After her husband died two years ago, Ena Kane, 83, moved to Sonoma County to be near her son. She’d been living in retirement in Florida for many years and the loss, after 54 years of marriage, left her struggling with grief, isolation and depression.
“After my husband died, I did think of taking my life,” Kane said. “I told my son about it. He told me that it would be very selfish of me to do that.”
Kane found refuge at local organizations including the Council on Aging and Vintage House in Sonoma, where the former special education teacher took classes and connected with others her age.
Kane, a cancer survivor, also found something to keep her going — she is studying to be a cancer doula to help others. “I feel like that would give me purpose for the rest of my life,” she said. “When you have depression, you have to make a decision to work on yourself.”
In Sonoma County, older adults have the highest age-adjusted rates of suicide, according to county public health data. And the rates are increasing.
The suicide rate for seniors between 75 and 84 has increased by 52.4% since the beginning of the current decade, bringing the age-adjusted rate from 21 deaths per 100,000 people to 32 deaths per 100,000. Age-adjusted rates are a statistical tool used to produce more refined comparisons between groups with different age distributions.
In September, Sonoma County behavioral health officials and the Council on Aging held a conference aimed at addressing mental health challenges many seniors face, including risks of suicide.
The conference included a panel discussion moderated by Todd Finnermore, a local psychologist who, among other things, specializes in mental health issues affecting seniors, including dementia and memory loss.
One of the featured speakers, Mary-Frances Walsh, executive director of the local chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Health, gave a presentation on QPR, a suicide prevention training method used to help people recognize and respond to suicide warning signs.
“Too often, people suffer in silence because they believe that no one will understand their struggles and they think their struggles are a burden to others,” Walsh said.
She pointed out that speaking openly about mental health and suicide prevention makes it “safer for people to get help and to offer help.” Many who are on the “threshold of actually taking an action” have likely been thinking about suicide for a while.
“If intervention happens, we can put a stop to those tremendous feelings of despair, we can make a difference,” she said.
“Suicide can be prevented,” she added, dispelling misconceptions that it’s inevitable, that discussing it with someone will plant the idea in their mind, or that people who consider suicide keep their plans to themselves.
“That’s a myth,” she said. “Most people give some kind of indication in advance that they might be thinking about taking their own life, which is why it’s important to be able to pick up on that and recognize it.”
Familiar depression
The depression Kane, the Sonoma retiree, felt when her husband died triggered a familiar darkness. In 1986, Kane lost the oldest of her two sons, who was 18 when he died. At the time, she lived with her family in the Forest Hills neighborhood of New York City.
Overcome by grief in the ensuing 18 months, she stopped paying attention to her younger son.
“I was really destroyed, at a point when I couldn’t even remember my own name,” she said.
During a weekend trip to upstate New York, she said her younger son was going to walk on a frozen lake and she objected. “He said to me, ‘Maybe if I die, you’ll start paying attention to me, or something like that.’”
“It woke me up and I vowed to change and get better,” she said. She returned to college and earned a degree in education.
Today, as a cancer doula, Kane wants to help others who are suffering as she once did by helping them build the resilience she’s acquired over eight decades of life.
“The work that I did on myself, and the people that were there for me, it makes me cry,” she said, her voice breaking.
Older population in focus
During the Sept. 18 suicide prevention conference, titled “Connection is Prevention,” Sonoma County Supervisor Chris Coursey spoke to some of the life challenges seniors face. These include increased isolation, loss of loved ones, declining health and the stress of being a caregiver for a loved one.
“All of those things can make the older population and the general population especially vulnerable to suicide,” Coursey said. But all of those things represent issues that can be dealt with in life with connection to others. Suicide is preventable.”
Finnermore, the geriatric psychologist who presented at the conference, pointed out that the number of seniors in the United States over 65 has grown dramatically, from 3.1 million in 1900 to a projected 71 million in 2030. That means the share of U.S. residents in that older age group, once as low as 4% in 1900, is expected to grow to 20% by 2030.
In Sonoma County, 28% of residents, or 135,142 people, are 60 or older. By 2030, the share of older residents will make up 35% of the county’s population; statewide, that share will be about 25%.
The health care needs of that age group, including mental health, are expected to grow in the coming decades.
Senior advocates stress that people can and do live joyful, fulfilling lives as they grow older.
Finnermore said there’s a misconception that older people are more depressed or more likely to be depressed than younger people. He highlighted one study that people between 16 and 65 had a higher prevalence of depression and anxiety than those over 65.
Depression and mental wellness is one of the most important factors cited for quality of life. Others include maintaining positive relationships and good physical health, he said.
For Sandy, 61, coming to terms with her loss of physical abilities, has been difficult. Sandy, who asked asked that only her first name be used to maintain her privacy, said things started to change when she turned 60.
Sandy, who supplements her income by doing gardening and yardwork, said she now needs a hip replacement and has been having trouble with her shoulder, which is now “bone against bone.”
“I can’t do the things I used to do,” she said during a phone interview, adding that she’s also troubled by her changing physical appearance.
“It’s very depressing,” she said. “I have a hard time with it. I’m sure everybody does. I used to put so much emphasis on the way I look. I try not to worry about it as much but I’m single and I feel like I’m never going to find anybody.”
She said last year she went through a very difficult time dealing with some of these issues and became extremely depressed. “I needed to make something happen, I’d been depressed before but it only lasted a day or two,” she said. “This time, I couldn’t leave my room, I stayed home. I was just miserable.”
Sandy reached out to the Council on Aging and participated in a program that is helping her navigate life transitions that come with aging. She said that even during her most troubled moments, suicide is “really not an option for me.”
She thinks about the people in her life.
“I think everybody has people out there that care about them,” she said. “It would really hurt the people you leave behind. … I love my family and I really wouldn’t want to hurt them like that.”
You can reach Staff Writer Martin Espinoza at 707-521-5213 or martin.espinoza@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @pressreno.
Suicide Prevention Resources
• Call 911: In case of a medical emergency or imminent danger.
• Call 988: Connect with a trained crisis counselor.
• Sonoma County Mobile Support Team (MST):
Provides crisis response services 24/7/356. MST can be reached at 800-746-8181; personnel at the MST Crisis Call Center will gather information to support those calling in and connect callers to the appropriate crisis response – including coordination with other crisis response teams in the county.
• inRESPONSE Mental Health Support Team
Designed to respond to calls for service within Santa Rosa city limits, inRESPONSE can be reached directly at 707-575-HELP (4357.)
• Specialized Assistance for Everyone – SAFE Team:
Offers crisis response, prevention and intervention 24/7/365 within the city limits of Cotati, Rohnert Park and Petaluma, and also to Sonoma State University students on- or off-campus. SAFE can be reached directly in Cotati/SSU at 707-792-4611, in Rohnert Park at 707-584-2612, and in Petaluma at 707-781-1234.
• National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Sonoma County:
Offers non-crisis mental health education, support, information and referrals (9-5, Mon-Fri). Call (866) 966-6264 or visit info@namisoco.org.