15 May Are mental health issues a bigger problem than people realise, especially in men?
(Caption: Men and metal health, Credit Victor)
When you think of ‘being a man’, what words or phrases come to mind? Strong, brave, avoids dealing with emotions, masculine. What about sufferers of mental health problems?
Mental health issues are becoming more apparent in todays society and there is a lot more publicity coming out to help people recognise those who are suffering. However, many people are still failing to realise that a large proportion of men not only suffer with mental health issues, such as anxiety and depression, but also feel that they cannot seek or accept help to deal with them, as they will be deemed as ‘not a man’.
Jack Rice, 23 years old, is now happy, healthy and able to deal with what problems he faces with his mental health, but flash back to few years previous and it was a very different story. “At the age of 11 I started noticing different things and thoughts linked to mental health issues, but it wasn’t until I was about 17 that I realised and started to understand what was actually going on.” Jack had spent most of his teenage years suffering with both anxiety and depression, and by the age of 17 was suffering with such great social anxiety, that he was diagnosed with agoraphobia. He spent the following two years indoors, not wanting to interact with anyone but his close family.
At the age of 19, Jack was also suffering with bulimia, and every meal he had ended with forcing it back up again, and nights out were filled with so much alcohol that he physically could not keep it down. It was towards the end of these 2 years that he started to self-harm. One episode of this was so bad, Jack ended up being admitted to hospital, which is where he was finally able to access counselling for what he was going through due to a doctor referral. The following few months he was prescribed tablets, along with the counselling, but he explains how he “feels better off, off the medication as I knew I was feeling better on my own, rather than with the help of tablets.”
Unfortunately, Jack isn’t the only man to have gone through events like this and found it difficult to find help until things got to the extreme. Suicide is the biggest cause of death for men aged under 25, and according to the ONS, suicide rates have been consistently lower in females than in males over the last 3 decades. So, with these big figures of men committing suicide being made public, why do people still pin the traditional stereotypes to men, instead of acknowledging that a large proportion of them are suffering in silence?
Therapist *Cole Fellows believes that that today’s norms of society have stemmed from our social, cultural and historical values. “Men tend to hide behind the walls of toxic masculinity that they feel impelled to build. Because of this, it’s difficult for men to come forward, open up and receive some form of mental health treatment.” According to data from the IAPT (Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme), only 36% of referrals to their units are male. Recent figures from the ONS also show that whilst girls, up to the ages of 17, are more likely to be admitted to hospital, prescribes anti-depressants and take part in acts of self harm, boys aged 17 and under are more than twice as likely to commit suicide. This could present the idea that help might not be as commonly offered to men, or that they don’t accept the help that is available, due to the stigma around it.
One of the reasons that men (or people in general) find it difficult to get mental health treatments, especially in cases like Jacks, is that their state of mind is that bad that they physically can’t go out and look or ask for help. “When you’re in that place or have that state of mind, you do want help and you want a way to help you stop feeling the way you do but unfortunately sometimes that just isn’t possible,” Jack argued. “Sometimes you need the help to find you or there needs to be a way for those who are unable to reach out and contact, basically a stranger, for help.” In a 2016 survey for the Mental Health Foundation, YouGov found that; over a third of men had waited more than 2 years or have never spoke about a mental health problem to a friend or family member, compared to a quarter of women. Fellows stated that “whilst women are more likely to attempt suicide, men are more likely to go through with and complete the act. This is often without previous cries for help, which can leave family members and friends wondering what was wrong.”
Another reason as to why men specifically are suffering more with mental health issues, is due to them possibly failing to match their parents’ success. A study by the University of Oxford, indicates that “men who fail to match or exceed their parents’ educational achievements suffer large amounts of psychological distress.” Whereas women remain largely unaffected by their parents’ achievements. ONS have also revealed statistics that show men in ‘elementary occupations’, have a higher risk of suicide, whereas those in managerial positions hold the lowest rate of suicide risk. So, job position and educational grades prove to be a big part of why men today are more mentally and psychologically distressed. This could be an indicator that mental health issues start from a very early age. It could also explain why more often than not, it’s the boys who are skipping school, not making good connections and relationships with people and failing to get good grades, are often the ones who find it difficult to reach out for help when they need it and are suffering more with mental health issues.
However, as identified earlier, recognition of the amount of mental health problems in todays society is growing, and more and more people are realising that mental health can affect anyone and everyone, no matter what your gender is. Part of this recognition could be due to the amount of celebrities, famous faces and even members of the royal family, coming out and sharing their troubled pasts with the rest of the world. Prince William and Prince Harry have both publicly spoke about their past issues with mental health and are both committed to getting involved with charities that further help more people getting treatment. Film star and wrestler Dwayne Johnson has recently announced that he was suffering through a battle with depression through his teen years, and now encourages more men to “open up and talk about the demons they are facing.”
The fact that celebrities are releasing their stories of mental health, and soaps are telling story lines that relate to many people in society dealing with mental health issues is helping people realise how big the issue actually is. Jack states that “it proves it can happen to anyone, rich or poor, old or young, man or woman, even people high up on the social ladder.”
“Once it becomes part of the public collective consciousness, it can become normalised within that society,” Cole argues. “There appears to anecdotal evidence that raising the profile of an issue brings more awareness and in some cases more acceptance.”
But, is the problem still bigger than people realise? There is still much more that can be done to help the ever-growing number of people ending their lives due to mental health issues and the number of men who feel that they can’t access help due their social stereotypes. Men are still having great difficulty talking about their own struggles than women do, due to the strong, macho images that are still being spread throughout society. The charity ‘Mind’ has noted that these images, along with the idea that strong and silent is what women want and what other associate with being a man, “leaves little room for showing poor mental health.”
So, can the norms and values of today’s society be changed as easily as we hope? Cole isn’t as positive and believes “if we were to consider the unconscious processes and core beliefs that have been learned, internalised and reinforced by a culture over a significant number of years, I would say very difficult.” People need to focus on developing the level of help further, to help those who can’t go out and seek it for themselves. More of society also needs to recognise that mental health problems don’t just target weak or weird people, or a particular gender. Jack argues that “the whole system needs looking at, and it needs to be caught a lot earlier as this can cause people to go to extreme lengths, like severe self-harm or even suicide, before their case is even looked at or thought of.” Maybe making people aware of mental health problems at an early age is the way forward. Maybe classes like sex education, but for mental health, teaching teenagers what to look for and recognise that everyone suffers through mental health problems will make people understand more clearly. But, change does need to be made, as not every case ends like Jacks. Whilst he got through it and is able to talk about mental health and what should be done to change it, someone else might not be as lucky.
