackle the societal problems that can fuel and trigger mental illness and suicidal thoughts – sexual and physical abuse, bullying, trauma, isolation, poverty and more. Anyone can help and little gestures matter. There is hope and we CAN reduce suicide rates if we try harder.

Photo Credit: Huffington Post

Recently, the attention paid to loneliness as a public-health issue has increased all over the world. In Britain, the Conservative government went as far as appointing a minister for loneliness. The Dutch government announced this month that it is investing $40.8 million to combat loneliness among its elderly population. In our own country, Canada, it was reported that 1.4 million elderly people experience feelings of loneliness.

More of us are living alone than at any point in the history of our nation. But living with someone does not preclude loneliness, as anyone in a bad marriage can tell us. And alone is not equivalent to being lonely. Which brings me to my key point – whether you are lonely or not, whatever your age, is a state of mind and an attitude. There is a social stigma that single people, particularly elderly people who are single, are naturally lonely. This is a myth that should be debunked.

I have posted twice in this blog throughout the years that grey divorces are on the rise. In Canada, divorce is spiking only among 50-plusers and becoming an increasingly common event for couples 65 and older. According to Statistics Canada, about one in five people in their late 50s were divorced or separated in 2011 (about 21.6 percent of women and 18.9 percent of men), the highest among all age groups. In the U.S.A., the divorce rate has decreased in every demographic since the 80s – except among baby boomers, where it has actually doubled. It is a similar story in the U.K. and Europe. In Japan, in the past two decades, couples married 30 years or more have seen their divorce rate quadruple. This international trend is so unusual that it has been dubbed the grey divorce revolution.

There are many reasons behind the grey divorces. With financial independence, boomers also want emotional and physical freedom. Turning 50 or 60 is no longer viewed as the gateway to dotage. With life expectancy now at around 80, the idea of going gently into that good night is no longer valid. The people who prefer to fly solo seem to be very content. The prospect of going it alone at a mature lifestage is scary – lifestyle adjustments, financial uncertainty maybe and telling the kids will be hard. But they are all young adults now. This is your time and you want to be free and happy! In an AARP survey of this trend, one theme surfaced again and again: It is now or never! 

The long-term prospects of happiness for grey divorcees are extremely rosy. Eighty percent of the AARP respondents reported having either a somewhat or very positive outlook on their post-divorce lives. And the good news for those interested in finding another relationship at this mature stage of their lives is that most people who are interested in finding one eventually do. To debunk another myth that baby boomers are not technologically-savvy, the number of boomers 50 or older using online dating sites has grown twice as fast as any age group in recent years. Men tend to re-partner more frequently after a divorce, because they typically have a much harder time than women being alone. Women are more comfortable relying on girlfriends when they need to share their experiences in life.

Having said that, between the years 1996 and 2006, the percentage of divorced Canadians intending to remarry dropped from 26 percent to 22 percent. In addition, more than 60 percent of divorced people stated they had no intentions of getting remarried at all. The steady divorce rate has been one of the contribution factors in the record number of one-person households in Canada. There has also been a continuing upward trend in the number of common-law unions – 21 percent in 2016 versus 16.7 percent in 2011. The key takeaways from these trends are: you are not trapped, regardless of age; and you do not need to fear being lonely, because you never really are.

There are certain steps to take after a grey divorce including understanding your current financial picture; revisit your estate plan; keep your emotions in check; communicating with your kids; and seek counsel and help from therapists, lawyers and financial advisors if necessary. Most important of all, as the AARP survey reflected, you can find happiness again no matter what age you are at.

Maybe the marriage model with a lifetime guarantee has officially been phased out. It is no longer realistic to expect to live a lifetime with the same person. Maybe boomers are looking for more quality than endurance. No more status quo if you are not happy. No more loneliness either. Boomers are starting a discussion about marriage again – it is now or never!

This is the time to wish every one we know a Happy New Year – 2016 is a brand new year and another opportunity for new resolutions. I posted early this year on Count Your New Year Blessings, narrowing down to only one new year resolution for 2015. For the coming year, it’s even simpler – just be happy!

Happiness is a state of mind that means different things to different people. According to Dan Gilbert, renowned Harvard psychologist and author of Stumbling On Happiness, human beings have something that we might think of as a “psychological immune system.” It is a system of cognitive processes, largely non-conscious ones, that help us feel truly happy even when things don’t go as planned.

At a TED Talk last year, Gilbert quoted Sir Thomas Browne, an English “Renaissance man” and author, who wrote in 1642: “I am the happiest man alive. I have that in me that can convert poverty to riches, adversity to prosperity. I am more invulnerable than Achilles; fortune hath not one place to hit me.” Gilbert thinks that like Sir Thomas, we also have this happy machine in our heads, but we might not be aware of it.

He thinks happiness can be synthesized. When we yearn for the unachievable goal and worry about things in life, we will be unhappy. Scientific evidence has proven that our longings and our worries are both, to some degree, overblown, because we have within us the capacity to manufacture the very commodity we are constantly chasing when we choose our experience. Gilbert says our beliefs about what will make us happy are often wrong – a premise he supports with intriguing research. He challenges the idea that we’ll be miserable if we don’t get what we want.

During a recent interview on Late Night with Stephen Colbert, Gilbert further explained that all of us can attain happiness much easier than we thought. Spend more quality time with our loved ones and family; be grateful for what we have; make other people happy; focus on maintaining our health. The list goes on and on and they are all simple things to do but are often neglected.

I cannot agree more – all the wealth and material things in life do not necessarily buy you happiness. What makes me happy nowadays are the simple pleasures in life – reading poetry and thought-provoking books; watching creative and inspirational movies; enjoying a brilliant piece of performing art whether it be a ballet, an opera, a musical or a play; listening to all kinds of new and old music; sharing a good meal and quality conversations with cherished friends; learning a new skill or language; giving back to the community and, of course, laughing as frequently as possible!

So whatever new year resolutions you might be making for 2016, try not to be too hard on yourselves and over-complicate things in life. After all, science has proven that the older people get, the more positive they are about aging and the more adaptive they are to their limitations. Life is too short to waste time on regretting the past or to worry about the future which is very often beyond your control. Let’s savour the present; do not delay what we want to do; and  try to enjoy life – stay well and be happy – it’s really that simple! Happy New Year!