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91% of middle-aged men who committed suicide were seeking professional help for problems in their lives, including 50% who were seeing a mental health specialist. This idea that suicidal men are hiding out with a smile on their face until they snap is a myth and amounts to victim blaming.

mhandanna

June 1, 2021

21 upvotes

/r/Male_Studies

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Title	91% of middle-aged men who committed suicide were seeking professional help for problems in their lives, including 50% who were seeing a mental health specialist. This idea that suicidal men are hiding out with a smile on their face until they snap is a myth and amounts to victim blaming.
Author	mhandanna
Upvotes	21
Comments	4
Date	June 1, 2021 10:27 PM UTC (5 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/Male_Studies
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/Male_Studies/comments/nq6fi1/91_of_middleaged_men_who_committed_suicide_were/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/Male_Studies/91-of-middle-aged-men-who-committed-suicide-were.1216338 https://theredarchive.com/post/1216338

Comments

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points7 points 5 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

[–]UnHope20 2 points3 points4 points 5 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]UnHope20 0 points1 point2 points 5 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

[–]mhandanna[S] 2 points3 points4 points 5 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

Some good comments in other places this was posted:

i've long said that this was a bullshit myth and people scoffed. first of all, men have no issue talking and listening about real problems. men never chastise other men for showing pain like tears etc - just look at MMA fighters. manliest men on the planet and they cry publicly and ppl admire it.

men process emotions differently anyway. talking and being heard are not necessarily what works best for us. we need cameraderie, purpose, challenge etc

It’s a total myth that guys don’t talk about problems.

We just don’t do it on the couch. Most of us are to busy to spend an hour talking. But men will gladly talk your ear off doing other things.

We go to the gym and talk Go fishing and talk Go hunting and talk Golf course and talk Fixing cars and talking

Hell jerk offs at the bar will talk your ear off if you are willing to listen.

Playing video games. In that like 30s between matches there is a lot of communication.

A lot of men who are driven to suicide seem to be fighting with structural problems in their lives: homelessness, unemployment, other medical issues, disability, etc. And fixing those problems would also fix their mental health problems. There's research that basically points to "talking" helping women and "fixing things" helping men. But your average therapist isn't out there fixing things, they're talking, and at most might be trying to help problem solve those issues.

That's not a jab at therapists that's just the way things are. A lot of these men were in contact with unemployment agencies, medical providers, and social workers, even if they weren't seeing a therapist. So that tells you the direction men tend to go in: they have problems they've identified in their lives and they are trying to fix those problems. They're not going into therapy to vent about "first world problems" like being cut off in traffic, what their friend said recently that upset them, or anything like that. They're going in to talk about how they're three months behind on their mortgage and their wife is threatening to leave and take their children if they can't find extra money somewhere. And there's just no amount of mindfulness or cognitive behavioral therapy that's going to fix something like that.

(I would say that loneliness is probably something therapists can help a lot with though).