The Life of a Man

Aseradeeznuts · 2023-04-27T18:29:59+00:00

This describes my experience perfectly. In the psych ward I was thrown in for three days once not even for threatening suicide but merely suicidal ideation on the internet, I was treated with nothing but hostility and scorn.

"Cry", is exactly what my therapist told me the other day when I told her about a painful experience of mine.

And when I was practically screaming for help upon starting university while severely suicidal, I was labeled a problem instead of having problems.

TheTinMenBlog · 2023-04-27T12:50:22+00:00

Politicians are asking suicidal men to talk, advocates urging them to cry, psychologists telling them to be less toxic. Never in my life have I seen an issue so roundly blamed on those experiencing it.

Men. This is your mess and therefore yours to solve.

Cry. Talk. Toxic. That is your tool set, now get to work.

We don’t tell anyone else to go cry about their problems. We don’t label anyone else ‘toxic’. Such an idea would be unthinkable if applied to other groups; and yet here we are, treating suicide, which remains the biggest threat to a young man’s life, with this exact approach.

And then we scratch our heads as to why the problem isn’t getting any better.

“Keep talking! Can you get both eyes welling up? Are you sure the toxicity is all gone?”

I am certain we will look back at these darks days with hands over our face, and through parted fingers.

I am sure we’ll be embarrassed by the language we used, and how we failed to address an epidemic that claims thousands of British men’s lives, and devastates countless others each year.

You know that photo of that god awful hairstyle you had twenty years ago, or those tragic flared jeans you once wore?

Yeah. Well that’s how we’ll feel about our similarly tragic political opinions of today.

“How did we get it so wrong?” We’ll ask.

I think I have a better approach to reducing male suicide.

Instead of placing the primary responsibility for the problem on men’s shoulders; can we not apportion part of finding the solution to each of us? For men are our friends, family and colleagues, this is an issue that hurts all of us, and it is all our problem to solve.

So don’t tell men to talk, cry, or be less toxic.

Ask yourself, your friends, family and society – to listen, ask and act.

How can we all do better?

~

Images by Calum Lewis, Tijana Drndarski, Anita Jankovic, Sincerely Media, Ben Kolde, Yukiko Kanada.

Suicides UK

Suicides USA

Suicides India

FightHateWithLove · 2023-04-27T20:39:33+00:00

Nicely done as always.

Might I humbly suggest that for the fourth page you either put quotations, indentations, or some other indications that "men must change themselves" is a sentiment you are addressing and not something you are asserting yourself?

I'm familiar enough with your work to realize how the text was meant to be written, but it's a bit of a sudden format shift because the previous pages used the same text style to speak directly to the reader.

bottleblank · 2023-04-28T07:12:41+00:00

For background, I went to a doctor 20 years ago and said I thought I was depressed. He sent me away, incredibly dismissively, telling me it was "probably just my autism". I then received abuse from my parents for having sought help, when they found out.

I've recently been to a doctor again, 20 years later, and although on that occasion it wasn't as dismissive (and I was much more able to articulate the many, many life circumstances which would contribute hugely to a depressed mood), and I was essentially told "Google it". I had to ask for pharmaceutical treatment, so that I didn't leave with absolutely nothing of any real help.

I did get prescribed pills, by a doctor who was able to issue that prescription, which I've been taking for a year and change since. It's hard to say whether they've had a significant effect, I would say at best they've slightly dulled the edge of my worst moments.

But you know what? I'm currently in the process of understanding that although, yes, those life events were problematic in themselves, the ones I described to the doctor who told me to just look it up, but the problem has been circumstance the whole time. Those specific events I could recount to explain why I felt depressed at that time, those were a slice of the overall picture, the obvious big events which would make anybody understand that I was in a bad place.

But they didn't tell the whole story of who I'd been and why I'd been that person. What I'd needed all along was a way to feel capable, I needed opportunity and some (much needed) moderate sense of success and forward progress. Without it, I was still the teenager who felt worthless because of all the bullying, I'd never been given the support or the space to grow past that. It'd just been reinforced, constantly, ever since.

I moved out of the family home a few years ago, after which I hadn't had a chance to get truly established on my own and get my place in order before the pandemic hit. But now that I'm no longer constrained by a toxic household or the pandemic, now that I have a job and don't have to carefully calculate how much I can afford to go out (financially or as abuse from resentful parents), now that I've clawed back some hope and self-esteem, I finally feel like I can be a person, not just some object in everybody else's lives. I finally feel like I can go and make new friends. I finally feel like a partner is not out of the question.

For 30 years of my life I suffered daily at the hands of peers, teachers, and parents. I was trapped, I was abused, I was led to believe that I was a hopeless waste of life. It felt impossible for me to ever be worthy of a job, or a partner, or even friends.

All it took for me to start burning away all that impossibly dire bleakness and inability to see anything good in myself was the chance to get out and prove that I am worth more, I am capable, and that the problem was never me in the first place. Those mental brick walls I had began to crack when I finally got a chance to move out. They creaked and rocked when a college classmate convinced me to apply to the place he was working after we completed our respective degrees. They vapourised when I actually got the job. They were a construct build around me by all of the people I was surrounded by, constantly maintained and reinforced by being unable to escape.

Talking or learning to think positively wasn't going to help me. Not then and not now. What I clearly needed was freedom, material change, opportunity. I needed some space to feel like I finally had a moment to breathe and evaluate what I was working with. I needed to be away from the extreme negative influences which punished me whenever I tried to socialise or have any hope. I needed the mental energy I was spending every day just trying to survive through it all to be free to allocate to doing something.

Am I "fixed"? No. But I'm in an infinitely better place now because the circumstances finally allowed me to be, which freed up the mental resources I needed to make actual progress, and I'm actually going somewhere with my life now. I'm reaching out, I'm trying to find social situations, I'm trying to push away the idea that I'm toxic became I'm a man, I'm trying to do something about my permanent lack of any kind of partner.

I'm not unaware that I'm 20 years late to the party, that's something I'm going to have to live with, but I'll be damned if I'm going to give up the next 20 years of my life to the same old miserable darkness on the basis that I'm "too late", I feel like I'm worth those things now.

Because I finally escaped the crippling hellscape that kept me pinned down for so long, so that I was able to use the tools I had to make my life work. Not because anybody cared to talk, not because of feel-good platitudes, not because I heeded advice that it's "OK to cry", no, because of practical changes in circumstance which opened the door to finally being able to live and not be a prisoner to those around me for all that time. That is what many men need.

rammo123 · 2023-04-27T22:00:24+00:00

I often think about what it would be like if we treated any other demographic with the same empty platitudes about "talking it out" as we do with men.

"African-Americans are being massacred by the police!"

"Dude that sucks. Have you tried therapy?"

Dacnis · 2023-04-27T16:32:39+00:00

I find it hilarious when the most common "solution" they give is "just go to therapy bro," as if paying someone who doesn't give a shit about you to pretend as if they give a shit about you is gonna solve your issues.

The best solution is a positive and loving relationship, whether that's from your family, friends, or romantic partner. Humans are a social species. It is common sense that men raised in loving households are better off than those that are not. Unfortunately, not everyone has access to genuine relationships with people who actually care about them.

FraGough · 2023-04-28T07:37:20+00:00

All true, but doesn't explain why I'm all of a sudden hungry for breakfast food.

shit-zen-giggles · 2023-04-28T03:41:07+00:00

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/government-appg-mps-conservative-minister-b2183819.html

https://equi-law.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/APPG-Report-The-Case-for-a-Mens-Health-Strategy-Final.pdf

https://equi-law.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/APPG-MB-Male-Suicide-Report-9-22.pdf

hotpotato138 · 2023-04-27T22:11:44+00:00

It's definitely sad!

Digger_is_taken · 2023-04-29T16:01:16+00:00

The first four frames are spot on! Fifth and sixth are pretty good. It gets pretty muddled after that. Is this the final product or are you still in feedback phase?

LysolCranberry · 2023-05-08T02:00:09+00:00

I love this

Title	The Life of a Man
Author	TheTinMenBlog
Upvotes	270
Comments	21
Date	April 27, 2023 12:50 PM UTC (3 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/130l53u/the_life_of_a_man/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/the-life-of-a-man.1217081 https://theredarchive.com/post/1217081

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