I get sent reports, content and articles on #malesuicide, on a day to day basis. For the sake of my own mental health I don’t read them all, but those that I do are often saying the same thing: well meaning ideas, that look nice and sound good, but are largely toothless and ineffective. Many of them blame suicidal men for their own undoing, placing ownership for the problem squarely on their shoulders, with the solution being men’s responsibility. Many talk about suicidal men as if they are defective, or deficient somehow. Using some kind of ‘men are faulty’ model, that suggests if only they’d behave more like women, then the problem would surely disappear. Almost all of what I am sent views male suicide through the prism of mental illness, and totally ignores the wider structural, political, social and economic factors that shape many mens’ distress. I hear meagre calls for “talk”, which then go on to ignore the very words of suicidal men; who themselves *don’t* conceptualise their problems as being ‘mental health problems’. For many suicidal men, being in debt or losing your home isn’t a mental health problem. Neither is becoming unemployed, being in an abusive relationship, Adverse Childhood Experiences, or losing custody of your children. And yes, these are some of the biggest contributors to the staggeringly high male suicide rate, that nobody is talking about (including advocates themselves). Page after page, post after post, it is often baseless accusations, or blind assumptions, or downright denial. That was until an exciting 2022 report landed in my inbox The new APPG on Men and Boys’ report on male suicide, consisting of many of the top male psychology experts around the world, all feeding into a comprehensive, enlightening, and extraordinarily validating report that blows the lid of the issue. I can’t possibly include it all in here - so I encourage you to read it for yourself. So a hat do you think is driving male suicide? ~ APPG Men and Boys: Male Suicide Images by Gradienta, Kelly Sikkema, Some Tale, and Background on Unsplash. #malesuicideawareness #suicideprevention #mensissues #fathersrights

2023-04-12