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18% of men will self-harm in their lives, mostly between age 10-19

[deleted]

October 20, 2013

86 upvotes

/r/MensRights

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/cry-for-help-cuts-deep-in-teens-20131019-2vtoi.html

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Title	18% of men will self-harm in their lives, mostly between age 10-19
Author	[deleted]
Upvotes	86
Comments	68
Date	October 20, 2013 1:29 AM UTC (12 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1ot7ft/18_of_men_will_selfharm_in_their_lives_mostly/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/18-of-men-will-self-harm-in-their-lives-mostly.1160867 https://theredarchive.com/post/1160867

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[–][deleted] 10 points11 points12 points 12 years ago (10 children) | Copy Link

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The firs is the Canadian embassy 21 stair, it's huge, so the impact is hard to take, but the skaters are close, they're clearing the stairs, and rolling out of the falls safely. The second is a 13-flat-13, the kid had zero chance of clearing the stairs, landed on them, and gets tossed around unconsciously - neither is really graphic though.

The first was taking on risk to achieve something, the second was unquestionably going to end the way it did, and that's the line, IMO.

There's a lot of different motivation for self harm, I had a friend who cut because it felt good, and was fun. Self harm, like depression, is one of the few things that deserves an expanded definition... Sure, jumping down a 13-flat-13 isn't the same as cutting, and it probably resulted in far worse injuries... But both are doing harm to oneself intentionally, without trying to achieve anything more than that.

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It all made sense once I started thinking about it, but as I said the discussions that go on and the literature we are presented with purely focuses on the fact that girls cut. Boys are not mentioned, and to my shame I never looked into it.

However, I am doing so now, and am coming across several interesting articles. One thing that seems to pop up is that girls are more likely to internalise, and therefore self harm, whereas boys are more likely to externalise which may result in violent outbursts. These can be verbal or physical and be directed at objects or people. The sad thing is when boys experience an outburst, quite possibly a result of mental stress, we punish them instead of helping them. Meanwhile those that cut, are afforded sympathy and help. I am not saying boys that hurt others shouldn't face consequences, but that more effort should be made to find the source of the outburst, as opposed to simply saying boys will be boys.

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[–]Frankly_No 0 points1 point2 points 12 years ago (2 children) | Copy Link

It's one of the few mental health issues men are known to suffer almost at the rate of women.

That's because mental health issues men face are largely ignored.

http://www.latimes.com/science/la-sci-depression-men-20130829,0,2605342.story

Depression can look very different in men and women. And many of its hallmarks — rage, risk-taking, substance abuse and even workaholism — can hide in plain sight. Now researchers say that when these symptoms are factored into a diagnosis, the long-standing disparity between depression rates in men and women disappears. That conclusion overturns long-accepted statistics indicating that, over their lifetimes, women are 70% more likely to have major depression than men. In fact, when its symptoms are properly recognized in men, major depression may be even more common in men than in women, according to a study published Wednesday by the journal JAMA Psychiatry.

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[–]CosmicKeys 0 points1 point2 points 12 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

So while females possibly self harm more often

This really was all I was saying though. I am definitely aware of the seriousness of men's issues surrounding bodily harm in general.

one common cause is a lack of care for one own well being

This seems kind of troubling to me, I do nothing think self harm is something to be trivialized. Self harm - like eating disorders, drug addiction, etc - is a common signs of the inability to deal with anxiety/stress/trauma, the root problem is not they don't care about themselves. So I agree you're right when you say "self harm is not the problem in itself" (although harming yourself is in no way positive), but it is a manifestation of a problem.

I do not see any link between cutting yourself and risk taking. Maybe we are talking about different types of self harm? For example, reckless driving is something that results in the harm of your body and is definitely a sign you don't care about your own well-being. Cutting yourself is quite different, there is no risk involved.

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I wasn't a social butterfly at school, so that would probably be why I'm so shocked. I mean, though early on, I had some anger issues and didn't really bother getting to know people, if people spoke to me, I generally got along with them. That angry persona probably put people off confiding in me. I later mellowed out and started becoming more social, morphing into the class clown (actually won Joker of the Year for prom), which is another persona that people generally don't confide their secrets to, I would imagine. I wasn't really the guy to go to to talk to.

I'm trying to imagine ~20-25% of students at my old place self-harming. Then again, the school I went to was actually quite a good school, so that probably played a part.

For whatever reason, I fortunately wasn't exposed to that world. I mean, I knew teenagers were self-harming, but in my mind, it was teenagers in some other school, maybe the more ghetto schools or something. I never really thought about it.

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