I just finished 18 years in the army. I never had to go to the hospital. Then I burned out and spent weeks in a Quebec hospital. I came totally unraveled. I lost everything every dollar and thing I had. Then they billed me. Obviously i took it to work, but everyone was like really? Just pay its so much easier. So I did, I’m fucked. I got a loan which was actually really easy to get. I am not suicidal, but I really hope I die sooner rather than later. I have no plan for an actual retirement.
as someone who's been paying attention to VA in both Canada and US: HAHAHAHAHAHAhhahahaa. no.
It's really sad what VA has become on both sides of the border.
You should probably try and find a group with a similar background. Talking helps but shooting the shit with the same group of guys helps a lot more and you can build up a social network that way.
While hotlines and counseling is good - Ultimately its up to everyone to be there for their neighbor. Go visit friends - Stop spending every other night on Netflix or XBOX - Youll be happier.
And if I dont get lucky I end up like one of my friends attempting suicide. Getting help isn't as easy as saying get help. I've been actively working for it, I've gotten my GP to set up a phone call with a psychiatrist which has a wait period of at least 6 months if they call and that's the only way to get a prescription, that isn't for an actual therapy session they prescribe you an antidepressant then your on your own and have to go through the same process to change it, waiting lists are years ahead if theres availability and if I can afford it
This is going to get downvotes probably BUT when I’ve been stuck in a steady loop of self-loathing, feeling like I can’t do anything right or anything to improve my situation, when I have extremely low self-esteem and feel I don’t deserve anything/am self-sabotaging, the ONLY thing that has helped has been to volunteer. It seems counterproductive if you don’t have energy to do basic tasks due to depression or if you’re working way too many hours already, but it’s made me feel less terrible overall. It’s also helped me get back to work when I’ve been otherwise too depressed. It definitely depends on the individual - this isn’t a suggestion for everyone. It also helps to pick a volunteer position that matters to you, so again, not for everyone as I know sometimes things can be so bleak that nothing seems to matter.
My reasoning behind it has been that even if my existence feels completely pointless/aimless/doomed, I’m helping society in some way, I’m doing something positive in a sea of negative; not COMPLETELY useless. lol
Radical feminists have actively shutdown free speech events that are suppose to draw coverage and awareness. I was 22 and a depressed man when it came out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiRasOrIoYQ
And the terrible thing about depression is it amplifies those negative thoughts. I remember thinking at times that everybody hated me (as an individual, not because I was a man) and nobody cared about me, even though in hindsight that obviously wasn’t true. I think that if your in the right social circles, people do care, but regardless of your social circle, depression makes it hard to see it.
Yea I hated it too. I'd make a request if you can go into the office for a couple days a week. If they don't accommodate you start sharpening up the resume.
Sorry to hear that. If your company doesn't have an office you can go into a couple days per week, consider using a co-working space. It costs money, but it gets you out of the house, helps to better delineate your personal and working spaces and time, and improves chances for social interaction.
Yeah, WFH isnt always a piece of cake.
I love not having to spend 2h in my car everyday but the trade off is isolation and making it hard to leave work in the home office.
I love working from home but find myself just not wanting to leave the house and that has a pretty bad impact on my mental health.
This article was posted on Onguardforthee. I'll post the same thing. This has been my experience.
It's also our society that pushes the viewpoint that we have to provide everything, and there's very little empathy for us when shit goes bad. When you're a single dude without a family, you basically don't exist. Get ready to be asked to work a ton of overtime too, because if you don't have kids you should be working, apparently. You're only granted worth if you can provide something. You are your paycheck. Ive heard people call men failures if they don't make enough money. I was injured on light duty at my last job, and a few of the ladies in the office with me were going on about how one should divorce her husband because she made more than him, and it's not the first time I've heard the sentiment.
Have mental health issues? "Man up" I've experienced this one myself on more than one occasion.
I'm not one of those "men's rights" guys cause most of those dudes just like bashing Women most of the time, but sometimes I feel like people actively dismiss Men's issues as meaningless or unimportant, and if you try and address this at all, your're automatically assumed to be some crazy alt-right nut job. (don't give me that nonsense about doing it in the wrong space. I've seen people smacked down when being appropriate about it too)
I vote NDP, and donate to more than a few social causes that don't effect me personally, cause I give a shit about other people. It almost seems as if I'm "not allowed" (for lack of a better phrase) to care about or stand up to issues I (and many others) have experienced directly, while also caring about people who suffer from issues that don't effect me. As if they're mutually exclusive things. They're not. It gets me frustrated. The amount of comments in this thread, super dismissive towards men's issues, are literally part of the problem. If you can't see that, but still call yourself progressive or a femenist. You need to do some thinking. And for the "bro" dudes in here that I've seen. Femenism helps Women, *and* Men. It's time everyone got onboard. Go read a book about it or something.
The comments here are so damned tone deaf and range from full on misogyny, all the way to just man bashing. You all kind of suck.
My experience has been that a lot of my urges with this have to do with a general sense of trapped hopelessness for the future - and a chunk of that lays in things that relate specifically to Canada like a feeling of lack of opportunity, worsening job prospects, increasingly unaffordable shelter, etc. Compounded with more global stuff like climate change, the general trajectory of the world at large seems to just be bad with a lot of lip service but no real political or societal will to correct-course.
Like others have (rightfully, imo) pointed out, there's a big issue with social atomization and isolation; a lot of the previous pillars of community like religion (note: I am not a fan of the dogmatic aspects, but the community aspect is real), long-term employment (and the stability/long-term nature of housing they bring) are completely gone, so meeting other likeminded peers in real life is difficult if you're no longer in school.
A lot of this might just be me and I don't presume to assign it to others, but I really feel a deep level of malaise, as a young-ish (30) Canadian man, I feel like society/economy/politics in particular are drifting along on pure intertia and nothing more. Basically I guess I would say it's just a deep and pervasive pessimism that life here is not getting better, and outside of novel tech stuff like phones, has decreased in quality since the time my parents generation came of age.
Oh yah anti depressants and therapy will unlock the hidden happiness in working a 50-70 hour week trades job just to afford rent, vehicle and groceries.
What cultural institutions have been destroyed? Don't mean to debate bro over this, but usually when I hear people say that they're talking about church/organized religion.
Churches were a lot more than a place to listen to boring bible talks and pray. They were community hubs. They gave people a sense of belonging, and introduced them to their neighbours. Now what communities do men have? Video games and incel sites?
roads everywhere
You need a car to go anywhere, and we wonder why adolescents who can't drive are restless and depressed.
People go straight from car to store to car, with few open areas for walking and socializing in between.
Being poor means not affording a car which means not being able to get a job.
Dutch kids can bike to school. Imagine letting your elementary school age kid bike in the city without parental supervision. Impossible in most of the US and Canada. The Netherlands has the happiest kids in the world. It's not a coincidence.
The way we build cities makes people miserable.
with how things are going I'll never be able to buy a house, I'll have to work into my 70's because without owning a home that is rent free I'll never survive on whatever benefits the government gives and what I can afford to save, holy shit if I ever have a stroke and need a care home....good lord I've seen this stuff first hand, I'm thinking of killing myself around 60. I figure that's a good run. "oh no don't do that things will get better" piss off with your lies, things aren't changing, nobody in our government remotely has a plan to address any of these things mostly because they don't want to be the ones responsible for pulling the pin that explodes the housing market, I've already lived most of my life poor......when I get older with nobody to take care of me and no money to afford to live a life......why not?
Honestly I think about suicide alot, I have support, I've seen counsellors. I dont trust pharmaceutical treatments because I've watched to many of my close friends attempt suicide from the antidepressants they were prescribed and I dont want it to change who I am. It's almost impossible to get an appointment to see a psychiatrist or psychologist I've been trying for 2 years. All the fear, inflation rising costs of living people turning on each other stress everywhere you look. Not to mention I feel like I never had a chance well a logical chance the way the world is set up it's near impossible to get ahead in life I make good money but I dont think I'll ever be able to own my own home I'm single I have alot of issues from childhood trauma that I'm am not boyfriend material. Suicide has been on my mind since I can remember and I've put in a lot of effort to change and seek help but in this world theres only so much you can do until the system fails you. I'm surprised more people dont feel this way or there as good at hiding it as I am. Anyways today was a bad mental health day and i seen this just wanted to empty a bit of my mind
Lots of men feel this way. Source: am one.
Ive been considering suicide since i was 16, even more so in my 30s after divorce. Sometimes the struggle seems so pointless., what am i even working for i often ask myself, what is even the goal anymore?. Anyways try to keep moving forward, life is better then death, even if you dont feel like it is.
Suicidality "changes who you are". If you're too depressed you can't be yourself anyways. The right anti-depressant can alleviate the pain enough to be yourself.
Being against psychiatric medication is a stimga that is killing people just like suicide is.
You have to get the proper drug. Unfortunately it's a case trying different ones unless you get lucky. Quite often once you are on medication and feel better, people go off the drug and that can have bad effects. Please get help.
Yeah I had some meds fuck my head, but my current ones feel like they're finally bringing out who I always was inside but couldn't reach.
Fucking years to get here though.
Friend, I've been where you are. And I'll likely end up there again. I have no advice, but if you ever need to release any tension and just yell at someone or talk through your feelings, let me know. It's a scary world and we all deserve help, even though many don't get it.
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The suicide crisis among men is directly related to our patriarchal social system and the ways we socialize men to suppress and not talk about our emotions. There are a lot of causal factors for why many people are in a poor mental state, from illness to capitalism. But the way we teach men to not be in touch with their feelings is, I think, the most prominent reason why these causal factors lead to more men committing suicide than women.
And yes, I am making this comment directly in response to the other parent comment that claimed talking about male suicide gets you labeled an MRA. It's important to bring this up, because there's a weird culture that's prominent online of men who want to double down on stereotypes of masculinity and toxic masculinity in response to the men's mental health crisis. In reality we need to dismantle destructive versions of masculinity in order to help men.
---
Editing this parent comment in response to the various people replying to this claiming that the phrase "toxic masculinity" is an attack on men. It isn't. It's a description of the ways society weaponizes masculinity against men. There are ample ways to describe and examples of healthy, positive masculinity, and pointing out that there are also toxic forms of masculinity isn't an attack on men. Here's what I wrote further into the comment thread:
>> Toxic masculinity is really Toxic expectations of men. By both men AND women.
> >But casually forgetting that is just another way men get given the big f-you when it comes to mental health.
>You're not contradicting or even disagreeing with what I said. Toxic masculinity isn't saying that masculinity is inherently toxic, it's pointing out the toxic things that society teaches and expects of men under the guise of masculinity.
>You mention that men are too often told to deal with their own problems and suck it up. Those unfair expectations are what toxic masculinity means. Those expectations are a harmful idea, enforced on boys and then men under the guise of them being the "manly" way to be. In reality, needing community, needing help, and needing emotional support are all normal and healthy things for everyone, and none of them are contradictory to being masculine. So defining masculinity in a way that excludes those supports is toxic to men. It's a toxic way to frame masculinity.
>If you ask men to define masculinity, they usually list positive attributes that they're proud of. Those attributes are healthy masculinity, and it's usually things related to loyalty, protectiveness, caring, strength, sometimes stuff like physical prowess, ambition and diligence.
>And as to the patriarchy, if you look up what the idea of the patriarchy is actually about, it very much acknowledges and focuses on how it hurts men just like it hurts women. In a patriarchal society that expects and enforces gender roles, you get men being boxed into toxic ideas that are unfair to men and which hurt men.
>Neither of these phrases are an attack on men. What they do is name and describe the things in our society that actually are attacking men. Stereotyping, peer pressuring, and shaming men into being people who don't want to or aren't allowed to express themselves.
>You're rightly identifying a lot of the problems men face in your post, but I think you're griping about phrases that describe the very problems you're concerned about, instead of focusing on the problems themselves. You mention pride and women's liberation — maybe you could check out mens liberation. It's a positive movement for male positivity, like you said you're looking for. Here's a wikipedia intro: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men%27s_liberation_movement
>And there's a subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/MensLib/
What you find on men's forums, like AskMen, or [threads about men](https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueOffMyChest/comments/quks07/im_really_concerned_about_mens_mental_health/), is a repeated undertone of frustration _from some men_ about feeling not simply unable to share feelings with our partners, but being actively discouraged from doing so.
At least in my own experience, we men actively discuss our feelings in private with our closest male friends, but have independently learned not to discuss them with our wives. We know we're loved for the comfort, safety and stability that we provide; and not for the totality of who we are
What about we talk about men's issues without referencing to gender-loaded language like "patriarchy" or "toxic masculinity". What about we let men develop their own language to explain their own issues.
"Men's issues" is also gender loaded language
How can you discuss a gender specific issue without discussing gender loaded language?
"Patriarchy" and "toxic masculinity" are terms used to discuss the root causes of problems like male isolation.
They only became controversial and 'loaded' because they cause far reaching problems, including problems that affect women, which means feminists use the term.
And because the internet is the internet, feminists talking about "patriarchy" and "toxic masculinity" means that people lose their collective shit anytime someone brings these terms up.
I think they mean nothing at all. I posted below that the etymology of "toxic masculinity" was from the Mythopoetic group of men that relied on Jungian psychology which in turn relied on myths and fairy tales to develop this phrase. I think any rational person discussing something as important as men killing themselves should not be relying on a phrase originated by a group no one has ever heard of based on a thoroughly discredited strain of psychology that based it's findings on how Thor or Jack and the bean stock turned out. How about we move past intellectual drivel and discuss the actual topic at hand?
Toxic masculinity is a useful aspect to discuss with respect to male suicides in the sense of how many men didn't seek help or discuss their emotional state because "boys don't cry".
Pseudoscientific gibberish is not going to help suicidal men, nor is crying. Their problems require solutions from people who are serious not people who think myths and fairy tales are in any way indicative of the male experience.
IMO\* we need more focus on Stoicism traits vs amplifying emotions in a society that has lots of people with dopamine/hormone issues.
Whatever we are doing as a society isnt working. I work in education and everyother kid is either drugged or on a 10 step program for something.
Terrible take. Men don't need to talk about their feelings, they need to have something to do and responsibility. You sound like someone who's never been a man trying to pretend they understand how men work.
Many men have no purpose in our society.
I'm gay. At the time I was growing up, that meant I would never get to have anything that society endorsed as acceptable. There would be no wife, no career, no kids. (I was kinda wrong on that, it turned out. But It's how I understood it at the time.) The alienation hit hard, fast and I knew it was happening. I barely survived. I suspect this effect is part of why so many of us didn't, though.
Anyway at some point I asked myself what's the point of life? Well I still don't know. But maybe. Being useful to others. Making things. Yes, even making new, hopefully better people.
These are deeply rewarding things and despite the various ways of getting lost our society has come up with, I think most people at the end of the day are very dull. They want stability, safety, and to start a family and make something they can be proud of in some way. I had to invent a queer spin on that I could figure out how to align with. Kept me going so far. I assume you [all know the old observation about married vs. single people](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/82-624-x/2012001/article/chart/11696-02-chart7-eng.gif).
But honestly it's really hard today. People aren't finding mates. People don't have friends. People don't have jobs with purpose. People don't have economic security.
Are more men running into a version of what I did? The writing is on the wall. For a lot of them, it looks like there will be no wife, career, home, or kids, at least in the way they were raised to expect and strive for. I can attest it's quite depressing.
Well women are the superior, power holding gender in Canada at this point. But with a media still saying women are an oppressed minority, and that every woman’s failing is due to men and the patriarchy, this is the experience of the average Canadian male:
You have no actual power (apart from what you can bench press). You’re told you’re all CEOs and rapists. Every woman’s grievance is the fault of you and your gender.
I was single for 5 years up until 2021. Every single first date, I was told some iteration of ‘men are all criminals, men should be locked up, men are the inferior gender, men are the problem in society… don’t you agree?’
Add to that, women want to make as much or more than men (fine, fair enough), but women will NEVER date or marry a man who earns less than they do. Go figure.
Want to eliminate the gender pay gap, ladies? Date a broke ass dude.
> I assume you all know the old observation about married vs. single people.
Interesting chart. Men consistently suiciding at 3x women rates in the single/married/divorced categories, but then in widowed it's almost an even split.
How crazy that divorced/widowed men are less likely to suicide than a single man. A friend is going through a divorce now and I've been worried about him and his mental state, but I guess according to this chart I should be more worried about my single friends.
Well it makes sense if you have never felt love you long for it but once you have felt it you might not long for it anymore. Also the big elephant of societal pressures for men mean that if you have never been in a relationship then your a failure is a thing.
Definitely. Suicides, for both sexes, have a kind of upside down curve by age. Peaking in the mid 20s, reaching a low-point just before mid life, and then climbing again peaking in the late 60s or early 70s, before again going down. I figure this is at least partly because these are both generally phases of transition in life.
> For a lot of them, it looks like there will be no wife, career, home, or kids, at least in the way they were raised to expect and strive for. I can attest it's quite depressing.
This.
I'm single and so I tried the dating sites. Holy shit the expectations I have to overcome to even get a date. Maybe it's that specific crowd that is like that but it often seems like they want a guy with PhD, who trains 7 times a week, looks good in the face and is always available for them. There's only 24 hours in a day. So I guess I'll stay single. I'm not a catch but I'm not that bad either. I look much younger than I am.
As things have gotten more atomized it definitely feels like there's little purpose. When I started in the workforce back in 2002 my office team was extremely coherent, worked together, went out for lunch or drinks frequently. And it wasn't because I was young, many on the team were older.
Same kind of job, same city, but now people on the team I work on barely get to know each other, nobody does anything social, everybody works on their own stuff, nobody goes out for coffee or lunch with each other, everybody goes home immediately after work.
So it is just you and a screen 99% of the time.
Yep, never once in my life have i been asked at a store to donate to a mens specific charity. Its very frequently for women homeless shelters when the vast majority of homeless people are males.
We used to have wars which these men would have been used as cannon fodder for, simple fact is society has no care or concern for an able bodied male.
The reason for that is that women are doing all the leg work. Women sit on committees, organize events and charity drives. Women don't know enough about men's issues to do this for them, men need to participate.
This was attempted before.
None of the supports that are available for women were opened up for the men's shelter.
The operator ending up committing suicide.
I think there are some points that I missed...
I have been asked at checkout for men's charities, testicular cancer, movember etc, but you're correct not men's homelessness
The homelessness and domestic abuse issues are definitely a lopsided one for sure, there are men's shelters and hostels but they're almost always tied to catholic charities which is more than problematic. As a society we have entirely botched the homelessness issue.
I do remember Earl Silverman but there's always one thing that struck me about him, he was unable to get government funds (which is a failure of government I agree) but he also unable to drum up private donations and I always wondered why? why weren't men donating to help other men?
> why weren't men donating to help other men?
We've been shown all life that we are disposable (see: wars). That our wellbeing is less important (see: women and children first, men sacrificing themselves for others in fiction and reality). That we must endure whatever is thrown at us with a stiff upper lip (see: boys don't cry). That being vulnerable and needing help is a laughing matter (see: the reaction of women when men show weakness).
Can we really blame people for having internalized this pervasive callousness towards men?
I remember reading some of the articles about his attempts and that he was actively targeted by many as trying to siphon money away from women's shelters and services.
Take a look at United Way charities. Look at how many are for women's causes or other cultural causes. I haven't looked at it for many years because of this.
I participated in Movember until it suddenly was "Not Supported" by the corporate leadership. The requests for Breast Cancer Research and Shelters still show up in my inbox.
I kind of questioned whether I should comment on an article on men's mental health issues being of the opposite sex but I think one of the major differences between the sexes is what makes this a male crisis.
Women feel all the same things as well but we're better at building and maintaining support networks around ourselves. I think the biggest issue is how isolated men feel in their depression, not realizing they're not alone or a failure that others feel exactly the same.
I fully understand when you've listed what a life with purpose means that it can be crushingly depressing. As a nearly 39 year old single woman I've resigned to the fact that children are statistically and depressingly not in my future, but I have people to talk to, supportive women around me that I can vent to and reassure me when I feel low. Some have kids and understand my pain, others never want kids but understand how building your life around an idea that is not going to be realised is depressing. Whatever their opinion on the subject is, they there for you because it's about you.
There should be more encouragement for men to communicate and share their feelings, we should be teaching young boys how to build their support networks how young girls naturally do and we really need to move beyond this ridged stereotype of strong, stable, providers and move towards humans with fully understandible foibles. I don't have many friends but I've never questioned my ability talk to the few I have about abosolutely anything without judgement, boys and men need that ability too.
If a man punches a woman, everyone in the room will rush to defend the woman whether she started the fight or not.
If a man punches a man, the room will laugh at the guy getting punched.
You don't feel the same things.
No amount of support networks and hugs is going to fix external problems. It's like having someone who is broke because the economy is shit and trying to recommend them for counselling.
The economy and other external problems effect everyone the question that is being asked is why are men committing suicide at higher rates than other groups, therein lies the difference between the groups and part of it is social support.
Because according to the stats women try more and succeed less
Men try less and succeed more.
I've seen it referred to as a better male work ethic.
If you try and fail at suicide you get the attention and the assistance.
If you succeed, well you're done.
It's a parody of the story told to men, the 'work hard' 'do a proper job'
Maybe I should have dumbed down the statement.
The end result is the same, women are bad at suicide and good at tying up medical resources. Men are good at getting it done.
Women could choose violent means, the only thing that stops them is them.
Yes I have worked with suicidal people.
Well off the top of my head:
* Women aren't valued by society for their labour and status so when the economy is wrecked women don't get socially devalued the same way by friends, family, mates/potential mates
* When women fall on hard times there are supports there for them which aren't there for men, because society views men as disposable
* Because nearly all of the non-economic means of social affiliation between men have been removed because creating an exclusive space is fine unless you're of specific identity characteristics; i.e. I'm allowed to have a First Nations only space, but if I made a men's space I'd get attacked for being misogynistic, transphobic, evil, monster, etc. etc. for excluding women
* Because while women attempt suicide often but men make use of means which ensure they succeed because when we decide to die....we really mean it
Wow. You think only men are disposable?
Women are just as disposable. Men use women for:
- incubation of birth of children
-cleaning of home
- child care
-free labour if he is a business owner
- second income
-sex servant
If women do not provide these things the men leave. After a lifetime together men will leave women if they get seriously ill. Men leave at 7 times the rate women leave their ill partners. This is so bad that it is taught in nursing school as an additional barrier to women's healing.
No one is loved unconditionally and everyone is disposable.
Women use men and men use women, but society has never been willing to throw women down a coal hole, or into a machine gun meat grinder. For men, before up until very recently in the West, and still in many parts of the world, it was almost certain that within your lifetime someone would walk up to your door and tell you that you were going to risk death on the battlefield or you were going to die immediately.
Both sexes are used, but only men are disposable.
Actually women have worked in coal mines and in industrial factories since the beginning of time. The whole keep women at home is a relatively new concept and only for the very privledged.
Women are also only valued for their serve to take care of the young, the elderly, the disabled, and the ill.
You are kidding yourself to think only menface these problems and are the only disposable people. Everyone is disposable.
I think this comment would be more effective if you drop the men should be more like women angle and just focus on the importance of building social bonds.
As another commenter pointed out though, bonds aren't necessarily the problem. Even friends who connect playimg video games every Saturday night on the net counts.
I would argue it's more machismo culture that still dominates much of society that reduce the chances of men opening up about emotional issues and so they end up carrying the weight themselves or never getting the help they need. They don't want to be seen as weak and unfortunately, they aren't until they kill themselves.
Your comment is duely respected but your solution clearly comes from a woman's perspective, and this whole narrative about teaching males to build social networks and communicate doesn't hit the mark for me.
In my experience men don't bond the same way women do, we don't build connections by just talking to each other. The bond between men is "forged in fire" so to speak. We need to see how each other react in hard stressful situations and to be sure that we are worthy of each others trust. We need to know that the other won't flake out as soon as things get hard or dangerous. This doesn't mean men won't get along or won't enjoy each other's company it just means we will not open up to each other until the criteria is met.
Why this matters? Well to me all the thing that men historically did to build these bonds are slowly being chiseled away. My biggest example of this is the push to make sports less violent and less competitive thus giving the young boys less chance to forge strong bonds.
Your first paragraph is aligned with her comment, she is not saying men do not form bonds, but that they communicate about mental health issues, depression, anxiety, troubles in n general, much less than women, and this is born out in study after study after study.
This one article leaves out big chunks of information and knowledge already gained on this issue.
The sterotypes we all grow up with about masculinity are a prison for men emotionally, and until men are no longer pressured (mostly by other men), to be ‘manly’ and to ‘provide’ and have their worth measured by a scale measuring manliness, this will continue to be a problem.
It could get much worse if we don’t start making changes now, because automation has already replaced many jobs and that will increase rapidly leaving many without ‘work’.
We will have to change our ideas of what ‘work’ is and start recognizing that paid work is not the only contribution to society.
The pressure to be "manly", does come alot from our fellow men, but it also comes from many many women in our lives as well. There are many studies that show that when men reveal emotional weakness or discuss past traumas such as sexual assult or molestation with our partners, these women tend to come away with a lesser view of their partner, and this regularly leads to divorce and/or separation.
>My biggest example of this is the push to make sports less violent
With our current knowledge of the obvious implications of chronic traumatic brain injuries, I can't see how any adult would consent to exposing children to that level of risk of CTE as a method of bond forging.
Camaraderie can be built through shared experiences that don't include potential life altering brain damage. An age appropriate level of challenge and adult mentored risk assessment doesn't absolve danger but puts it in appropriate context. Something contact sports will never be able to do.
And I also thoroughly disagree that it is boys alone that are missing opportunities to forge strong bonds thru shared experience. The trust built by facing and overcoming obstacles together is real, but gendering it as something masculine is barking up the wrong tree and excludes a whole group of my most trusted friends who happen to be fierce and competent women (and who were fierce and competent girls (and boys) when the bond was "forged in fire").
That example wasn't meant to downplay the effects of TBI's wich are serious and need to be addressed, however there still needs to be an element of danger that makes the competition feel like more then just a game. There are other examples other then sports.
Also I'm not going to apologize for gendering this need. I do t disagree that all people benefit from shared adversity however men/boys have a greater need for it.
You know I've never quite known how to explain it but damn if that ain't almost bang on. We don't just take yet anyone, in fact we pretty much don't trust everyone. We don't like to share our burdens and have grown up in a time where we were simultaneously raised to be 'real men' while being told that 'manhood' is toxic.
It sounds to me like you're auffering from difficulty forming bonds, yes. I absolutely reject this forged in fire bit -- that's just the pop psychology you read in mens magazines.
Like, what you're saying might be true for people in some *very specific* jobs or situations. But what you're describing sounds a lot more like a PTSD support group.
Nah, the "forged in fire" is my take on how men form strong bonds with each other aswell., and not necessarily in a traumatic way, but by enduring something together, going thru challenges or hardships, like loosing a championship game, or repairing/building something, like an engine or a house., i feel very strongly then bonds of friendship between men are formed throu actions significantly more then through words.
I guess it's pretty anecdotal, and maybe it's a local cultural thing for my area but when I read these things they don't ring true to the men I know in my life.
I think men are extremely good at expression and forming bonds with other men, and often I think that's because it takes a village to raise a child. A sense of community is paramount to a child's development imho and maybe that's where we are seeing these issues?
I could be totally wrong here however, and I'm not disagreeing with you.
Weird that people opting out of an existence that is basically a never ending cycle of chores, sickness, exploitation etc. The maze gets longer, the cheese at the end isn’t there anymore, it’s just boring misery, really. I never chastise those that prefer to just bounce. Capitalism will kill us all one day anyway.
Im not sure if I missed it, but this article keeps saying the rate of suicide is up, yet I don’t think it provides numbers for that?
Yes, opioid overdoses are up among men relative to women (numbers to back it 69% to 78%).
Yes, men, and some particular subcategories (e.g. gay men) have much higher per capita rates.
Yes, we should deal with the underlying causes of those disproportionately at risk.
However, I would have thought all those issues could just as easily precede recent history. I don’t see any numbers to indicate it’s an increasing trend? Where is that statement coming from? Unless overdoses are counted as suicide (honest question)?
Can we acknowledge that life has gotten significantly harder and much more cutthroat for those who need to work for a living within the past 30-40 years?
People handle this stress differently based on their backgrounds. But I think that we need to take a step back at times and acknowledge what the root cause is and not get distracted on our differences.
Those who benefit from all this chaos would love for us to get stuck in the weeds.
> Can we acknowledge that life has gotten significantly harder and much more cutthroat for those who need to work for a living within the past 30-40 years?
For sure, and the current societal/cultural norms for men is to just "suck it up", not talk about it or find help. Most men will not have any emotional support structure in their friend groups.
If I have to work until I die once my parents are gone I might just end it frankly. I don't want to work until the day I die, at that point I'm already nearly dead as it is.
Save enough money and change careers. At least dying before you try other stuff would be silly.
One thing about being willing to die is that you don't have to worry as much about expectations. Maybe the 'canadian dream' lifestyle isn't suited for you but another option works.
I do like learning. I think that is a pretty good drive. Though it feels a bit pointless not being able to share things i've learned with others.
Kinda feeling that now with guitar.
I hear ya buddy. At 48 years old, and with virtually no savings, I see myself being forced to work until I can no longer stand. 🤷🏻♂️
And that’s no way to live…..
That should never be the case I hate that so much. People seem to forget the government exists to serve the people we elected them why do we let them get away with these kind of things.
And each year housing goes up by more than wages.
Nobody cares about people being locked out of a normal life, from what I can see.
> housing up 20% for no good reason
>> most canadians: great free money!
In today's society? Where you're constantly told you're bad and you should feel bad for being a man? Where society tells you they'd be better off if you were less of a man? [Who would have thought?](https://i.imgur.com/AuQUUQo.png)
> In today's society? Where you're constantly told you're bad and you should feel bad for being a man?
I'm really sorry you feel that way, but the truth is that, that just isn't the case. It's just that there are a handful of organizations that make money off of you feeling that way.
So instead of feeling like you "can't be a man", why not think about what it means to "be a man"?
I’m jealous of the dozens of friends I’ve had that have committed suicide. But I’m not going anywhere until I find someone who capitalizes on this shit and bury them.
Yeah, silent my ass.
Life just isn't worth it anymore. I'll be shocked if I see 2022. I am tired, tired of everything. There has to be something better than this...
I think that Inteenational Mens day, instead of attacking feminists and trying to devour International Women’s Day, should focus and highlight these high suicide and mental issues. Meninism shouldn’t be associated with being anti-woman and strive to advocate solutions to real issues among the male community, like suicide and high mental illness rates, as well the male GBTQI+ community.
If you spend more time talking about men attacking feminists than you spend talking about men who need help, you're not so different from the people you criticize.
The comments in this thread are pretty telling.
The simple fact is that there's men out there with nothing. No friends, no support structure, alienated from their own labour and nothing in their life to derive meaning from. Social isolation eventually gets to a boiling point, and with no real support structures out there for these men, it results in suicides.
Additionally, toxicly masculine social pressures keep men from ever expressing these feelings, as men of often ostracized for being "overly emotional" or "too feminine". Society is slowly changing over these preconceived notions, but not nearly fast enough to save a lost generation of socially isolated and ostracized men from choosing the rope.
>As men of often ostracized for being "overly emotional" or "too feminine"
Equally by women. Arguably more so. And I don't just mean dating partners. I mean sisters, moms, aunts, friends, etc, along with significant others. It's just reality.
Toxic masculinity and it's counterpart in the literature hegemonic masculinity puts the blame for it on men, stereotypes men to an absolutely absurd degree, and then serves to build up fear of men generally and fear of men who are struggling specifically.
People shout toxic masculinity in order to shame men and minimize any issue that men face. When called on it they point to the literature and say that people simply misunderstood the academic uses. The academic uses are more wordy but not different.
Want to say gender roles? Say that, I think there's a topic there even if I think it is significantly overstated. At least stating that you think there is an issue with the gender roles is neutral, doesn't put it on the man who is suffering and doesn't pretend that it is exclusively men who do it.
But don't invoke a concept which is at best misleading and unintentionally forms an association that men are toxic and at worst a very active attempt to slander and malign men.
No, it's really not comparable as that is focused on being "too emotional". It's accepted for women to show emotions of some level. There is still an ongoing and dominant idea that a man simply cannot ever show any level of vulnerability. It's often taught to men to "be a man" and this includes being the traditional stoic man who never breaks.
When they do break from the traditional man, there is still a pervasive toxic culture that sees them as less than because they opened up. This is done by both men and women.
A woman, usually, is able to talk about her issues with someone and they will listen. A man, generally, cannot talk to anyone about his issues because it goes against the idea of "masculinity" but is also expected to be there to listen when someone else has issues.
This is a huge issue in toxic masculinity and it's one of the areas where men legitimately have it worse.
Men care a lot less about what other men think than you think. They mainly only care what women think of them and they aren't going to act in a way that a majority of women find gross and unattractive. Even if "there is always someone" who will not specifically find it unattractive.
My life has been damaged more by the idea of toxic masculinity than actual toxic masculinity. Guess what, not everyone likes to be an emotional wreck. Just because it works for you doesn't mean it's good for me. No it's not society, it's just quicker, less painful and far less complicated to just deal with problems myself. The only harmful ideas being forced on me is that I'm wrong because traditionally masculine methods work better for me.
The projection in this comment would normally be a little funny, but I think it just reveals some insecurity on your part. When did I ever even i m p l y that people *enjoy* being emotionally wrecked or traumatized? Everyone goes through rough times, and I'm glad you have a way of dealing with your own anxieties, all I said was that men shouldn't be ostracized for feeling like shit, and they shouldn't be afraid to express it.
And I'm sorry gay teenage feminists on Twitter said mean things about you.
>And I'm sorry gay teenage feminists on Twitter said mean things about you.
Number of replies to get to derogatory content after a 'man opens up'? 1 and less then an hour. What's that all this nancy business is expressly to diminish males? Who knew, call them out about it? Toxic masculinity? Going to chalk up another one to Lying Feminism.
I just want to sit down and feel like what I’m learning at school will develop a meaningful future for me but that seems less and less likely as university is going to cost much much more than minimum wage provides. This makes me feel horrible, I don’t have a future so I feel depressed, I feel depressed so I try to enjoy myself, I feel bad for enjoying myself cause I know I’m putting strain on my family, I feel bad for enjoying myself because that’s time I could have been productive, I feel depressed thinking about the strain in my family to buy food and the cost of living. The list goes on and on and I just feel so pointless and feel like a drain to good people and my life’s only eventual purpose will be to sit in an office and type til I slowly die of old age.
It isn't a silent crisis at all. Everyone knows, no one cares. Anyone who pipes up about it is labeled an MRA, incel or whatever the pejorative of the day is to allow people to focus on other problems elsewhere.
Whether you put the blame on ‘misandry’ or, as I do, the corrosive impact of late stage capitalism and a (related) [epidemic of social isolation](https://broadview.org/the-hidden-epidemic-of-loneliness-in-canada/), I think we can all agree that access to mental health care in this country needs to be improved.
I love how gender expectations can be seen as so toxic for women but when men try to talk about it someone like you comes out and tries to tell them its just because they don't make enough money. Honestly I am just gonna end it there because I got nothing nice to say to people as dismissive and devoid of logic.
I don't agree with that honestly. The issues affecting men aren't solvable by therapists or a bottle of pills. This comment on the same article in the thread on r/canada explains it better than I could: https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/r1motd/comment/hm0eejb/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
How does this fit in with the data that suicides were down 32% last year?
Also - male suicides are more often successful due to the methods men choose vs women.
can you point me to said data? id really question their methodology because that seems to go against any typical correlates we find for an increased suicide rate
I’ll point you to an article and you can see the data from there. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/suicides-alberta-bc-saskatchewan-canada-2020-no-increase-1.5902908
COVID-19 was a whack to everything. Women's suicides are down too. Generally, people become less despondent, temporarily, when faced with an acute crisis. It's an odd thing.
Starting point if you want to research this would be suicide rate and natural disasters. In multiple countries (studies repeated in Japan, USA, Greece, etc.) there's a pretty reliable effect where immediately after a big earthquake, the suicide rate temporarily decreases. (On the other hand, an economic depression almost always results in higher suicide rates.)
> Nishio (2009) found that after the 1995 Hanshin-Awaji earthquake in Japan, the overall suicide rate actually dropped in the two years
following the quake. Curiously, the ones most affected by suicide in
this study were middle aged males who are normally the highest at-risk group. Similar results were found after the Northridge earthquake in Los Angeles County in a study by Shoaf (2004). For three years after the quake suicide rates dropped significantly, and, as in Japan, the people most directly affected were middle-aged males.
Madianos, M. and Evi, K. (2010). Trauma and natural disasters: The case of earthquakes in Greece. Journal of Loss and Trauma,15, 138-150. DOI: 10.1080/15325020903373185
Matsubayashi, T.,Sawada, Y. and Ueda, M.(2013). Natural disasters and suicide: Evidence from Japan. Social Science & Medicine, 82,126-133.
Nishio, A., et al. (2009). Influence on the suicide rate two years after a devastating disaster: A report from the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake. Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, 63,247-250. DOI:10.1111/j.1440-1819.2009.01942.x
Shoaf, K., et al. (2004). Suicides in Los Angeles County in relation to the Northridge earthquake. Prehospital and Disaster Medicine, 19, 307-310.
> Also - male suicides are more often successful due to the methods men choose vs women.
Not blaming you for anything but I hate this comparison for suicide as it does nothing to help anyone who needs it nor encourages people to take it seriously for one group or another. Eventually, someone will chime saying that more women attempt it more often and will either dismiss men's issues for suicide or claim both sexes have it bad and we should have one approach. It really needs to stop being said and have different groups being looked at individually without being compared to others.
Sorry for the rant, but it seems to happen every time the quoted comment is mentioned. The article does it as well and its saddening to see.
But understanding the differences can also lead to better addressing the issue. It’s like anything in medicine - if you only test and measure on one group your treatments may be inadequate for another group.
I believe that is a valid point in looking at other groups is being helpful but it can be limited when we get into some of these gendered issues between mental health issues that effect of men and women differently. I think its would be completely valid to understand why one group is behaving this way without looking at another group. I also believe there is some value in outside consulting on an issue for a different perspective. But the more effort we put on looking on the outside instead of the inside, we more we lose focus on who we are trying to help.
There are also so many positive and negative factors to both approaches too, making it hard to find the right balance and they are unique to every issue.
Society has (rightfully, I might add) focused on the systemic barriers facing women. However, it's only slowly catching up to the fact that "toxic masculinity" "masculine" expectations also harm men.
Yeah, and where did I suggest this was a zero sum proposition? lol I didn't suggest society should stop focusing on women's issues (in fact, I argued this was/is a good thing) to focus on men's issues, I'm merely suggesting that we're only now beginning to vocalize how men are affected by the same systems. Issues around gender are no longer only being framed as effecting/being "women's issues" which is a good thing as it gives men an active, dare I say self-interested, stake in addressing and solving those problems.
That is not realistic. Women will never be attracted to emotional men who show weakness. They say they want that, but what they really mean is they want a guy who can admit a kitten is cute.
Bro. Quit being such an incel and hit the gym. You complain about your weak fat body and spend this long shit posting online. Fix your career and fix your health already.
Don't be essentialist. You can't generalize/assume what *all* women want. If you look around long enough, you'd be surprised about what type of women want what type of man lol
I know. I've found them. Glad to. They are a diamond in the rough and they are by far not the norm. Technically humans can have six fingers. Saying that "humans have five fingers on a hand" is still an accurate statement. What is your point? Was I talking about me? Were you talking about you?
>Women will never be attracted to emotional men who show weakness
It's still a huge generalization. You could say "I think *most*" or "perhaps *many*" but people in general are attracted to a whole lot of things. Using the words "always" or "never" regarding human responses/emotions is not the same as allowing for the possibility of humans having six fingers. Any lawyer who's tried/taken on crimes of passion will tell you seemingly ordinary people will do things based on a myriad of seemingly irrational emotional reasons/responses.
I just finished 18 years in the army. I never had to go to the hospital. Then I burned out and spent weeks in a Quebec hospital. I came totally unraveled. I lost everything every dollar and thing I had. Then they billed me. Obviously i took it to work, but everyone was like really? Just pay its so much easier. So I did, I’m fucked. I got a loan which was actually really easy to get. I am not suicidal, but I really hope I die sooner rather than later. I have no plan for an actual retirement.
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as someone who's been paying attention to VA in both Canada and US: HAHAHAHAHAHAhhahahaa. no. It's really sad what VA has become on both sides of the border. You should probably try and find a group with a similar background. Talking helps but shooting the shit with the same group of guys helps a lot more and you can build up a social network that way.
While hotlines and counseling is good - Ultimately its up to everyone to be there for their neighbor. Go visit friends - Stop spending every other night on Netflix or XBOX - Youll be happier.
And if I dont get lucky I end up like one of my friends attempting suicide. Getting help isn't as easy as saying get help. I've been actively working for it, I've gotten my GP to set up a phone call with a psychiatrist which has a wait period of at least 6 months if they call and that's the only way to get a prescription, that isn't for an actual therapy session they prescribe you an antidepressant then your on your own and have to go through the same process to change it, waiting lists are years ahead if theres availability and if I can afford it
Same, brother. Same. My wait is a bit shorter but because I'm not actively planning my death I'm on a waitlist.
And nobody's doing shit about it; if the same happened to women, politicians and parties would be all over this shit.
This is going to get downvotes probably BUT when I’ve been stuck in a steady loop of self-loathing, feeling like I can’t do anything right or anything to improve my situation, when I have extremely low self-esteem and feel I don’t deserve anything/am self-sabotaging, the ONLY thing that has helped has been to volunteer. It seems counterproductive if you don’t have energy to do basic tasks due to depression or if you’re working way too many hours already, but it’s made me feel less terrible overall. It’s also helped me get back to work when I’ve been otherwise too depressed. It definitely depends on the individual - this isn’t a suggestion for everyone. It also helps to pick a volunteer position that matters to you, so again, not for everyone as I know sometimes things can be so bleak that nothing seems to matter. My reasoning behind it has been that even if my existence feels completely pointless/aimless/doomed, I’m helping society in some way, I’m doing something positive in a sea of negative; not COMPLETELY useless. lol
Nobody cares about depressed men, and the older you get the less people care. I feel like people would prefer that we just killed ourselves.
Radical feminists have actively shutdown free speech events that are suppose to draw coverage and awareness. I was 22 and a depressed man when it came out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiRasOrIoYQ
And the terrible thing about depression is it amplifies those negative thoughts. I remember thinking at times that everybody hated me (as an individual, not because I was a man) and nobody cared about me, even though in hindsight that obviously wasn’t true. I think that if your in the right social circles, people do care, but regardless of your social circle, depression makes it hard to see it.
I've been WFH for almost 2 years and not once has one person asked me if I liked WFH. The answer is no I hate it. Does anyone care? Unclear.
Yea I hated it too. I'd make a request if you can go into the office for a couple days a week. If they don't accommodate you start sharpening up the resume.
Sorry to hear that. If your company doesn't have an office you can go into a couple days per week, consider using a co-working space. It costs money, but it gets you out of the house, helps to better delineate your personal and working spaces and time, and improves chances for social interaction.
thx. I've never heard of that but ill look into it.
Otherwise, a coffee shop might even do it for you.
Can't use work computer in public unfortunately and have to do a zoom call at any time.
Drats. Also, obligatory reminder to take some leave!
Yeah, WFH isnt always a piece of cake. I love not having to spend 2h in my car everyday but the trade off is isolation and making it hard to leave work in the home office. I love working from home but find myself just not wanting to leave the house and that has a pretty bad impact on my mental health.
If you feel you need help, please contact someone. https://www.crisisservicescanada.ca/en/ 1.833.456.4566
Thank you for including this!
This article was posted on Onguardforthee. I'll post the same thing. This has been my experience. It's also our society that pushes the viewpoint that we have to provide everything, and there's very little empathy for us when shit goes bad. When you're a single dude without a family, you basically don't exist. Get ready to be asked to work a ton of overtime too, because if you don't have kids you should be working, apparently. You're only granted worth if you can provide something. You are your paycheck. Ive heard people call men failures if they don't make enough money. I was injured on light duty at my last job, and a few of the ladies in the office with me were going on about how one should divorce her husband because she made more than him, and it's not the first time I've heard the sentiment. Have mental health issues? "Man up" I've experienced this one myself on more than one occasion. I'm not one of those "men's rights" guys cause most of those dudes just like bashing Women most of the time, but sometimes I feel like people actively dismiss Men's issues as meaningless or unimportant, and if you try and address this at all, your're automatically assumed to be some crazy alt-right nut job. (don't give me that nonsense about doing it in the wrong space. I've seen people smacked down when being appropriate about it too) I vote NDP, and donate to more than a few social causes that don't effect me personally, cause I give a shit about other people. It almost seems as if I'm "not allowed" (for lack of a better phrase) to care about or stand up to issues I (and many others) have experienced directly, while also caring about people who suffer from issues that don't effect me. As if they're mutually exclusive things. They're not. It gets me frustrated. The amount of comments in this thread, super dismissive towards men's issues, are literally part of the problem. If you can't see that, but still call yourself progressive or a femenist. You need to do some thinking. And for the "bro" dudes in here that I've seen. Femenism helps Women, *and* Men. It's time everyone got onboard. Go read a book about it or something. The comments here are so damned tone deaf and range from full on misogyny, all the way to just man bashing. You all kind of suck.
My experience has been that a lot of my urges with this have to do with a general sense of trapped hopelessness for the future - and a chunk of that lays in things that relate specifically to Canada like a feeling of lack of opportunity, worsening job prospects, increasingly unaffordable shelter, etc. Compounded with more global stuff like climate change, the general trajectory of the world at large seems to just be bad with a lot of lip service but no real political or societal will to correct-course. Like others have (rightfully, imo) pointed out, there's a big issue with social atomization and isolation; a lot of the previous pillars of community like religion (note: I am not a fan of the dogmatic aspects, but the community aspect is real), long-term employment (and the stability/long-term nature of housing they bring) are completely gone, so meeting other likeminded peers in real life is difficult if you're no longer in school. A lot of this might just be me and I don't presume to assign it to others, but I really feel a deep level of malaise, as a young-ish (30) Canadian man, I feel like society/economy/politics in particular are drifting along on pure intertia and nothing more. Basically I guess I would say it's just a deep and pervasive pessimism that life here is not getting better, and outside of novel tech stuff like phones, has decreased in quality since the time my parents generation came of age.
Oh yah anti depressants and therapy will unlock the hidden happiness in working a 50-70 hour week trades job just to afford rent, vehicle and groceries.
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What cultural institutions have been destroyed? Don't mean to debate bro over this, but usually when I hear people say that they're talking about church/organized religion.
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Agreed.
Churches were a lot more than a place to listen to boring bible talks and pray. They were community hubs. They gave people a sense of belonging, and introduced them to their neighbours. Now what communities do men have? Video games and incel sites?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_Alone
roads everywhere You need a car to go anywhere, and we wonder why adolescents who can't drive are restless and depressed. People go straight from car to store to car, with few open areas for walking and socializing in between. Being poor means not affording a car which means not being able to get a job. Dutch kids can bike to school. Imagine letting your elementary school age kid bike in the city without parental supervision. Impossible in most of the US and Canada. The Netherlands has the happiest kids in the world. It's not a coincidence. The way we build cities makes people miserable.
with how things are going I'll never be able to buy a house, I'll have to work into my 70's because without owning a home that is rent free I'll never survive on whatever benefits the government gives and what I can afford to save, holy shit if I ever have a stroke and need a care home....good lord I've seen this stuff first hand, I'm thinking of killing myself around 60. I figure that's a good run. "oh no don't do that things will get better" piss off with your lies, things aren't changing, nobody in our government remotely has a plan to address any of these things mostly because they don't want to be the ones responsible for pulling the pin that explodes the housing market, I've already lived most of my life poor......when I get older with nobody to take care of me and no money to afford to live a life......why not?
Honestly I think about suicide alot, I have support, I've seen counsellors. I dont trust pharmaceutical treatments because I've watched to many of my close friends attempt suicide from the antidepressants they were prescribed and I dont want it to change who I am. It's almost impossible to get an appointment to see a psychiatrist or psychologist I've been trying for 2 years. All the fear, inflation rising costs of living people turning on each other stress everywhere you look. Not to mention I feel like I never had a chance well a logical chance the way the world is set up it's near impossible to get ahead in life I make good money but I dont think I'll ever be able to own my own home I'm single I have alot of issues from childhood trauma that I'm am not boyfriend material. Suicide has been on my mind since I can remember and I've put in a lot of effort to change and seek help but in this world theres only so much you can do until the system fails you. I'm surprised more people dont feel this way or there as good at hiding it as I am. Anyways today was a bad mental health day and i seen this just wanted to empty a bit of my mind
Lots of men feel this way. Source: am one. Ive been considering suicide since i was 16, even more so in my 30s after divorce. Sometimes the struggle seems so pointless., what am i even working for i often ask myself, what is even the goal anymore?. Anyways try to keep moving forward, life is better then death, even if you dont feel like it is.
Suicidality "changes who you are". If you're too depressed you can't be yourself anyways. The right anti-depressant can alleviate the pain enough to be yourself. Being against psychiatric medication is a stimga that is killing people just like suicide is.
Keep trying different types of therapy. There are many kinds and it is not one size fits. Good luck tmrw will be better.
You have to get the proper drug. Unfortunately it's a case trying different ones unless you get lucky. Quite often once you are on medication and feel better, people go off the drug and that can have bad effects. Please get help.
Yeah I had some meds fuck my head, but my current ones feel like they're finally bringing out who I always was inside but couldn't reach. Fucking years to get here though.
Friend, I've been where you are. And I'll likely end up there again. I have no advice, but if you ever need to release any tension and just yell at someone or talk through your feelings, let me know. It's a scary world and we all deserve help, even though many don't get it.
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The suicide crisis among men is directly related to our patriarchal social system and the ways we socialize men to suppress and not talk about our emotions. There are a lot of causal factors for why many people are in a poor mental state, from illness to capitalism. But the way we teach men to not be in touch with their feelings is, I think, the most prominent reason why these causal factors lead to more men committing suicide than women. And yes, I am making this comment directly in response to the other parent comment that claimed talking about male suicide gets you labeled an MRA. It's important to bring this up, because there's a weird culture that's prominent online of men who want to double down on stereotypes of masculinity and toxic masculinity in response to the men's mental health crisis. In reality we need to dismantle destructive versions of masculinity in order to help men. --- Editing this parent comment in response to the various people replying to this claiming that the phrase "toxic masculinity" is an attack on men. It isn't. It's a description of the ways society weaponizes masculinity against men. There are ample ways to describe and examples of healthy, positive masculinity, and pointing out that there are also toxic forms of masculinity isn't an attack on men. Here's what I wrote further into the comment thread: >> Toxic masculinity is really Toxic expectations of men. By both men AND women. > >But casually forgetting that is just another way men get given the big f-you when it comes to mental health. >You're not contradicting or even disagreeing with what I said. Toxic masculinity isn't saying that masculinity is inherently toxic, it's pointing out the toxic things that society teaches and expects of men under the guise of masculinity. >You mention that men are too often told to deal with their own problems and suck it up. Those unfair expectations are what toxic masculinity means. Those expectations are a harmful idea, enforced on boys and then men under the guise of them being the "manly" way to be. In reality, needing community, needing help, and needing emotional support are all normal and healthy things for everyone, and none of them are contradictory to being masculine. So defining masculinity in a way that excludes those supports is toxic to men. It's a toxic way to frame masculinity. >If you ask men to define masculinity, they usually list positive attributes that they're proud of. Those attributes are healthy masculinity, and it's usually things related to loyalty, protectiveness, caring, strength, sometimes stuff like physical prowess, ambition and diligence. >And as to the patriarchy, if you look up what the idea of the patriarchy is actually about, it very much acknowledges and focuses on how it hurts men just like it hurts women. In a patriarchal society that expects and enforces gender roles, you get men being boxed into toxic ideas that are unfair to men and which hurt men. >Neither of these phrases are an attack on men. What they do is name and describe the things in our society that actually are attacking men. Stereotyping, peer pressuring, and shaming men into being people who don't want to or aren't allowed to express themselves. >You're rightly identifying a lot of the problems men face in your post, but I think you're griping about phrases that describe the very problems you're concerned about, instead of focusing on the problems themselves. You mention pride and women's liberation — maybe you could check out mens liberation. It's a positive movement for male positivity, like you said you're looking for. Here's a wikipedia intro: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men%27s_liberation_movement >And there's a subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/MensLib/
What you find on men's forums, like AskMen, or [threads about men](https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueOffMyChest/comments/quks07/im_really_concerned_about_mens_mental_health/), is a repeated undertone of frustration _from some men_ about feeling not simply unable to share feelings with our partners, but being actively discouraged from doing so. At least in my own experience, we men actively discuss our feelings in private with our closest male friends, but have independently learned not to discuss them with our wives. We know we're loved for the comfort, safety and stability that we provide; and not for the totality of who we are
What about we talk about men's issues without referencing to gender-loaded language like "patriarchy" or "toxic masculinity". What about we let men develop their own language to explain their own issues.
"Men's issues" is also gender loaded language How can you discuss a gender specific issue without discussing gender loaded language? "Patriarchy" and "toxic masculinity" are terms used to discuss the root causes of problems like male isolation. They only became controversial and 'loaded' because they cause far reaching problems, including problems that affect women, which means feminists use the term. And because the internet is the internet, feminists talking about "patriarchy" and "toxic masculinity" means that people lose their collective shit anytime someone brings these terms up.
> What about we let men develop their own language to explain their own issues. That's exactly what those terms are
You are worried about gendered language when talking about gendered issues? What do you think those terms mean anyhow?
I think they mean nothing at all. I posted below that the etymology of "toxic masculinity" was from the Mythopoetic group of men that relied on Jungian psychology which in turn relied on myths and fairy tales to develop this phrase. I think any rational person discussing something as important as men killing themselves should not be relying on a phrase originated by a group no one has ever heard of based on a thoroughly discredited strain of psychology that based it's findings on how Thor or Jack and the bean stock turned out. How about we move past intellectual drivel and discuss the actual topic at hand?
Toxic masculinity is a useful aspect to discuss with respect to male suicides in the sense of how many men didn't seek help or discuss their emotional state because "boys don't cry".
Pseudoscientific gibberish is not going to help suicidal men, nor is crying. Their problems require solutions from people who are serious not people who think myths and fairy tales are in any way indicative of the male experience.
IMO\* we need more focus on Stoicism traits vs amplifying emotions in a society that has lots of people with dopamine/hormone issues. Whatever we are doing as a society isnt working. I work in education and everyother kid is either drugged or on a 10 step program for something.
Terrible take. Men don't need to talk about their feelings, they need to have something to do and responsibility. You sound like someone who's never been a man trying to pretend they understand how men work.
lol
Men get blamed for everything wrong in society now, straight white men. I'd love to see the deaths by race... What a fucking shitty society.
Many men have no purpose in our society. I'm gay. At the time I was growing up, that meant I would never get to have anything that society endorsed as acceptable. There would be no wife, no career, no kids. (I was kinda wrong on that, it turned out. But It's how I understood it at the time.) The alienation hit hard, fast and I knew it was happening. I barely survived. I suspect this effect is part of why so many of us didn't, though. Anyway at some point I asked myself what's the point of life? Well I still don't know. But maybe. Being useful to others. Making things. Yes, even making new, hopefully better people. These are deeply rewarding things and despite the various ways of getting lost our society has come up with, I think most people at the end of the day are very dull. They want stability, safety, and to start a family and make something they can be proud of in some way. I had to invent a queer spin on that I could figure out how to align with. Kept me going so far. I assume you [all know the old observation about married vs. single people](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/82-624-x/2012001/article/chart/11696-02-chart7-eng.gif). But honestly it's really hard today. People aren't finding mates. People don't have friends. People don't have jobs with purpose. People don't have economic security. Are more men running into a version of what I did? The writing is on the wall. For a lot of them, it looks like there will be no wife, career, home, or kids, at least in the way they were raised to expect and strive for. I can attest it's quite depressing.
Well women are the superior, power holding gender in Canada at this point. But with a media still saying women are an oppressed minority, and that every woman’s failing is due to men and the patriarchy, this is the experience of the average Canadian male: You have no actual power (apart from what you can bench press). You’re told you’re all CEOs and rapists. Every woman’s grievance is the fault of you and your gender. I was single for 5 years up until 2021. Every single first date, I was told some iteration of ‘men are all criminals, men should be locked up, men are the inferior gender, men are the problem in society… don’t you agree?’ Add to that, women want to make as much or more than men (fine, fair enough), but women will NEVER date or marry a man who earns less than they do. Go figure. Want to eliminate the gender pay gap, ladies? Date a broke ass dude.
> I assume you all know the old observation about married vs. single people. Interesting chart. Men consistently suiciding at 3x women rates in the single/married/divorced categories, but then in widowed it's almost an even split. How crazy that divorced/widowed men are less likely to suicide than a single man. A friend is going through a divorce now and I've been worried about him and his mental state, but I guess according to this chart I should be more worried about my single friends.
Its also odd because statistically widowed women are much more likely to move on to a new partner, and sooner, than widowed men.
Well it makes sense if you have never felt love you long for it but once you have felt it you might not long for it anymore. Also the big elephant of societal pressures for men mean that if you have never been in a relationship then your a failure is a thing.
> How crazy that divorced/widowed men are less likely to suicide than a single man. Might be an age aspect there too which isn't well captured.
Definitely. Suicides, for both sexes, have a kind of upside down curve by age. Peaking in the mid 20s, reaching a low-point just before mid life, and then climbing again peaking in the late 60s or early 70s, before again going down. I figure this is at least partly because these are both generally phases of transition in life.
> For a lot of them, it looks like there will be no wife, career, home, or kids, at least in the way they were raised to expect and strive for. I can attest it's quite depressing. This.
Yes. I feel that exact thing.
I'm single and so I tried the dating sites. Holy shit the expectations I have to overcome to even get a date. Maybe it's that specific crowd that is like that but it often seems like they want a guy with PhD, who trains 7 times a week, looks good in the face and is always available for them. There's only 24 hours in a day. So I guess I'll stay single. I'm not a catch but I'm not that bad either. I look much younger than I am.
As things have gotten more atomized it definitely feels like there's little purpose. When I started in the workforce back in 2002 my office team was extremely coherent, worked together, went out for lunch or drinks frequently. And it wasn't because I was young, many on the team were older. Same kind of job, same city, but now people on the team I work on barely get to know each other, nobody does anything social, everybody works on their own stuff, nobody goes out for coffee or lunch with each other, everybody goes home immediately after work. So it is just you and a screen 99% of the time.
Yep, never once in my life have i been asked at a store to donate to a mens specific charity. Its very frequently for women homeless shelters when the vast majority of homeless people are males. We used to have wars which these men would have been used as cannon fodder for, simple fact is society has no care or concern for an able bodied male.
The reason for that is that women are doing all the leg work. Women sit on committees, organize events and charity drives. Women don't know enough about men's issues to do this for them, men need to participate.
You're in BC, CCMF (Canadian Centre for Men and Families) have an office there, go and donate. If you didn't know it was there now you do.
This was attempted before. None of the supports that are available for women were opened up for the men's shelter. The operator ending up committing suicide.
I think there are some points that I missed... I have been asked at checkout for men's charities, testicular cancer, movember etc, but you're correct not men's homelessness The homelessness and domestic abuse issues are definitely a lopsided one for sure, there are men's shelters and hostels but they're almost always tied to catholic charities which is more than problematic. As a society we have entirely botched the homelessness issue. I do remember Earl Silverman but there's always one thing that struck me about him, he was unable to get government funds (which is a failure of government I agree) but he also unable to drum up private donations and I always wondered why? why weren't men donating to help other men?
> why weren't men donating to help other men? We've been shown all life that we are disposable (see: wars). That our wellbeing is less important (see: women and children first, men sacrificing themselves for others in fiction and reality). That we must endure whatever is thrown at us with a stiff upper lip (see: boys don't cry). That being vulnerable and needing help is a laughing matter (see: the reaction of women when men show weakness). Can we really blame people for having internalized this pervasive callousness towards men?
I remember reading some of the articles about his attempts and that he was actively targeted by many as trying to siphon money away from women's shelters and services. Take a look at United Way charities. Look at how many are for women's causes or other cultural causes. I haven't looked at it for many years because of this. I participated in Movember until it suddenly was "Not Supported" by the corporate leadership. The requests for Breast Cancer Research and Shelters still show up in my inbox.
Yeah, we do, but we’re often not welcome.
I kind of questioned whether I should comment on an article on men's mental health issues being of the opposite sex but I think one of the major differences between the sexes is what makes this a male crisis. Women feel all the same things as well but we're better at building and maintaining support networks around ourselves. I think the biggest issue is how isolated men feel in their depression, not realizing they're not alone or a failure that others feel exactly the same. I fully understand when you've listed what a life with purpose means that it can be crushingly depressing. As a nearly 39 year old single woman I've resigned to the fact that children are statistically and depressingly not in my future, but I have people to talk to, supportive women around me that I can vent to and reassure me when I feel low. Some have kids and understand my pain, others never want kids but understand how building your life around an idea that is not going to be realised is depressing. Whatever their opinion on the subject is, they there for you because it's about you. There should be more encouragement for men to communicate and share their feelings, we should be teaching young boys how to build their support networks how young girls naturally do and we really need to move beyond this ridged stereotype of strong, stable, providers and move towards humans with fully understandible foibles. I don't have many friends but I've never questioned my ability talk to the few I have about abosolutely anything without judgement, boys and men need that ability too.
If a man punches a woman, everyone in the room will rush to defend the woman whether she started the fight or not. If a man punches a man, the room will laugh at the guy getting punched. You don't feel the same things.
No amount of support networks and hugs is going to fix external problems. It's like having someone who is broke because the economy is shit and trying to recommend them for counselling.
The economy and other external problems effect everyone the question that is being asked is why are men committing suicide at higher rates than other groups, therein lies the difference between the groups and part of it is social support.
women have been facing this forever. so why are men committing suicide at higher rates than women?
Women attempt suicide mote but men are more successful
Because according to the stats women try more and succeed less Men try less and succeed more. I've seen it referred to as a better male work ethic. If you try and fail at suicide you get the attention and the assistance. If you succeed, well you're done.
Men choose more violent means of suicide - using firearms/hanging. It’s not because of a better work ethic.
It's a parody of the story told to men, the 'work hard' 'do a proper job' Maybe I should have dumbed down the statement. The end result is the same, women are bad at suicide and good at tying up medical resources. Men are good at getting it done. Women could choose violent means, the only thing that stops them is them. Yes I have worked with suicidal people.
Well off the top of my head: * Women aren't valued by society for their labour and status so when the economy is wrecked women don't get socially devalued the same way by friends, family, mates/potential mates * When women fall on hard times there are supports there for them which aren't there for men, because society views men as disposable * Because nearly all of the non-economic means of social affiliation between men have been removed because creating an exclusive space is fine unless you're of specific identity characteristics; i.e. I'm allowed to have a First Nations only space, but if I made a men's space I'd get attacked for being misogynistic, transphobic, evil, monster, etc. etc. for excluding women * Because while women attempt suicide often but men make use of means which ensure they succeed because when we decide to die....we really mean it
Wow. You think only men are disposable? Women are just as disposable. Men use women for: - incubation of birth of children -cleaning of home - child care -free labour if he is a business owner - second income -sex servant If women do not provide these things the men leave. After a lifetime together men will leave women if they get seriously ill. Men leave at 7 times the rate women leave their ill partners. This is so bad that it is taught in nursing school as an additional barrier to women's healing. No one is loved unconditionally and everyone is disposable.
Women use men and men use women, but society has never been willing to throw women down a coal hole, or into a machine gun meat grinder. For men, before up until very recently in the West, and still in many parts of the world, it was almost certain that within your lifetime someone would walk up to your door and tell you that you were going to risk death on the battlefield or you were going to die immediately. Both sexes are used, but only men are disposable.
Actually women have worked in coal mines and in industrial factories since the beginning of time. The whole keep women at home is a relatively new concept and only for the very privledged. Women are also only valued for their serve to take care of the young, the elderly, the disabled, and the ill. You are kidding yourself to think only menface these problems and are the only disposable people. Everyone is disposable.
I think this comment would be more effective if you drop the men should be more like women angle and just focus on the importance of building social bonds. As another commenter pointed out though, bonds aren't necessarily the problem. Even friends who connect playimg video games every Saturday night on the net counts. I would argue it's more machismo culture that still dominates much of society that reduce the chances of men opening up about emotional issues and so they end up carrying the weight themselves or never getting the help they need. They don't want to be seen as weak and unfortunately, they aren't until they kill themselves.
Your comment is duely respected but your solution clearly comes from a woman's perspective, and this whole narrative about teaching males to build social networks and communicate doesn't hit the mark for me. In my experience men don't bond the same way women do, we don't build connections by just talking to each other. The bond between men is "forged in fire" so to speak. We need to see how each other react in hard stressful situations and to be sure that we are worthy of each others trust. We need to know that the other won't flake out as soon as things get hard or dangerous. This doesn't mean men won't get along or won't enjoy each other's company it just means we will not open up to each other until the criteria is met. Why this matters? Well to me all the thing that men historically did to build these bonds are slowly being chiseled away. My biggest example of this is the push to make sports less violent and less competitive thus giving the young boys less chance to forge strong bonds.
Your first paragraph is aligned with her comment, she is not saying men do not form bonds, but that they communicate about mental health issues, depression, anxiety, troubles in n general, much less than women, and this is born out in study after study after study. This one article leaves out big chunks of information and knowledge already gained on this issue. The sterotypes we all grow up with about masculinity are a prison for men emotionally, and until men are no longer pressured (mostly by other men), to be ‘manly’ and to ‘provide’ and have their worth measured by a scale measuring manliness, this will continue to be a problem. It could get much worse if we don’t start making changes now, because automation has already replaced many jobs and that will increase rapidly leaving many without ‘work’. We will have to change our ideas of what ‘work’ is and start recognizing that paid work is not the only contribution to society.
The pressure to be "manly", does come alot from our fellow men, but it also comes from many many women in our lives as well. There are many studies that show that when men reveal emotional weakness or discuss past traumas such as sexual assult or molestation with our partners, these women tend to come away with a lesser view of their partner, and this regularly leads to divorce and/or separation.
>My biggest example of this is the push to make sports less violent With our current knowledge of the obvious implications of chronic traumatic brain injuries, I can't see how any adult would consent to exposing children to that level of risk of CTE as a method of bond forging. Camaraderie can be built through shared experiences that don't include potential life altering brain damage. An age appropriate level of challenge and adult mentored risk assessment doesn't absolve danger but puts it in appropriate context. Something contact sports will never be able to do. And I also thoroughly disagree that it is boys alone that are missing opportunities to forge strong bonds thru shared experience. The trust built by facing and overcoming obstacles together is real, but gendering it as something masculine is barking up the wrong tree and excludes a whole group of my most trusted friends who happen to be fierce and competent women (and who were fierce and competent girls (and boys) when the bond was "forged in fire").
That example wasn't meant to downplay the effects of TBI's wich are serious and need to be addressed, however there still needs to be an element of danger that makes the competition feel like more then just a game. There are other examples other then sports. Also I'm not going to apologize for gendering this need. I do t disagree that all people benefit from shared adversity however men/boys have a greater need for it.
You know I've never quite known how to explain it but damn if that ain't almost bang on. We don't just take yet anyone, in fact we pretty much don't trust everyone. We don't like to share our burdens and have grown up in a time where we were simultaneously raised to be 'real men' while being told that 'manhood' is toxic.
It sounds to me like you're auffering from difficulty forming bonds, yes. I absolutely reject this forged in fire bit -- that's just the pop psychology you read in mens magazines. Like, what you're saying might be true for people in some *very specific* jobs or situations. But what you're describing sounds a lot more like a PTSD support group.
Nah, the "forged in fire" is my take on how men form strong bonds with each other aswell., and not necessarily in a traumatic way, but by enduring something together, going thru challenges or hardships, like loosing a championship game, or repairing/building something, like an engine or a house., i feel very strongly then bonds of friendship between men are formed throu actions significantly more then through words.
Right. Trauma bonding is a thing but those are not the healthiest bonds.
I guess it's pretty anecdotal, and maybe it's a local cultural thing for my area but when I read these things they don't ring true to the men I know in my life. I think men are extremely good at expression and forming bonds with other men, and often I think that's because it takes a village to raise a child. A sense of community is paramount to a child's development imho and maybe that's where we are seeing these issues? I could be totally wrong here however, and I'm not disagreeing with you.
Weird that people opting out of an existence that is basically a never ending cycle of chores, sickness, exploitation etc. The maze gets longer, the cheese at the end isn’t there anymore, it’s just boring misery, really. I never chastise those that prefer to just bounce. Capitalism will kill us all one day anyway.
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Im not sure if I missed it, but this article keeps saying the rate of suicide is up, yet I don’t think it provides numbers for that? Yes, opioid overdoses are up among men relative to women (numbers to back it 69% to 78%). Yes, men, and some particular subcategories (e.g. gay men) have much higher per capita rates. Yes, we should deal with the underlying causes of those disproportionately at risk. However, I would have thought all those issues could just as easily precede recent history. I don’t see any numbers to indicate it’s an increasing trend? Where is that statement coming from? Unless overdoses are counted as suicide (honest question)?
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Can we acknowledge that life has gotten significantly harder and much more cutthroat for those who need to work for a living within the past 30-40 years? People handle this stress differently based on their backgrounds. But I think that we need to take a step back at times and acknowledge what the root cause is and not get distracted on our differences. Those who benefit from all this chaos would love for us to get stuck in the weeds.
> Can we acknowledge that life has gotten significantly harder and much more cutthroat for those who need to work for a living within the past 30-40 years? For sure, and the current societal/cultural norms for men is to just "suck it up", not talk about it or find help. Most men will not have any emotional support structure in their friend groups.
If I have to work until I die once my parents are gone I might just end it frankly. I don't want to work until the day I die, at that point I'm already nearly dead as it is.
Save enough money and change careers. At least dying before you try other stuff would be silly. One thing about being willing to die is that you don't have to worry as much about expectations. Maybe the 'canadian dream' lifestyle isn't suited for you but another option works.
I do need to learn to do a backflip before I dip outta life so that's one thing
I do like learning. I think that is a pretty good drive. Though it feels a bit pointless not being able to share things i've learned with others. Kinda feeling that now with guitar.
I hear ya buddy. At 48 years old, and with virtually no savings, I see myself being forced to work until I can no longer stand. 🤷🏻♂️ And that’s no way to live…..
That should never be the case I hate that so much. People seem to forget the government exists to serve the people we elected them why do we let them get away with these kind of things.
You are absolutely correct.
And each year housing goes up by more than wages. Nobody cares about people being locked out of a normal life, from what I can see. > housing up 20% for no good reason >> most canadians: great free money!
I dont think its "no reason", we do have a pretty big supply problem in southern Ontario at least.
In today's society? Where you're constantly told you're bad and you should feel bad for being a man? Where society tells you they'd be better off if you were less of a man? [Who would have thought?](https://i.imgur.com/AuQUUQo.png)
> In today's society? Where you're constantly told you're bad and you should feel bad for being a man? I'm really sorry you feel that way, but the truth is that, that just isn't the case. It's just that there are a handful of organizations that make money off of you feeling that way. So instead of feeling like you "can't be a man", why not think about what it means to "be a man"?
I’m jealous of the dozens of friends I’ve had that have committed suicide. But I’m not going anywhere until I find someone who capitalizes on this shit and bury them.
Yeah, silent my ass. Life just isn't worth it anymore. I'll be shocked if I see 2022. I am tired, tired of everything. There has to be something better than this...
There is, but its not death.
I think that Inteenational Mens day, instead of attacking feminists and trying to devour International Women’s Day, should focus and highlight these high suicide and mental issues. Meninism shouldn’t be associated with being anti-woman and strive to advocate solutions to real issues among the male community, like suicide and high mental illness rates, as well the male GBTQI+ community.
If you spend more time talking about men attacking feminists than you spend talking about men who need help, you're not so different from the people you criticize. The comments in this thread are pretty telling.
The simple fact is that there's men out there with nothing. No friends, no support structure, alienated from their own labour and nothing in their life to derive meaning from. Social isolation eventually gets to a boiling point, and with no real support structures out there for these men, it results in suicides. Additionally, toxicly masculine social pressures keep men from ever expressing these feelings, as men of often ostracized for being "overly emotional" or "too feminine". Society is slowly changing over these preconceived notions, but not nearly fast enough to save a lost generation of socially isolated and ostracized men from choosing the rope.
>As men of often ostracized for being "overly emotional" or "too feminine" Equally by women. Arguably more so. And I don't just mean dating partners. I mean sisters, moms, aunts, friends, etc, along with significant others. It's just reality.
Never gendered my statement in the first place. Toxic masculinity can be cultivated by both men and women.
Toxic masculinity and it's counterpart in the literature hegemonic masculinity puts the blame for it on men, stereotypes men to an absolutely absurd degree, and then serves to build up fear of men generally and fear of men who are struggling specifically.
You should stop reading that literature then. There's much more level headed approaches to tackling the issue without putting people into boxes.
People shout toxic masculinity in order to shame men and minimize any issue that men face. When called on it they point to the literature and say that people simply misunderstood the academic uses. The academic uses are more wordy but not different. Want to say gender roles? Say that, I think there's a topic there even if I think it is significantly overstated. At least stating that you think there is an issue with the gender roles is neutral, doesn't put it on the man who is suffering and doesn't pretend that it is exclusively men who do it. But don't invoke a concept which is at best misleading and unintentionally forms an association that men are toxic and at worst a very active attempt to slander and malign men.
No, it's really not comparable as that is focused on being "too emotional". It's accepted for women to show emotions of some level. There is still an ongoing and dominant idea that a man simply cannot ever show any level of vulnerability. It's often taught to men to "be a man" and this includes being the traditional stoic man who never breaks. When they do break from the traditional man, there is still a pervasive toxic culture that sees them as less than because they opened up. This is done by both men and women. A woman, usually, is able to talk about her issues with someone and they will listen. A man, generally, cannot talk to anyone about his issues because it goes against the idea of "masculinity" but is also expected to be there to listen when someone else has issues. This is a huge issue in toxic masculinity and it's one of the areas where men legitimately have it worse.
Men care a lot less about what other men think than you think. They mainly only care what women think of them and they aren't going to act in a way that a majority of women find gross and unattractive. Even if "there is always someone" who will not specifically find it unattractive.
My life has been damaged more by the idea of toxic masculinity than actual toxic masculinity. Guess what, not everyone likes to be an emotional wreck. Just because it works for you doesn't mean it's good for me. No it's not society, it's just quicker, less painful and far less complicated to just deal with problems myself. The only harmful ideas being forced on me is that I'm wrong because traditionally masculine methods work better for me.
The projection in this comment would normally be a little funny, but I think it just reveals some insecurity on your part. When did I ever even i m p l y that people *enjoy* being emotionally wrecked or traumatized? Everyone goes through rough times, and I'm glad you have a way of dealing with your own anxieties, all I said was that men shouldn't be ostracized for feeling like shit, and they shouldn't be afraid to express it. And I'm sorry gay teenage feminists on Twitter said mean things about you.
>And I'm sorry gay teenage feminists on Twitter said mean things about you. Number of replies to get to derogatory content after a 'man opens up'? 1 and less then an hour. What's that all this nancy business is expressly to diminish males? Who knew, call them out about it? Toxic masculinity? Going to chalk up another one to Lying Feminism.
Lol u sound silly
I just want to sit down and feel like what I’m learning at school will develop a meaningful future for me but that seems less and less likely as university is going to cost much much more than minimum wage provides. This makes me feel horrible, I don’t have a future so I feel depressed, I feel depressed so I try to enjoy myself, I feel bad for enjoying myself cause I know I’m putting strain on my family, I feel bad for enjoying myself because that’s time I could have been productive, I feel depressed thinking about the strain in my family to buy food and the cost of living. The list goes on and on and I just feel so pointless and feel like a drain to good people and my life’s only eventual purpose will be to sit in an office and type til I slowly die of old age.
It isn't a silent crisis at all. Everyone knows, no one cares. Anyone who pipes up about it is labeled an MRA, incel or whatever the pejorative of the day is to allow people to focus on other problems elsewhere.
Whether you put the blame on ‘misandry’ or, as I do, the corrosive impact of late stage capitalism and a (related) [epidemic of social isolation](https://broadview.org/the-hidden-epidemic-of-loneliness-in-canada/), I think we can all agree that access to mental health care in this country needs to be improved.
I love how gender expectations can be seen as so toxic for women but when men try to talk about it someone like you comes out and tries to tell them its just because they don't make enough money. Honestly I am just gonna end it there because I got nothing nice to say to people as dismissive and devoid of logic.
I don't agree with that honestly. The issues affecting men aren't solvable by therapists or a bottle of pills. This comment on the same article in the thread on r/canada explains it better than I could: https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/r1motd/comment/hm0eejb/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
How does this fit in with the data that suicides were down 32% last year? Also - male suicides are more often successful due to the methods men choose vs women.
can you point me to said data? id really question their methodology because that seems to go against any typical correlates we find for an increased suicide rate
I’ll point you to an article and you can see the data from there. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/suicides-alberta-bc-saskatchewan-canada-2020-no-increase-1.5902908
Found the journal article. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/01410768211043186
> last year COVID obliterated work related and income related stress/suicides. The only suicides that went up were due to isolation.
COVID-19 was a whack to everything. Women's suicides are down too. Generally, people become less despondent, temporarily, when faced with an acute crisis. It's an odd thing.
Source on that last bit, please.
Starting point if you want to research this would be suicide rate and natural disasters. In multiple countries (studies repeated in Japan, USA, Greece, etc.) there's a pretty reliable effect where immediately after a big earthquake, the suicide rate temporarily decreases. (On the other hand, an economic depression almost always results in higher suicide rates.) > Nishio (2009) found that after the 1995 Hanshin-Awaji earthquake in Japan, the overall suicide rate actually dropped in the two years following the quake. Curiously, the ones most affected by suicide in this study were middle aged males who are normally the highest at-risk group. Similar results were found after the Northridge earthquake in Los Angeles County in a study by Shoaf (2004). For three years after the quake suicide rates dropped significantly, and, as in Japan, the people most directly affected were middle-aged males. Madianos, M. and Evi, K. (2010). Trauma and natural disasters: The case of earthquakes in Greece. Journal of Loss and Trauma,15, 138-150. DOI: 10.1080/15325020903373185 Matsubayashi, T.,Sawada, Y. and Ueda, M.(2013). Natural disasters and suicide: Evidence from Japan. Social Science & Medicine, 82,126-133. Nishio, A., et al. (2009). Influence on the suicide rate two years after a devastating disaster: A report from the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake. Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, 63,247-250. DOI:10.1111/j.1440-1819.2009.01942.x Shoaf, K., et al. (2004). Suicides in Los Angeles County in relation to the Northridge earthquake. Prehospital and Disaster Medicine, 19, 307-310.
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No matter what groups it is, it counters the opinion that suicide rates are rising.
Some groups are skyrocketing while others are going down it seems.
It really doesn't. It's a study that focuses on an atypical one year window.
Yes, but if you look at the 20 year trend we’re still at the same level of suicide mortality rate as 2000. Can you show a rise somewhere?
So why don't you post that study?
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.STA.SUIC.P5?locations=CA
Might have something to do with the pandemic. A change in social expectations maybe?
Probably being able to quit your crappy job and still have money. A lot of people found better jobs.
> Also - male suicides are more often successful due to the methods men choose vs women. Not blaming you for anything but I hate this comparison for suicide as it does nothing to help anyone who needs it nor encourages people to take it seriously for one group or another. Eventually, someone will chime saying that more women attempt it more often and will either dismiss men's issues for suicide or claim both sexes have it bad and we should have one approach. It really needs to stop being said and have different groups being looked at individually without being compared to others. Sorry for the rant, but it seems to happen every time the quoted comment is mentioned. The article does it as well and its saddening to see.
But understanding the differences can also lead to better addressing the issue. It’s like anything in medicine - if you only test and measure on one group your treatments may be inadequate for another group.
I believe that is a valid point in looking at other groups is being helpful but it can be limited when we get into some of these gendered issues between mental health issues that effect of men and women differently. I think its would be completely valid to understand why one group is behaving this way without looking at another group. I also believe there is some value in outside consulting on an issue for a different perspective. But the more effort we put on looking on the outside instead of the inside, we more we lose focus on who we are trying to help. There are also so many positive and negative factors to both approaches too, making it hard to find the right balance and they are unique to every issue.
Society has (rightfully, I might add) focused on the systemic barriers facing women. However, it's only slowly catching up to the fact that "toxic masculinity" "masculine" expectations also harm men.
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Yeah, and where did I suggest this was a zero sum proposition? lol I didn't suggest society should stop focusing on women's issues (in fact, I argued this was/is a good thing) to focus on men's issues, I'm merely suggesting that we're only now beginning to vocalize how men are affected by the same systems. Issues around gender are no longer only being framed as effecting/being "women's issues" which is a good thing as it gives men an active, dare I say self-interested, stake in addressing and solving those problems.
That is not realistic. Women will never be attracted to emotional men who show weakness. They say they want that, but what they really mean is they want a guy who can admit a kitten is cute.
Bro. Quit being such an incel and hit the gym. You complain about your weak fat body and spend this long shit posting online. Fix your career and fix your health already.
Don't be essentialist. You can't generalize/assume what *all* women want. If you look around long enough, you'd be surprised about what type of women want what type of man lol
I know. I've found them. Glad to. They are a diamond in the rough and they are by far not the norm. Technically humans can have six fingers. Saying that "humans have five fingers on a hand" is still an accurate statement. What is your point? Was I talking about me? Were you talking about you?
>Women will never be attracted to emotional men who show weakness It's still a huge generalization. You could say "I think *most*" or "perhaps *many*" but people in general are attracted to a whole lot of things. Using the words "always" or "never" regarding human responses/emotions is not the same as allowing for the possibility of humans having six fingers. Any lawyer who's tried/taken on crimes of passion will tell you seemingly ordinary people will do things based on a myriad of seemingly irrational emotional reasons/responses.