Beneath the surface of male suicide lies a murky world of icy darkness, and the shards of hidden trauma. Like an iceberg – we limit men’s issues to what we can see, that icy white cap, and never look for what lies below. Beneath the calm, demure surface, often hides stories of the abused men, or bullied boys, tales of trauma, or neglect, and sexual violence; the life of the addicted, the lonely, or those fighting a losing battle for child custody… Stories we ignore and wave away as not possible, or as insignificant, or arrogantly berate as ‘hijacking the conversation’. And so the secret epidemic, unnoticed, drifts closer and closer still, until it crashes into the side of our boat, making real what we chose to ignore, to devastating consequences. We care then. When the sun loungers and beach towels of society are disturbed, and the water rushes in, we scrabble around in a panic… We treat the issue too late. The cause of a man’s suicide has taken its toll, and any chance to prevent or change course, to sail for safer waters, has long since gone. Because suicide is not a distinct issue, but the end destination of various other issues when the volume is turned up to ten, and all hope has gone. It is, a ‘rational and solution based decision’, as is coldly described by the latest research. It is not something to be pathologised and medicated as ‘abnormal’’, seen primarily as a ‘mental health problem’, or part of a ‘toxic’ male mindset that needs to be talked away. And such perspectives have clearly failed us. Failed because research often finds that suicidal men don’t consider their problem as being a ‘mental health problem’, as they are left to grapple with what lays beneath the surface. And I know… It’s easier to acknowledge only what we can see, to throw the burden of responsibility back upon men, but as with icebergs; we need to peer deeper, and further into the distance, to understand, before it’s too late. So how far can you see, and how deep dare you look? What do you think? #malesuicideawareness #malesuicide #mensmentalhealth #mensmentalhealthawareness

2024-05-13