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Are shaming men for weakness, suicide and resistance to International Men’s Day connected?

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The increasing problem of male suicide has been in the news a lot in recent weeks.  Across all the articles that have been written on the subject, one word keeps re-appearing: “shame”.

For example, we hear that men feel ashamed of expressing their emotions and we are reassured that there should be no shame in experiencing depression.  Shame is mentioned often but rarely is it properly examined.  Shame, by its very nature, is something that we do not want to discuss.  As a man who is recovering from mental health problems and who has struggled with suicidal thoughts in the past, I have had to face up to shame and discuss it in detail.  It has been a painful and at time’s frightening process but one that has been key to my recovery.

I think that we, as a society, need to start having a discussion about shame and the dark places that it can lead to when people’s feelings of shame get out of control.  When we look at the problem of male suicide and men’s mental health in general, we need to look at how our society sets up young men to experience potentially unmanageable levels of shame and we need to work together to build a society where this is no longer the case.

Profoundly frightening

Shame is an incredibly complicated emotion and I’m not a psychologist so my input here will be very limited.  My aim is only to share my own experience of shame, my reflections on it and how I am reducing its negative influence on my life in the hope that my story will help others and will do something to bring the problem of male shame to the forefront of the discussion.

When shame really takes hold of you it’s a profoundly frightening and painful experience.  It’s the sense that you are deeply flawed.  It’s a nagging voice that tells you that you are not clever enough, not strong enough, not attractive enough, not charismatic enough, not capable enough.  It’s the feeling that makes you sink into despair or lash out when something reminds you of how flawed you feel.  It’s the sense that you are bad, worthless and unlovable and there’s nothing that you can do about it. Your basic human need to be loved and accepted feels like a sick joke.

You don’t talk about how you are feeling not because you find it embarrassing or uncomfortable or don’t want to make a fuss, but because you feel that your entire sense of self will disintegrate if you fully acknowledge how you feel about yourself.  You can’t grow or develop yourself because it’s too painful to acknowledge even your slightest imperfection.  To fail at something is so painful that you can’t learn from your mistakes.

You certainly can’t ask for help.  If anyone notices you are struggling and offers help then they have effectively pointed out your imperfections and so you will push them away.  You spend long, exhausting hours chasing your thoughts in circles trying to build some sense of self-worth.   If you made a mistake you can’t let it go so you try to convince yourself that it was because you were distracted or weren’t really interested in what you were doing anyway since you had more important things to do.  If someone didn’t like you then you try to convince yourself that they’re an [insert expletive here] anyway.

‘Society sets boys and men up to feel shame in a particularly destructive way’

You might look for shortcuts to achieve something that would prove to yourself that you are wonderful really but each shortcut leads nowhere – it’s another failure that fuels that nagging voice telling you that you really are hopelessly flawed after all.   A life lived like that is incredibly painful so you start to look for escape.  Escape can take the form of fantasy, perhaps of being the unflawed person that you think you must be or the fantasy of being loved in a way that would make the pain of being you go away.  Escape can take the form of zoning out in front of the TV, drinking until you aren’t aware of your feelings anymore or any number of ultimately unhealthy activities.  In extreme cases, escape can take the form of suicide.

Of course, women as well as men can feel like that so why do I say that shame is a particularly important topic when we’re look at men’s mental health?  It’s because society sets boys and men up to feel shame in a particularly destructive way.  Our society has, quite rightly, spent much time and effort sending girls and women the message that they can be strong, capable and successful.  We have, however missed the fact that we have kept on sending boys and men the messages that they must always be strong, capable and successful.

The first of these messages is helpful and empowering, the second is potentially disastrous since it sets boys up from a very young age to have unrealistic expectations of themselves which can lead them to feel unhealthy levels of shame when they are unable to live up to those expectations.  And this shame will be reinforced by those around them.  Boys will be bullied if they are not always strong, men will be dismissed as “losers” if they are not always capable and successful.

‘We need to foster empathy for men’

Even in the way that society seems to value boys, it doesn’t get it right.  Boys are too often seen as little potential doctors, lawyers, businessmen or sports stars to be.  This may look like encouragement and support but when it gets in the way of seeing boys as children, it can become positively harmful and stops them from growing and learning.  A father’s shame of failing to live up to the unrealistic expectations placed on him can be passed on in the form of unrealistic hopes and dreams for his son – shame masquerading as nurturing.

We miss all of this because we have assumed that because the messages that girls received from society for so many generations were disempowering, then all of the messages that boys received from society must have been empowering.  It is because people cannot see past this assumption that they react with confusion, silence or mockery when boys start to fail at school and men’s mental health suffers.

When people talk about the “fragile male ego” they usually don’t realise that they are actually talking about the consequences that men suffer from having grown up in a world that feels almost designed to induce shame in them.

Psychologists will tell you that a key tool in combatting unhealthy shame is empathy.  Empathy is when people understand your pain, accept you as you are and help to create an environment in which you can learn to accept yourself and realise that you are ok despite your imperfections.

Phrases like “fragile male ego” and comments like “we don’t need an international men’s day because every day seems like one” are unhelpful precisely because they contribute to a culture where there is little empathy for men.  It’s my hope that we can use International Men’s Day 2015 as an opportunity to rebuild some of that empathy for men and start to heal the epidemic of male shame.

Dealing with my unhealthy levels of shame has changed my life.  Not all of my problems have gone away but without the influence of shame, I can now identify those problems and work on them, try things and fail, learn from my mistakes and grow, relax and enjoy life and connect with others in a way that I was never able to before.

The author is an aspiring blogger with a particular interest in mental health, culture and how the two interact.  He was inspired to take the leap and start putting his thoughts out there by the recent discussions about International Men’s Day. As a man who is recovering from mental health issues himself, he is especially interested in how culture interacts with mental health for men in modern day western society. He hopes that by sharing his personal experience and reflections he will be able to contribute to the discussion and encourage others in their journey towards recovery.  He also enjoys film, music, socialising, hiking and he has recently learned to enjoy the gym and keeping fit. He also loves dogs.

Do you want to make preventing male suicide a national health priority? To help raise awareness about this emergency join the International Men’s Day social media shout out by clicking here

The illogical logic of depression: ‘It’s been a wonderful year… But I felt awful’

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Once a week, I visit my local hospital in north London, take a long stroll through perfect corridors, climb a few stairs and sit in a room to talk to a woman I don’t know. It’s not something I look forward to. Being a native of this island gives me that peculiar sense of shyness when confronted with strangers, so it’s taken a while for me to get used to this arrangement. I should say at this point that she’s lovely. She’s wise, intelligent and polite, but she has an unerring knack of guiding me into conversations that I don’t want to have. She is, of course, my therapist.

In January I was diagnosed with high functioning endogenous depression following a pretty bleak December. Despite writing on the subject for male health publications and charities such as insideMAN and CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably) I always felt that my role when discussing depression was one of conductor rather than participant. I was keen to demonstrate how commonplace the illness is and how it should not be a stigma. Depression doesn’t mean weakness and once the world gets used to that fact it might help reduce the appalling number of suicides which destroy families daily. Anyway, I was asked to write about it and did so without realising that I too suffer from ‘the black dog’ as Churchill called it. True, I’ve had a few suspicions about my character and ‘way of looking at the world’, but simply put it down to my naturally grumpy cynicism. In January I was put straight about that in no uncertain terms.

It began a month earlier. I was talking to a close friend and explained that this current dark mood was proving difficult to shift and that I just felt awful about nothing in particular. She grew concerned (which made me feel worse) and asked me to visit my GP and tell them what I’d been telling her. I couldn’t really be bothered. It was a simple black phase and one I’d emerge from soon enough as I’d done time to time again, but she’s too smart for this and did something very clever. She told me to go. So I went. I do tend to do what others want as I can’t bear the idea of disappointing people. My therapist calls it ‘people pleasing’ and I’m as guilty as anyone when it comes to it.

‘I was a fraud, a coward, a cheat’

Anyway, I went along and spoke into my armpit for twenty minutes or so about ‘feeling quite down’ etc. but pointed out that this had been commonplace over the past decade and that I’d soon pull myself together. One thing, however, I was very keen to stress was that ‘this’ wasn’t depression. No chance. I knew the difference. I have friends who struggle with it and have an uncle who has suffered awfully from it since the year of my birth and I was nowhere near that category.

Of course, she said, there are many strains of depression and that just because I didn’t exhibit manic episodes it didn’t mean that I too wasn’t a victim to it. I agreed and waited to be released into the winter streets with a pep talk of some kind or other, but she pressed me further and asked me if there’d been one thing that triggered this current spell of melancholia. Well, yes, there was and I’m afraid it comes with a degree of ‘wow, look at me!’

I told her that in the last year I had left a job and career I actively despised, got a job I never thought I would get and makes me very happy indeed, began writing about football for national newspapers, released my first novel to some acclaim, taken on lots of other writing jobs such as those stated above, was working on a second novel which (I think) is better than the first and was working on a football book with another mate. That’s not a bad year. I’ll go further. It’s the year I’ve been waiting for since my name first appeared in a fanzine in 1993.

If you like this article, you’ll love the insideMAN book, available here

I may not have planted a flag in the minds of the nation but I was beginning to be taken a little more seriously.

A statement year.

But I felt awful.

I felt like nothing on earth. I was a fraud, a coward, a cheat and the worst type of human who lies and steals praise from his friends for his own twisted validation. I was kidding everyone but myself and I didn’t like it.

Karl, with his dad

When you’re in that state you can’t go out. You ignore emails and texts and wish the world would go away. Some people even take the final step and I can see why. I’m not suicidal –I’ve no interest in dying- but I’ve often wished that I could be taken out of time like I’ve never existed. I can live with being a disappointment to myself but no one else. Put me in a cave somewhere. Let my life fail to touch yours. No one will be hurt then.

I told my GP this and she smiled warmly and added ‘but you’re not depressed?’

I said that I objected to the term and maybe I had some of the undercard to that word –stress, anxiety, low self-esteem etc- but not the full blown kit and caboodle. Not the D-word.

She asked if I were able to write those words in a satellite around one enormous word, what would that word be? Then I was diagnosed. I have depression. Not bi-polar or anything similar, but a depression that isn’t focused on one life incident. I just have it. People do.

She gave me a list of medication options and asked me to go away and think about it. I’m very lucky here. My sister is a pharmacy lecturer so I called her (not an easy call to make) and went through a few options. A week later (and what a grim week that was) I signed up for a course of meds. I’m on a fairly low dosage which I’m happy with but I’ve been told that it’s hardly on the Junior Disprin level.

‘Enlightening, harrowing and fascinating in equal measure’

Therapy (CBT) took longer to organise. The NHS being stretched as it is meant that I would have to look at group therapy more than one-to-one work. I laughed that off. There’s more chance of me giving birth than sitting in a room and talking about my week with people I didn’t know.

I started one-to-one sessions about six weeks ago and so far it’s been enlightening, harrowing and fascinating in equal measure. I’m told it isn’t going to always be a song and dance but it will work out eventually. My sister tells me I have a lack of something in my brain and I’m being topped up like a car engine. That’s all. The cranial version of a sprained ankle. Plenty of serotonin and vitamin D please.

So, anyway, this is where I am at the moment. So, why am I here?

Well, today isn’t a good day. I’ve been tense, anxious and have shrunk away from the world a bit. It’s been a busy day too and, with my walk completed (I’ve taken to walking 5-6 miles per day) I’ve had a long time to listen to my thoughts. They haven’t been pleasant. I’m restless too and that’s led me to the laptop, to Word Document 1, to vomiting words onto a page that will make little sense. Ordinarily I’d distract myself by writing about football but I’m on holiday as far as that goes so what else is there? I apologise for your part in all this.

One of the most interesting aspects about my particular dose of depression is the battle between logic and emotions. All day I’ve been worried about stupid things which I know cannot harm me in the long term. For example, I have to put my car through its MOT on Monday. It’s an old car and I’m sure it’ll pass with a bit of work on it but for some reason I’m convinced I won’t have a car at all by the end of the week. I need a car for my day job and without a job I will be destitute and the whole thing will spiral. Earlier this week I replaced two tyres as I thought they were on the turn (ho ho) so they can’t fail me on that. They’ll find something though, You watch.

‘An internal feud between thought and feelings’

The corrective argument is, of course, what is the worst thing that can happen? The garage will be into my ribs for a few hundred quid which I can pay off on my flexible friend. I can’t see me wandering home like George Bailey in It’s A Wonderful Life with just a set of car keys in my hand, but try telling my mind that. This is the emotional side of things. The doom process. The logic says ‘people go through MOTs, Karl. People fail them and then fix something and then pass them’ I have for one, but you might as well try to convince me that David Icke is really onto something…

Earlier today as I sat in the car in traffic I thought ‘all I do is let people down.’ The logical side took over and asked me, quite rightly, when was the last time I honestly let anyone down? Rarely, I’d say. I’m nice to people, too nice at times, and am alright really, but that argument holds no brook with what’s going on up here.

Logic always takes a back seat as it can’t stop your mind from racing. The sheer energy I waste in worry could fuel a small nuclear power plant. If I put that energy into writing, reading, learning, anything I might actually make something of my life. But in some ways, I have done something with my life, I suppose. Things are going pretty well, generally.

This whole illness is an internal feud between thought and feelings.

So, what do I do? Well, everyone is different and I’m quite fortunate with the manner in which I try to distract myself. Some resort to mania or self-abuse of one kind or another, but I’m lucky enough to be a bit dull in that respect. I have passions. Not manic as such, or at least not in the bipolar sense, but I latch onto things that no one is remotely arsed about. A couple of years ago I decided to read up on American presidents. Names, dates, Vice Presidents, running mates, age at time of death, heights (Abraham Lincoln was the tallest, James Madison easily the shortest) and anything and everything about the Commander-in-Chief.

This fast became an obsession. Biographies were consumed and irritating trivia was mined which served no one (Martin Van Buren, the 8th President, was the first to be born an American citizen yet English wasn’t his first language). I’d spend hours on Sporcle, answering quizzes, writing them out in under a minute, then doing it backwards. Test me, test me, test me. Then I got bored with them and tried something else. It’s the Whitechapel murders of 1888 at the moment but it’s been the films of Alfred Hitchcock, Taekwondo patterns, Korean, Philip Larkin, David Bowie, chess (with openings taking centre stage), the works of PG Wodehouse and, a lifelong love, Sherlock Holmes. I’ve no idea what’s next but it’ll be something.

Some may read that and decide that I’m just curious about odd things, or that I’m just curious (I forgot astronomy. Jesus, I could bore people for weeks on that subject) but it’s probably just a way to get out of ‘this’ feeling. The question is, would I want to change that? Would I swap that thirst, that craving for knowledge and live a perfectly happy bland life if I could get rid of ‘the thing’? Well, today has been a bad day so probably, but tomorrow may give a different response.

In some ways, I like being like this. Not always, but sometimes. By this I mean the inquisitive side of my nature, not the dark hours when no room is dark enough and no space small enough to hide.

Today is over. I’m physically and mentally exhausted. Some tea and then bed. Let’s see what tomorrow’s mind wants.

By Karl Coppack

Karl is a former writer for Through The Wind and Rain and a whole host of others who are desperate for copy. Troubled with the modern world, grimaces at ball-playing centre halves and frowns at fancy-dan back heels. Apt to talk about the magnificence of Ray Kennedy wherever possible.

Karl’s debut novel, And What Do You Do? is available on Kindle download (not about footy). To check out more of his writing visit The Anfield Wrap and follow him on Twitter @thecenci

‘More UK men have killed themselves in the past year than all British soldiers killed since 1945’

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More men in the UK have killed themselves in the past year than all British soldiers fighting in all wars since 1945, according to a new edition of Newsweek magazine dedicated to the issue of male suicide.

The edition, which is published alongside an in-depth e-book on the crisis, follows new figures by the ONS that show men are now killing themselves at their highest rate for a decade.

According to Newsweek “Across Europe, men are around four times more likely to die by suicide than women” and suicide kills “three times more people than road accidents, more than leukaemia, more than all infectious and parasitic diseases combined.”

“More than 6,000 people in the UK died by suicide in 2013; 78% of them were men.”

Failure of services

In addition to a stark and detailed breakdown of the figures, the magazine outlines the failure of UK authorities to address the crisis.

The magazine reports, “In 2002, following the release of a report, The Sadness of Young Men, detailing Scotland’s disproportionately high male suicide rate, the Scottish government announced its intention to reduce suicide by 20% in the space of 10 years. When 2013 came around, rates were down by 19%.”

In London in November last year, a community-based mental health facility considered a lifeline to its members, was threatened with closure in a cost-cutting drive by the local council.

‘Provide and protect’

In early January, with the council’s decision still pending, one of its male members threw himself under a train, the magazine reports.

Newsweek quotes a number of the leading figures in the UK movement to address men’s mental health, including Jane Powell of the Campaign Against Living Miserably and Dr Martin Seager of Men’s Minds Matter.

Seager told the magazine that there is a danger in approaches to tackling men’s mental health that tells them they should me more like women.

He told Newsweek: “The way I look at it, if men have evolved as fathers, protectors and survivors, they are going to feel life is worth living to the extent they can provide and protect.”

Image credit: Newsweek

Article by Dan Bell

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What does Ralf Little’s tweet to Clarke Carlisle tell us about attitudes to male suicide?

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On Wednesday night, having seen the front page of a red top famed for salacious gossip and outright lies, the actor Ralf Little took to Twitter and stuck his hand in a metaphorical hornets’ nest, concerning the news that his former friend and ex-footballer, Clarke Carlisle, had tried to commit suicide.

‘Oh dear. Looks like Clarke Carlisle’s going to get away with it – AGAIN. #Teflon #nonstick’

Little received reams of abuse for failing to understand the circumstance that led a grown man step into the path of an oncoming lorry. Carlisle told the paper

‘I had to die,’ he said. ‘This wasn’t escaping or running away. This was the perfect answer. It made everyone happy and it ticked every box.’

Little, realising that he had gone public without providing a background, said that he would clarify these comments later and did so -cranking up the drama a notch while the world waited. And waited. And waited. Some wags speculated that he’d employed Harper Lee to write his next tweet.

Little spoke eloquently about his history with Carlisle and of their falling out although he had no wish to go into detail and ‘do some tabloid’s job for them.’ Suffice to say there was some fruity talk of money and the police and it was made clear that both men had given up on each other years ago.

‘Pray depression never bites’

Carlisle replied through his wife’s account, stating that they had seen each other once in ten years and that was for him (Carlisle) to apologise for his ‘repulsive behaviour as a young man.’ Furthermore, he hoped that Little wasn’t the man he was back in the day and that he would ‘pray depression never bites.’

We can only read between the lines but it seems that they were once bosom buddies and ‘high excitable young gentlemen’ as Jeeves would have it, but something came along to drive them apart. Little seems to have held his grudge for much longer than his old mate and had either reached a point where he could hold his silence no more, or was just being a bit stupid.

I’m in two minds about this, mostly because I’m neither party to their friendship nor to the demise of it, but there’s a nagging feeling that somehow, somewhere Little has a point given the others who were nearly injured that day.

Guilty?

I doubt very much if the poor lorry driver could cheerily tell all of his brush with near death. You often hear of Tube drivers who suffer terribly when they’ve inadvertently aided a suicide and that it’s the sound of the body on steel that keeps them awake at night. Then there are the motorists who swerved the collision to avoid a pile-up. What did they do to deserve sleepless nights at thoughts of their own mortality? Ralf Little is right in this case. Clarke Carlisle is guilty of gathering others into his pain.

Hmm. That word –‘guilty’. ‘Guilt’.

The actor seems to be claiming that Carlisle is gleefully crossing the fingers of one hand while pointing at his diagnosis with the other and thereby using it as a casual explanation for his behaviour. After all, depressives rarely suffer alone, much as they would like to. Loved ones want to help but can’t, or at least not always. Soothing words can help but they can’t alter a chemical balance in the brain, but that does not help the unhappiness of people who can’t bear to see their most cherished suffer.

The contention is that Carlisle got away with it and will continue to with impunity. This is wrong on many counts. Of course, there are other people to consider — no one is suggesting otherwise — but if Carlisle’s depression is of the same strain as mine it will feature an overpowering sense of, that word, guilt.

‘He has to face the people he’s harmed’

This is suggested by his claim that he ‘had to die.’ Had to.  That shouts of guilt before the incident took place and if he was in that frame of mind beforehand, he will be feeling it tenfold now. I can’t imagine that he left hospital and raised a rueful grin to his wife and three children and proclaimed ‘Phew, that was close! Got away with it.’ Now he has to consider the people he was close to taking with him. He has to face the people he’s harmed. He has to face the public, not all of whom are sympathetic. That doesn’t just enhance a sense of worthlessness, it justifies it. Another layer of thick, headache inducing gloom deposits itself onto the stratum. The mood deepens further.

Ralf Little points out that he knows people who struggle with mental health issues, and is unfortunate enough to know those who have lost friends and family members at the hand of drunk drivers, so maybe it’s this that caused him to tweet. There are certainly sympathies there. Is he suggesting that the suicide attempt is an excuse to mask yet another drink-driving offence? He is certainly keen to point out the numerous convictions but, that would be a hell of a price to pay to prove a point. If Carlisle really is made of Teflon he could hardly celebrate ‘getting away with it’ while he’s being scraped of a road.

The most significant paragraph in Little’s article is this:

‘Am I really that out of order for suggesting that’s not on? Do we repeatedly overlook reckless destruction of other lives because someone apologises, again and again, and says it’s an illness? Isn’t there a point where we can go, “enough is enough”?’

Okay, he’s framed it in fairly crass terms (‘says it’s an illness’) but there is a point when continual destructive behaviour erodes the wall of basic humanity and you feel like turning away from that person. That’s a perfectly understandable position and one I’ve been in myself but surely there’s a place for seeing both sides rather than an all-out accusation.

Depression is seen by some as an excuse, a convenience, a ‘you can’t say anything because…’ sense of angry hopelessness. Well, you can say something. The crime of stupidity isn’t confined to one state of mental health. Clarke Carlisle has done some stupid things. So has Ralf Little. So have I and so have you. One of the reasons why Ralf’s statement was delayed was that he had no time to write as he was tweeting while driving and couldn’t set it down just then.

Quite.

It’s doesn’t logically follow that ridiculous behaviour points to depression or any other ailment. If Ralf has wiped his hands with Clarke then fine. Exasperation comes to all at some point and no one is blaming Ralf Little for reaching that point with someone whom he feels has let him down once too often. It is wrong, however, to accuse him of getting away with it. Clarke Carlisle got away with one thing only– his life, and though there were other people involved that day, it’s important to  remember that he was in a position where he was prepared to  die brutally  rather than live. Of course it was a selfish act but who the hell thinks rationally when you ‘have to die.’ Who cares what the public thinks at that point? All suicides are selfish to a degree because you’re relieving a pain you can no longer fight. Is anyone seriously arguing that Clarke Carlisle was somehow faking it?

I hope Carlisle makes amends to those he has wronged and I suspect he will once he is either medicated or counselled or both. Equally, I hope Ralf Little can bring himself to forgive at least some of the past misdemeanours for his own sake at least. No one wins in this situation and we can only hope that the outcome of this spat can be one of a mutual understanding.

Karl writes for The Anfield Wrap. He is troubled with the modern world, grimaces at ball playing centre halves and frowns at fancy-dan back heels. Apt to talk about the magnificence of Ray Kennedy wherever possible.

Karl’s debut novel, And What Do You Do? is available on Kindle download (not about footy). To check out more of his writing visit The Anfield Wrap and follow him on Twitter @thecenci

Also by Karl on insideMAN:

Rapper Professor Green tells the BBC about his father’s suicide

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Rapper Professor Green has made a BBC film about his fathers’ suicide to increase awareness of suicide as the biggest killer of men aged 20-45 and raise funds for male suicide prevention charity, the Campaign Against Living Miserably.

He told the BBC: “Despair. It’s a powerful feeling, when your heads in a state it’s easy to feel like you are the only one in the world who’s suffering.”

Green talks about the difficult relationship he had with his dad, how at 18 they stopped talking, but then five years later he tried to arrange a meeting, but they ended up arguing and the last words he said to his dad were “I hate you”.

‘Suicide consumes everyone around that person’

He says: “The terrible thing is, I never got to see him, because a few months later he killed himself. The moment I found out my dada had taken his own life is still as clear today as it was the moment it happened.

“I kept wondering why no-one had seen it coming, I still find it quite hard to articulate how I felt. It’s been six years since it happened and weird thing about grieving is that it never stops.

“Suicide is now the biggest killer of men aged between 20 and 45 in the UK. Bigger than heart disease, bigger than road accidents and bigger than murder.

“The pain of a suicide ripples out to consume everyone around that person.

‘I still don’t know what was going through dad’s head’

“Communication can be a big problem between men. We don’t like to talk about our issues, we think it makes us look weak, or we think we can sort it all out ourselves.

“I still don’t know what was going through my dad’s head when he killed himself and I never got a chance to say a proper goodbye or tell him that I loved him.

“I wish there had been someone he felt he could have confided in or reached out to. That’s why I’m part of a campaign called CALM – the Campaign Against Living Miserably – an important charity that works hard to help prevent male suicide.”

The film also features comedian Jake Mills, who tells the story of his own attempted suicide and the story of the Stringer family who lost their musician son Hector when he was only 18 years old.

In 2013 6,233 people took their own lives in the UK, 4,858 of these were men. The film is available on BBC iplayer here.

Photo courtesy: Cristian Stefanescu

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Men, it’s time to stop suffering in silence

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If talking about your problems was good enough for Plato and Hamlet, why do so many men today find the only time they discuss the things that are troubling them is when they’re down the pub after a few beers? Here Karl Coppack, writer for Liverpool Football Club’s The Anfield Wrap, explains why it’s time for men to open up.

–This is article #7 in our series of #100Voices4Men and boys

Think of every bad soap opera you’ve ever seen. That should be all of them if you ask me but if you’re an aficionado of the form you’ve probably come across a scene where a doomed couple are in the death throes of their (shudder) ‘relationship’. The clichés fall fast and furious until they arrive at this one exchange.

‘Can’t we just talk about it?’

‘Talk? All we’ve done is talk!’

This usually concludes the scene thanks to one of the dramatis personae slamming a door or collapsing in tears. End of Part One.

It’s rare that a man seeks help from a man

Talking is the way we resolve situations or get things off our chests. I can’t believe I’m going to suggest such a thing, but let’s bring in Plato here. He wrote much of his theories in a character format where someone or other would question Socrates about what was on their mind that day – the rights of kings, whether might is right and the thorny issue of poets being banished from the city gates. These were known as ‘the Socratic dialogues’ and they make his point very well. Rather than standing around throwing out theory after theory, he chose to show all sides of the argument. This, as he and others saw it, was the way ideas progressed. Hence, Parliament – from the French ‘parlement’ – to speak. This is getting dangerously close to an ancient political lecture so let’s just say that talking about things tends to get things done. Sometimes.

Moving on a bit from Ancient Greece we only have to look at modern (ish) music. ‘I Don’t Want To Talk About It’ sang Rod Stewart, while subsequently proving that he was actually quite keen on it. ‘A problem halved is a problem shared’ and all that. It’s true too. We’ve all got people we run to when we’re up against it. Thing is, it’s rare that male runs to male unless it’s son to father.

Men are strange like that. We find it very hard to admit to worries and problems and our mates are usually the last to know what’s on our minds. We either muddle through alone or run in the opposite direction.

Men don’t just sail through life with a hardened chin and the heart of a lion, ready to take on any challenges that come our way. We’re not all like Tony Soprano’s hero, Gary Cooper – the strong and silent type. If anything the only skill we truly master is the pretence of complete control. We can fake that easily enough and for the lucky amongst us who can steer their ship with a skilled hand so much the better, but there are many who have monsters below the surface.

‘I get that too’

A few weeks ago I was out with some mates and somehow talk turned to what can be loosely described as ‘male issues’. That we did this at all was unusual. We’re a group of lads between the ages of 30 and 50 with differing backgrounds, careers and interests. We’re united primarily by a love of our football club and together we experience the peaks of troughs of emotion through that entity, but apart from that we’re a fairly mixed group. Some of us are obsessed with music, others aren’t. Some are married, some single. Some have kids, others not. We’ve all known each other for years and have travelled up and down the land together, attended each other’s weddings etc., but this is the first time I can ever remember us talking about aspects of our personality or health that concern us. This would never have happened five years ago when we were younger and more defensive about such things.

I don’t want to give the impression that we sat in the corner like some sort of moody Goth council –we’re not like that at all- but there was the odd raised eyebrow when people spoke up. Alcohol helped, of course. In vino veritas and all that, although Birra Moretti was the main lip loosener at the time, but what came over far more than the lack of embarrassment of admitting to perceived weaknesses was that we all saw something in ourselves through the words of others. The sentence ‘I get that too’ was muttered more than once.

Obviously, I won’t go into details about the general topics expressed that night, I’d like them to continue being my friends after all, but in the interests of disclosure I’ll admit to something I’ve kept quiet.

‘I spent a weekend in silence’

For the last few years, I’ve undergone periods of intense gloom. This is nothing like a teenage strop or anything similar but an absolute collapse in self-worth for no obvious reason.  There are times when I cannot face a living soul, times when I’d rather lock the door and not come out unless it’s absolutely necessary. Instead, I prefer to save the world from my interaction, my face and my sense of utter worthlessness. Only last month I spent a weekend in silence. I turned off my phone and just listened to my own mind tell me that I’m useless, hopeless and about to be revealed for the fraud that I undoubtedly am.

There’s no trigger for this. Oddly enough it comes when things are going well or I feel particularly loved – birthday parties, commendations etc. I don’t know what this is but I know what it isn’t. It isn’t depression. I say that not out of some ill-thought mantra about designer illnesses or anything so crass but because I know it will pass and I can manage it accordingly. This isn’t a daily struggle. I don’t have violent mood swings and I don’t seek medication. Furthermore, I am not a danger to myself so I live with it and wait for whatever it is to let me go.  It always does.

The majority of my male mates don’t know this but I have several close female friends who have sat with me and tried to talk me round during these miserable hours. Why is that? Why is one ear better than another? Why can they know but not them?

Well, the truth is that I’m a bit embarrassed by it. I know I shouldn’t be but there we are. Those paragraphs were difficult to write as I know what it is to come – he just wants attention, look at him with his fancy ‘sensitive’ condition, look at him begging for sympathy. Actually, that’s the last thing I want. If anything that would make it worse. During those times I’d rather not have proof that there are others who agree with the overwhelming consensus within my id. No thanks.

‘For every sympathetic ear, there’s a boorish lout…’

There are always people ready to cast stones of disgust. Look at the recent suicide of Robin Williams. Despite the outpouring of emotion at such a loss some just couldn’t help themselves. Here’s Alan Brazil, a former footballer and DJ of the radio station Talksport. Like many he thought that it was Robbie and not Robin Williams who had died in the night. He expressed relief at that live on air.

“And then when she said ‘Robin’, I thought, ‘oh, okay’. It didn’t hit me hard like it would if it had been Robbie, thank God it wasn’t.

“He’s got a daughter, what’s she feeling this morning? I don’t have a lot of sympathy I’m sorry.”

“But that’s the way I feel, I’m sorry. What you leave behind is diabolical…. I’m really annoyed about that.”

Well, we’ll all have to live with your anger, Alan.

What he fails to realise is that Robin Williams knew full well the impact his suicide would have on his family. Of course he did. He’d probably considered suicide many times before but his family pulled him back from the brink. Then one day it wasn’t enough to save him. I don’t want to think about what it must be like to be in that situation and see death as preferable and it’s the likes of Alan Brazil’s with their derision that keeps these issues hidden. For every sympathetic ear there’s a boorish lout who bays ‘why don’t they just walk it off’ to anyone within earshot.  Little wonder then that men find it difficult to feel tell others that they are experiencing depression, drinking problems or whatever going on in their lives when they’re met with a cacophony of scorn from ‘those who must express a view’.

Gender divide

Of course women get depression and its various strains too but that’s treated differently. They aren’t subject to the stereotypical machismo that governs our lives. Men have to be strong. Men have to answer to peer pressure. Men can never admit to frailty etc. Quite ridiculous, of course, but there we are. The term ‘show your feminine side’ is generally pejorative in tone. Great. We’ll just eat ourselves up then, shall we? Harsh maybe, but that’s what many choose to do.

There are considerable pressures on us all these days. Life is an attainment race as it is and with these accompanying hurdles there’s no wonder that we struggle from time to time. Most of us would rather change an aspect of their lives be it career, health, looks or all of the above and that judgment is constant, whether it’s from ourselves or others.

There is a gender divide at play. None of my female friends have this need for validation. Whether this is because we’re just wired differently or because society expects different things from men and women is hard to say. But there is a difference in how we deal with life’s time bombs. Men seem less willing to ask other men for help.

So, did anything come of this chat? Not really. We simply went back to usual agenda of the evening but it was a start. We each admitted that we’re not all ‘well’ in a general sense. We all have things in our minds that dig into our ribs and sharing them doesn’t make us weaker. If anything it makes you the opposite. If you find that your friends have similar worries it makes your own a little more manageable.

Keep talking. It can’t hurt.

Karl is a former writer for Through The Wind and Rain and a whole host of others who are desperate for copy. Troubled with the modern world, grimaces at ball-playing centre halves and frowns at fancy-dan back heels. Apt to talk about the magnificence of Ray Kennedy wherever possible.

Karl’s debut novel, And What Do You Do? is available on Kindle download (not about footy). To check out more of his writing visit The Anfield Wrap and follow him on Twitter @thecenci

Photo courtesy: Cristian Stefanescu

You can find all of the #100Voices4Men articles that will be published in the run up to International Men’s Day 2014 by clicking on this link—#100Voices4Men—and follow the discussion on twitter by searching for #100Voices4Men.

The views expressed in these articles are not the views of insideMAN editorial team. Whether you agree with the views expressed in this article or not we invite you to take take part in this important discussion, our only request is that you express yourself in a way that ensures everyone’s voice can be heard.

You can join the #100Voices4Men discussion by commenting below; by following us on Twitter @insideMANmag and Facebook or by emailing insideMANeditor@gmail.com. 

Robin Williams’ tragic suicide aged 63 highlighted middle-aged men’s rising suicide rates. How does depression hit older men?

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Robin Williams was 63-years-old when he killed himself — at an age you might have thought he would have left behind the most tormented years of his life. But both depression and suicide are rising among middle-aged men. Here Roger Jones of the Older Men’s Network explains the some of the issues that impact on older men’s mental health.

It is very easy to assume that when we talk about mental health and older people we are talking about Dementia. But 1 in 4 older people will experience a mental well being issue this year.

More women are diagnosed with depression than men, however it is acknowledged that this is because men are less likely to seek help, which leads to a greater threat of the depression getting a more severe hold and in some cases leading to suicide.

Statistics from The Mental Health Foundation tell us that the number of middle aged men and older men taking their own lives has risen over the last few years, with over 1,000 men aged 50+ killing themselves every year in England and Wales.

500,000 older UK men live alone

What is more, most older people with depression are never diagnosed and do not receive any treatment for their depression, even if they have seen their GP.

Sometimes this is because they may present to GPs with a physical problem but the underlying issue is a mental health difficulty such as depression. Instead, if they get help, they rely on informal support such as family, friends and community groups.

Social isolation reduces the amount of informal support available, increases the risk of developing depression, and reduces the quality of life for older men — and around 500,000 older men live on their own in the UK.

The most isolated older men are those aged over 75 and those who are living alone — this is particularly the case if they are widowed or divorced. Bereavement or loss — which might include loss of income, role and status associated with retirement — leaves older men particularly vulnerable to mental ill health. Some widowers find that without their wife or partner who may have acted as their “social secretary” it can be hard to maintain friendships. Older men with families and children are also less likely to be in touch with them than older women.

‘It can be difficult for them to accept help’

Deterioration in physical health and mobility associated with growing older also makes people vulnerable to mental health problems. Even for people in long term relationships, there may be risks to their mental health if they are involved in increasing caring responsibilities, particularly if they are caring for a partner with dementia or other chronic conditions.

Whilst there are many good community-based services for older people, older men are less likely to use them than women, particularly if they are isolated and living alone.

Many older men are reluctant to take part in groups or services like day centres, seeing them as being for women or the very old and dependent. When men have spent their lives independently or have seen themselves in the role of the family provider, it can be difficult for them to accept help.

The groups and activities that the Older Men’s Network facilitate always aim to support Older Men to have fun, make friends and give them something to look forward to.

‘Men find a common bond’

We always try to train some of the men in the groups as Older Men’s Champions who are more aware of the problems an older man will face and they can then support them or signpost them as needed.

Although we are aiming to get older men more active so they can live a healthier and more fulfilled later life, we always need to be aware that men also need support around their mental health.

We all have a physical health and we all have a mental health – sometimes they are in good condition sometimes they are not. We need to be aware that when our mental health is not so good we need to talk to someone about it.

Talking and sharing problems is one of the best ways to address this and a big part of the Champions training is about encouraging the guys in the groups to feel it’s OK to share their thoughts and feelings. This doesn’t happen on day one of course, but as the men bond and friendships develop and the men find a common bond the opportunities to off load are there.

We will never be able to deal with all cases of depression in men but if we can build opportunities and avenues for men to share their feelings, and raise awareness in campaigns which men can relate to without stigma then maybe we can start to save more lives.

By Roger Jones, National Manager, National Older Men’s Network

Photo courtesy: Cristian Stefanescu

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Male suicide prevention charity launches webchat service

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Male suicide prevention charity, the Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM), have launched a free web-chat service offering support, information and signposting to men who are depressed or in crisis.

From today, the service will be open daily between 6pm – 9pm. Users within the UK will be able to chat anonymously and confidentially to trained helpline staff.

Within the next eight week’s, the charity said the web-chat service hours will be extended to match those of its telephone helpline — from 5pm to midnight. 

CALM said that research with their supporters identified a need to offer online provision, alongside their helpline and texting service, in order to make accessing support easier to a younger male audience.

Suicide is the leading killer of men aged 20-49 in the UK, and has overtaken coronary heart disease as a killer in older men aged up to 50.  The latest statistics show that 77% of all suicides in the UK were male.

CALM said its telephone helpline takes around 4,000 calls a month.

The web-chat can be accessed on the CALM website: www.thecalmzone.net/get-help

By Dan Bell

Photo courtesy: Mic445

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The taboo of eating disorders in men — one man’s story of his battle with bulimia

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How do you explain to someone that you don’t feel right? How do you explain a mental health problem to someone when you are unsure if you really have one yourself?

—This is article #44 in our series of #100Voices4Men and boys 

This was how I was feeling during my adolescent years. I always felt as though there was a missing piece of jigsaw inside me. I was a child whose own Father had walked out, never to be seen again. Was this a trigger? But that was when I was three and here I was at twelve feeling that the only way I could begin to put that jigsaw together was through an eating disorder.

Was the fact that I was now self-harming, in a way making up for what I believed was just me not feeling right for years mentally? These were important years and I didn’t have my biological father there to guide me, was this finally taking its toll on me? I needed and wanted to escape the feeling of being rejected as a baby, but I didn’t understand the full concept of that until I was much older, my way of doing so was to become a young man coping and learning how to deal with bulimia.

A vicious circle of destruction

To the outside world I was a happy child, but if you were to look back now you would say that I was also very needy. I liked to be liked, we all do, but rejection was hard for me to handle. If I felt rejected then my bulimia would increase, if I felt worthless then the intrusive thoughts in later years would increase and then stabilise, to the point of me wanting to get my own back on my pain by secretly continuing with my bulimia. My body and mind felt trapped in a viscous circle of destruction.

When I was a young man and experiencing an eating disorder, I learned to stay in control of when, where and how often I would fall into my dark moments. But keeping my eating disorder secret had an adverse effect on my mental state, so something had to give and for me that led to me becoming more depressed and having intrusive thoughts about ending my life.

One day those thoughts all became too much and after spending time in a mental health hospital, I decided that I had to change. I had to remember what I had around me and not what was taken away from me, and that I had the love of my family.

Learning to love yourself

My other love was music and for me listening to music in hospital made me learn to really listen to it. In a place with complete chaos at times I would take myself off to my room, play music and forget the world. I’d remind myself that the one person who could really help me become well again was me. Instead of wanting love from a person who clearly didn’t want to give it to me, I learned to channel the love I wanted myself.

Things for me are now different, I turn all my past lived experience into being a mental health nurse and, understanding what it is like to become suffocated in your own deep thoughts, I help others who are going through something similar.

Eating disorders in men, just like depression, should not be a taboo subject. I hope that by raising awareness, others will be encouraged to seek professional help too. After all, if we really care for or friends and family then we should learn to read between the lines and see when they need help too.

It’s not that easy I know but when you’re experiencing a mental health problem you want those people to understand what you are going through before you can begin to find that road to recovery. It is a hard one, but acceptance of mental health really can be that simple.

By Craig Edwards

Photo courtesy: Daniel Oines

Article originally published at www.mind.org.uk

For more information about eating disorders in men and resources on how to find support, visit Men Get Eating Disorders Too

You can find all of the #100Voices4Men articles that will be published in the run up to International Men’s Day 2014 by clicking on this link—#100Voices4Men—and follow the discussion on twitter by searching for #100Voices4Men.

The views expressed in these articles are not the views of insideMAN editorial team. Whether you agree with the views expressed in this article or not we invite you to take take part in this important discussion, our only request is that you express yourself in a way that ensures everyone’s voice can be heard.

You can join the #100Voices4Men discussion by commenting below; by following us on Twitter @insideMANmag and Facebook or by emailing insideMANeditor@gmail.com. 

 

 

 

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Suicidal 18-year-old labeled ‘a drama queen’ by a doctor before he killed himself

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A harrowing story in the Telegraph over the weekend described how a severely depressed 18-year-old man — who made 40 attempts to take his own life — was labelled “a drama queen” by a doctor before he went on to kill himself.

That throw-away three-word quote, said more about the deep cultural prejudices that underpin male suicide than was mentioned in the rest of the article’s 1,500-words put together.

As an implicitly homophobic insult deployed to humiliate gay and straight men alike, the words encapsulate the gendered shame still imposed on young men who express weakness or distress.

The fact that men are humiliated for somehow being “less of a man” for showing emotion, goes a long way to explain why suicide is now the leading cause of death for 20 to 40-year-old men in the UK, a rate that’s three to four times that of women.

Young gay men even more at risk

But the implied homophobia of the insult also helps to explain why the suicide rate of young gay men is even higher still.

A 2012 survey by Stonewall Scotland, suggested gay men in Scotland were nearly eight times more likely to have attempted suicide in the past year than heterosexual men.

It seems that the further a young man deviates from the expected rules of the masculine role – to be tough, straight and stoical – the greater the shame that’s imposed upon him.

This isn’t the first time I’ve heard of a health professional effectively telling a young man at risk of suicide to “man up”.

Several years ago I reported on the suicide of a 26-year-old man from Manchester who’d hung himself in the woods by a motorway slip road.

His sister told me that when he had visited his GP, her brother was told to “pull himself together and not expect everyone to do everything for him”.

By Dan Bell

Photo courtesy: Mic445

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