All Daisuke Tajima could think about was ending it all. One day the 49-year-old salaried worker walked out of his office in a city in northern Japan, and for weeks his family had no clue as to his whereabouts.

To get as much space between himself and his workplace, he headed west to Kobe, wandering from hotel to hotel in search of a place to quietly take his life. He drank heavily and finally made a failed attempt to hang himself.

Tajima (not his real name) tells a story that says much about the plight of Japan's middle-aged salaried workers, a bracket of Japanese society that revealed a startling penchant for suicide last year.