This touches on many issues that basically amount to "society is deeply broken".

The first is that in many places, men over 50 are one layoff (or even one divorce) away from total financial ruin. Other comments here tell a story of people in tech who thought their careers were mapped out but AI has destroyed it all and they don't know what they're going to do. After 40, and after 50 in particular, once you lose that job your chances of getting another shrink drastically.

The second is patriarchy. Men tend to be valued and defined by what they can do and provide. Lose that and you lose your identity. As other comments have said, you become invisible.

Third is the general idea that only one's ties to other people are keeping an awful lot of people here. There have been studies on this and psychologists have frameworks to describe this. In a world where society is falling apart that resistance is crumbling.

It costs so much to just live now. People might need 2 or more jobs and be one emergency away from ruin. Eventually a lot of people must think "why am I doing all this?"

Lastly, the article says "every suicide is a devastating tragedy". I... don't agree. Certainly people with terminal conditions or they have to live with, say, crippling mental health conditions, I have to respect people's choices. It's their life. They're the only ones who have to live it.

I'm in my 50s now. In some ways I'm quite fortunate but I also have not one not two but three disabilities: poor vision just hovering above legal blindness (and getting worse), ADHD and level 1 autism. The last two weren't diagnosed until my 40s. The medical consensus that you could have both only formed in the 2010s. Prior to that it was believed to be one or the other. ADHD can be treated but autism? You just have to live with it. And it's incredibly isolating in a way I know will never change. Fun for me.

I'm not a religious person. I'm a strict atheist actually. But I've had one unshakeable belief my entire life and that is that I won't live to be old. I have no basis for that belief but I can remember thinking 30 years ago there's less than 50% chance of making it to 60 and less than 10% of making it to 70. No idea why.

I've now had Covid 6 times, which is funny given how isolated I am but despite 5 jabs, each time it's worse. I'm kinda surprised I don't have Long Covid honestly. The last time I was bedridden for 2 weeks and it took 4 weeks to "recover". To physically exert myself really took almost 3 months. Do I see myself surviving that another 10-20 times? No.

I guess another aspect to all this is a thing called passive suicidal ideation. A lot of autistic people have this apparently and it's not so much a desire to end it all but rather kinda wishing just not to be here. It's just too hard. I... get it. It's kinda like wishing some other sperm impregnated that ovum years ago.