Suicide in America Is Surging. What’s Driving This Mentality of Despair?

Such a tragic and broad-spectrum issue isn't one I'd want to comment upon without due consideration. I think people have lost hope; hope that life has purpose, that sacrifices and endured traumas can make us better people, and hope that with each new day, we get another chance to make our world one worth living in. We've lost that hope because (in my opinion) of three important factors: technology, sociology, and pharmacology.They've changed how we educate and employ people...and are fundamentally transforming the Services.

Technology has put the unfiltered opinion of the entire world into each of our hands. Children are posting images of themselves and inviting the globe to, "roast me". Adolescent "crushes" and the inevitable rejections are receiving attention equivalent to the nightly news. Young and old alike, are being fed an endless stream of disturbing news...aimed at fueling their fear, resentment, or anger. In conjunction, society has (for reasons both good and ill) removed the usual barriers designed to compartmentalize "community", such that the basic family unit is ineffectual-it's replacements, temporary. Too many people, of every age and demographic, are isolated in a cocoon of largely meaningless information...most of it telling them that they are "inadequate", "failed", or more significantly-"insignificant". To this soup of irresolution and anonymity, we've added a cocktail of prescription drugs as a proposed "solution".

Our education system, bloated and ill-framed for the numbers being processed, has "no time" to accommodate "childhood". Our workforce, driven to be "productive", but governed by a slew of crushing regulations, protocols, and procedures...is spinning its wheels. We've been "trained" to question everything, trust nothing, but be "woke" to something... what exactly, being very much up for debate.

In the Military, all of this is exacerbated by the "unspoken" truths few of us wish to openly voice. We're called "warriors"... but very few of us have ever lived up to that moniker. We're recruiting kids who want to have purpose... and offering them almost certain mediocrity. In the interest of many political and fiscal initiatives, we've reduced the quality of some, while expecting ever more of the few who rise above. We are no longer a "team", but isolated "tribes" competing for resources, prestige, and relevance.

I think things will only improve if we "get back to basics", both as a civilization, and a community of service members and veterans. We have to highlight what it's, "all about"... find unity somewhere, anywhere. If we don't, people will continue to look into the abyss ,and rather than find a challenge to live life to the fullest...an invitation.

The greater use of drugs and alcohol likely play a role. Mental health issues do as well but there are many that take their own lives that those issues do not appear to be at play.

We live in an age and a society where despair should be at a low. We are freer, better off economically, have more choices and opportunities than jus about an society that has ever existed. I think people are lost spiritually and have a sense of despair because they believe this is it, there is nothing beyond here and here does not feel very good. The falling away from a belief in God and a life everlasting I think sows the seeds of despair and hopelessness. If this is it, if this is all there is and this is not very good, what hope do you have?

Despair and hopelessness are evil sisters that take away things you might want to live for and things that give you faith that there are better things to come.

My sister was a drinker, she had PTSD from an abortion years ago, she was going through divorce of her third marriage and domestic violence is a factor. She was beating up. The common denominator was alcohol cause her to hang herself because she couldn't handle living on the street again. Had she not had alcohol, I think she would be alive today.
My wife has also lost a few cousins and nieces to suicide on the Indian reservation and alcohol and pot was a factor. When you have a druggie families who don't support each other, they only bring each other down and we on they all have a Cheech and Chong attitude, killing oneself is the choice they make. I hate drugs and alcohol and I have two step daughters that are druggies and on social assistance, welfare here in Liberal Canada due to them getting into pot and alcohol and even magic mushrooms as a nature. They are The Walking Dead always asking for money even though they receive money and they are manipulative.
https://m.legacy.com/obituaries/orangecounty/obituary.aspx?n=rose-loretta-conway&pid=175315548&referrer=0&preview=True