Baby Boomers Are Killing Themselves At An Alarming Rate, Raising Question: Why?

The Washington Post ^ | June 4, 2013 | Tara Bahrampour

[Biggirl]

Last spring, Frank Turkaly tried to kill himself. A retiree in a Pittsburgh suburb living on disability checks, he was estranged from friends and family, mired in credit card debt and taking medication for depression, cholesterol, diabetes and high blood pressure.

[Steely Tom]

A lot of baby boomers took their retirement up front.

[MichaelCorleone]

Because hope and change wasn’t as advertised?

[jsanders2001]

I think there are many of us on the verge as well...this hope and changey thing was a bait and switch ad for sure.

[Jonty30]

That’s exactly what happened. They also choose to disconnect from their children by putting them in day care, because their own careers was the most important thing in the world. Consequently, their children learned to not need their parents, so they rarely contact them.

[DIRTYSECRET]

With all those problems I’d kill myself!

[umgud]

My big problem is the bleak future I see for my kids and grandkids, but I’ll not be killing myself over it.

[Coldwater Creek]

COWARDS! There is always a mess for someone else to have to clean up. Suicide is NEVER the answer.

[Iron Munro]

Because with puppet master Valerie Jarrett running the country through Barack The Puppet there is little Hope for positive Change.

Baby Boomers lived through a time that is now a lost dream in the facist, politically corect, dictatorship of today.

The ‘Land of the Free’ has been lost.
It is now the ‘Land of the Free Stuff’, but only for those who toe the democrat part line.

[palmer]

Combine high expectations with a faltering economy, and the risk goes up.

For the most part Americans have not accepted the fact that we are running on borrowed fumes. We have squandered most of the advantages we had as a country as the boomers squandered their savings. Then we have trouble facing the fact that nobody gives a damn. No accomplishments past, present or future means they (we) get no respect. I say this as the last boomer (born 1963). There will be nothing left when I get old except for what I am able to create myself.

[MEGoody]

Because hope and change wasn’t as advertised?

Exactly what I was thinking.

[Dr. Ursus]

Older white males are being rendered irrelevant.

[central_va]

I can see becoming depressed in this corrupt "obamanation" we now live in. The progressives think with each "change" they ram down our throats it always comes over time acceptable to the conservatives, we get over it. Well it doesn't and we don't. For example the repeal of DADT, it is depressing to thing that faggotry is acceptable in the DOD. It just is. And that is just one example of it all slipping away. After a while some feel like they just don't fit in anymore.

FR helps me fight the gloom.

[LibWhacker]

Growing up in a post-Freudian society, they were raised with a new vocabulary of emotional awareness and an emphasis on self-actualization.

More gobbledygook from those who taught boomers to believe the gobbledygook. In before the blame-the-boomers-crowd.

[Night Hides Not]

A retiree in a Pittsburgh suburb living on disability checks, he was estranged from friends and family, mired in credit card debt and taking medication for depression, cholesterol, diabetes and high blood pressure.

From personal and professional experience:

1. File for Chapter 7 BK.

2. Become a Fuhrmaniac ("Eat to Live", by Joel Fuhrman).

The first recommendation is based on recent work experience dealing with troubled borrowers. Considering his situation, he's never going to get credit again (his credit score is likely in the low 500s at best), so get that credit albatross off his neck. It will stop those calls from debt collectors.

I've been following Fuhrman's plan 85-90%, and I'm off metformin, looking forward to getting off Crestor (it's a goal). Another 15 lbs, and I'll be at my weight when I graduated from Jump School 37 years ago.

I'm not passing judgment on moral hazard. I've seen enough moral hazard demonstrated by Wall Street to give this guy a break.

[mountainlion]

Our government is a very oppressive invasive system. Thy have stolen the futures of both the old and young. There is $13.4T that has been stolen form Social Security dating back to JFK. The federal retirement system is unfunded so add this liability to the debt. The whole debt of our den of thieves government is somewhere between $100T and $200T. The government has crashed real estate values. The Fed has inflated the dollar to somewhere around 10% of its value.

Where is the good news?

[bray]

Life without God is an empty existence of chasing smoke and ash. Everything the world tells you is a lie.

Pray for America to Wake Up

[demshateGod]

There rose up a generation that knew not the LORD.

Baby Boomers are the worst generation this country has ever seen. Think about every bad thing in this country, and it was promoted, normalized, and propagated by the Baby Boomers. Not all of them of course. Just a sizable percentage.

[randog]

There will be nothing left when I get old except for what I am able to create myself.

And they'll find a way to take that too.

[Alice in Wonderland]

I’m a retired baby boomer, a widow, and was a hippie back in the day. But unlike Frank Turkaly I have no credit card or mortgage debt, do not take any prescription medications, and am not estranged from my family. Rather my grandchildren live within walking distance and are a part of my everyday life. I’m involved with their activities and have my own interests too. I wouldn’t change a thing. Offing myself is not in the picture.