I thought about doing it after my ex wife cheated on me. She took our two kids with her, and I was left on my own. It was very tough at first, and I drank a lot. I was also in a pretty low paid job. The only thing that probably kept me going, was the thought of my two kids. After a very long period of feeling for myself, I decided I needed to find something to focus on. A friend suggested I try an OU course, so I did! Now I haven't the time to hardly think about anything else! It might not work for everyone, but I would say education gives your life more focus, and can make it feel more worthwhile. I think having a goal to work towards is definitely a good thing. Everyone's circumstances are different, but so far, it's working for me.
+Annissa Thanks for the reply. I see my kids every Saturday, which I look forwards to immensely. The study certainly gave me focus at a difficult time.
+Pablo C Agreed. Everything favours the woman in a divorce where there are children also involved. I was the innocent party, and yet she still got the children, even though my son had expressed his wish to stay with me. The courts don't give a shit about the father in these situations. They just wanted to tie it up as quickly as possible. Even my solicitor was useless, and almost disinterested in my concerns. Because they know it isn't a case worth fighting for. But you are right about divorce being granted too easily. Marriage isn't worth the paper it is written on these days. On a plus note, my children always say it is better coming to daddy's house!
+Flang's Ulular haha, I just had to Google what an 'MRA' was! Well I wouldn't go as far as that, but it's pretty common knowledge that women get custody of the children in a divorce. Then they try to make you feel better by saying it's joint custody! My divorce was five years ago, so I'm not as bitter as I once was! But is a horrible experience. It might sound a bit sad to some people, but even after I knew she had being having an affair, I tried to make the marriage work. I mean, a man can't just walk away can he? Because if he does, he loses his children too. Women can walk out anytime, knowing the courts will side with them. Anyway, that's my ten bobs worth, now I'm off to partake in some manly pursuits like huntin' and fishin'! That's if some bird hasn't nicked my favourite peg! haha
+Luke Belecco I guess thats the best thing you can do in your situation. If you are a good role model for those kids (Which I don't doubt you are) they will grow up wanting to spend as much time as possible with you. When they get old enough to make their own choice I would think they'd want to be with the parent who cared about the happiness of his children and not the one who sacrificed that happiness for a quick shag. What goes around comes back around.
Owen, thank you for making this video. Mental health awareness is a huge part of my life, I even founded a mental health charity, and having been through a lot of negative experiences, it's really important to me that it's addressed on platforms like this. It's really hard to talk about mental health issues, particularly with the whole 'it's invisible so it doesn't exist' mentality.
I had clinical depression last year and after my family finally made me go the doctors what the doctors said to me pushed me further into depression after what they said to me. From my experience there is no help they just prescribe you anti-depressants and send you on your way. You are left to battle it on your own.
+homer blair won't see me going back the doctors again if my depression returns after the experience of my last visit snowballed my depression with what they said. At the end of the day no one gives a #### you can only beat depression on your own and it's a hard battle.
+adam c It can be very tricky finding someone appropriate to listen properly without judgment, and NHS appointments can take a long time and CBT courses are often very short. If seeing a therapist privately then, like plumbers, best to get a good word-of-mouth recommendation. The other option is helplines: CALM are great, and have a helpline: 0800 58 58 58 and lots of great resources on their website especially for men.
+Dan Aurora Couldn't agree more. In my experience they are worse than useless. And not just for mental health issues, for physical health issues too. Been to every doctor at my surgery, and if I could find someone who would recommend doctor I would move. But everyone I ask has virtually the same response. They are fuckin' hopeless.
+adam c Oh yes, you wnna hear what the doctor's said to me when I had anxiety. They immidiately proscribed SSRI's. I was told that it'll be fine; 3 weeks and they wo't do a thing. Be patient cos by the fourth week I'd be feeling really good. Ok... well, just so happens I spent six weeks feeling like I was coming down from a very bad excasty trip (no, I've never taken illegal highs). That's what it felt like; drawsy, feeling very low but walking around with an involuntary manic grin on my face, having major panic attacks and feeling completely hopeless. Thank god another doctor I went to prescribed diazapan to get me through this period. Basically, I was lied to be the first doctor. They don't have any idea and talking theorapies are so underfunded and very hard to get any. i have a friend who's been waiting since April this year for this service. When does he start, Jan next year. Hope you're finding a way to cope mate cos, that really all we can do.
+011258stooie it's not like what you said is not valid, but I wanted to make it clear that the roots of depression need not be the ones you mentioned. There is an almost infinite number of possible causes of depression, including but not limited to the ones you mentioned.
+Vikkio92 It's true. Some people can have all those things and be clinically depressed. Plus media expectations only might really apply to the young who might be more influenced by such nonsense. My own personal depression would be due to my divorce, so it is also true that life failures can be significant.
+Luke Belecco you're right it doesn't have to have something to do with the media. Depression arises when you cant mesh your expectations/understanding of the world, with reality. The media is just one of the things in modern culture that distorts peoples understanding of how the world works.
+011258stooie By ignoring the real issues means bonanza for The Pharmocracy by promoting the fiction of Slychiatry. Describing walking whilst ignoring the floor. "You are not socially isolated you have something wrong with your brain. Here is a heavy chemical preparation that will shorten your life, may cause coma, death, blindness, diabetes but you'll be able to function for the economy." Happy-go-lucky lefty maybe knows that he is following an astro turfing agenda creating business for The Pharm as the Corps pays the Piper of Gov (Big hitter Astrazenecca, accounting for 2.4% of UK economy, share price increase up 1000 points since the TIme to Change, Time to Talk, Time to Drug astroturfing campaign relaunched by MIND in 2013. Happy Go Lucky Lefty plays unaware maybe as Jesus Corbyn has appointed Luciana Berger as a Shadowy Minister for Mental Health). 2014 was the biggest increase in prescription requests for psychiatric medication (Anti-Psychotics & SSRIs). How clever we are in our stupidity up against the glare of the trillionaire's viddy screen. Fake issues + not fit for purpose treatments = death (half a million a year globally). After all ONLY 50% of the UK adult pouplation are on prescription snake oil pills. SLY - Believe in Bitter.
+Tom Collins Er yeh, it was a bit hard to follow. Are you suggesting that drugs shouldn't be prescribed, and that therapy of some description works best? Or what?
+MrManCrisps The more likely women are independent, the less 'use' men feel in many ways. Right or wrong, this changing world f...s up old expectations.
+fenackerpan I kind of get what you're saying, but IMO these 'expectations' and ideals of men somehow having less meaning in life, if this is mainstream thought, is totally unrelated. I'd say the motivations for suicide and depression are specific to each individual and we can't find one reason to explain it, other than in today's society it seems mental illnesses are on rise in all demographics and genders of all ages. To say feminism causes Male suicide has as much sense as to say Male suicide causes a rise in Feminism. I'd like to hear responses to this because I know many people see parts of feminism as quite toxic, but I think more focus should be put on the complete lack of support for male suicide in this country.
Personally, I think it's a simplification (though not necessarily a complete untruth) to say that men are killing themselves because of a male stigma around mental health. For a start, there's a massive discrepancy between the way society deals with boy's emotions, versus the way we deal with grown men's emotions. Over the last three decades or so, we've been encouraging boys to deal with their emotions in a mild-tempered, self-analytical way (much closer to the way we've traditionally socialised girls). Then, as soon as boys hit puberty, they're confronted with a society that still demands they behave in much the opposite way; forceful, confident and useful. We're raising armies of Mark Corrigans, when society-at-large still mostly wants Tony Starks. It shouldn't be a surprise that many young men feel like men-without-a-country when they reach adulthood. And, whether we like it or not, failure is a much grimmer spectre for men than it is for women. If a man loses his job, his house, his girlfriend, etc., then (in society's eyes) he has no value; he's a loser, he's a bum, he's cannon fodder. He's lost all his status. Meanwhile, women still have the intrinsic value of being wives, mothers, etc (much more beloved and protected roles than their male equivalents), as well as have the residual 'damsel in distress' stuff left over from the old days. If people have clinical depression (like Jake Mills evidently did), then they should absolutely be free of the stigma of seeking help. But let's not be squeamish and opt for comfortable answers. That stigma is far from the only reason for the over-proportionate male suicide rate.
+neonatalpenguin Spot on. If it was women making up nearly 80% of suicides, we would all know that statistic, all be talking about how this is evidence of an anti-female society, and huge well-resourced government campaigns would be racing to bring the numbers down. As someone who has worked in male and female mental health for many years, I would only add the over-arching expectation of men that often gets skirted around or completely omitted from discussions like this: Strength. Men are still expected to be physically and emotionally strong, and male weakness is still looked at with disdain or even outright contempt by other men, and most crucially, by women too. I don't blame women for having that natural inclination toward male strength and dominance in their biology (as I don't blame men for their biological preferences), but neither should we ignore it as a factor, as the Left shamefully often does, seemingly for dogmatic ideological reasons. We happily berate the shallowness of male biological desires and the consequent pressures that puts on women, but we ignore or even outright deny female desire for strong high-status men, and the corresponding pressures this puts on men as a group. Instead, men get still more berated for having "no emotional intelligence" or for their supposedly silly and groundless fears of 'opening up', as if such fear comes from nowhere but irrational, stubborn pride. Male suicide is rarely talked about on the Left, very probably because it seems to contradict the standard Left narrative that we live in a patriarchal system that privileges all men and oppresses all women. Both 'traditionalist' Right and 'progressive' Left express a similar contempt for male suffering, but in slightly different ways: the Right says: "Man Up!"; the Left says "Check Your Privilege!" I think there's a real ideological fear in parts of the Left to admit men might actually sometimes have it worse than women in any given area of life. So some will respond to suicide stats with "Oh yes, but lots more women self-harm, so actually women suffer more", or "more women *attempt* suicide but don't succeed, so it's just as big a problem for women." As if they would put up with those comparisons if the genders were reversed and 80% of suicides were female but more men cut their arms, or more women threw themselves off bridges while more men took a dozen paracetamol and then rang A&E to say they'd taken an overdose (an actual example, by the way, of a woman in a service I know whose notes said "attempted suicide"). The task for us all, I think, is to reflect on our own reactions to male 'weakness' and challenge them repeatedly, forcefully and compassionately.
Alas, it's often true. It's the equivalent of a fairly well-off man reaching middle age and leaving his ageing wife for a younger woman. Men find signs of age in women unattractive as it signals decreasing fertility, but as we get older the best of us realise that other things are more important. Women find signs of 'weakness' (such as displays of distress, or loss or money or work) unattractive because it signals a lack of ability to provide and protect, but again, the best of them will realise other things are more important. What percentage of either gender makes up "the best of us" at any one time is open to debate.
Well, we get mixed messages as boys growing up: we're 'feminised' in the sense that natural boisterousness is discouraged in modern schools, and we are taught to be kind and thoughtful and considerate and quiet, especially to girls. But also we're taught from an early age, mostly by women, not to indulge or explore our emotions like girls are permitted to do -- that is "boys don't cry" and "man up" are still attitudes that pervade, as parents and teachers fear creating a 'weak' man, but have hardly any such worries about creating 'weak' girls. Why should they? Women are perfectly allowed to cry and be weak and it doesn't affect their life chances much at all. That being said, we should not to fall into the trap of thinking that girls have "emotional intelligence" and boys don't (as some feminists claim). Indeed, it's not necessarily true that just because someone cries a lot they must be more emotionally healthy, any more that to say because someone shits a lot they must have healthy bowels. Permission to become emotionally incontinent is not what we should be seeking. In our society, and many others, when women display weakness, our response individually and collectively is most often to comfort and nurture them and love them no less, because that's going with the grain of the male role to protect. But for a woman to love a man when he's 'weak', that's going against the genetic grain, and it seems to take a remarkable woman to let her compassion and principles over-ride her baser instincts, and to stay with her 'weak' man rather than seek a 'stronger' one. So what do average-status men do when we find ourselves dealing with overpowering emotions? Well, unless we hit the jackpot with an extraordinary woman, we will have to find someone else to open up to. Most likely a good word-of-mouth-recommended counsellor or helpline (such as CALM in the UK). And for most of us that also means coming to terms with abandoning the fairytale dream of living with a woman who will understand and love us in all our strength *and* weakness and be someone to truly share our inner emotional lives with. Women can share those aspects of themselves and still be desired. Men I think, alas, very rarely. But with the right regular emotional outlets, perhaps just a call a month with a sympathetic counsellor or volunteer, we can get those feelings out of our heads where they can be more easily understood, and then we can get on with the many other things that make life worthwhile. :-)
+homer blair I'm hesitant to blame the whole of feminism for this. Personally, I'm all for women's liberation. Still, I worry that, during the process, we've completely ignored several uncomfortable truths about society and sexuality, and haven't redistributed gender roles fairly in the aftermath. Owen Jones alludes to this in the video, but I'm guessing he's careful not to rock the boat too much. Many people are so nervous about being called an MRA (or whatever equivalent bogeyman existed before that term), that it's become difficult to talk openly about the realities of being a modern man (even as I type this, I'm wary of someone responding to it with 'Oppressed White Male Alert, LOL', or some other snarky shutdown technique). There's a kind of irony to people who shame men into not talking about their issues, and then claim that it's patriarchy that makes men unable to talk about how they feel. In our polarised political landscape, certain feminists seem to genuinely believe that being a man is an all-you-can-eat buffet of privileges. They have an acute awareness of how many CEOs or politicians are male, but don't see any significance in how many homeless people, unskilled manual workers and violence/combat deaths are male too. And crucially, they don't understand the extreme pressure to avoid the latter group (as well as the lack of safety net for men who fail) partly creates the former group.
+ohgawblimey I wasn't thinking of this as a left vs. right tribal issue. But yeah, it's interesting that social conservatives and social progressives increasingly come out with similar restrictive messages about how people (particularly men) should behave. To be fair to Jones, though he pushed his own agenda a bit, he didn't do what many other commenters have done in pretending to have a preternatural understanding of all male misery. Women may face unrealistic ideals today, but at least those ideals are relatively consistent and easy-to-identify. When I hear female friends of mine complain about some weird chat-up line they heard (or some other supposedly strange male heterosexual behavior), I want to tell them that the guy in question probably has some kind of beaten dog syndrome. All his life, he'll have been bombarded with contradictory messages about women, masculinity and sexual attraction (from schoolteachers, family, friends, TV, porn, etc), and he's probably trying to cut through all the despair, loneliness and chaos with some sleazy line that his friend successfully used as an ice-breaker once.
Great piece Owen - a very close friend killed himself over 10 years ago. The ripples from his death are still being felt today among his friends and family
+Hayley Gray feminists put men all in one box. You should call yourself an egalitarian if you believe in gender equality. Feminism is a gender supremacist hate group.
+Sam Barkley You do understand that feminism just means women fighting for equality right! Of course some feminists out there are militant and some are simply men haters but to portray all feminists as putting all men in one box is a little paradoxical wouldn't you say...
***** So what you mean to say is women can't understand what equality is. See I thought it meant that everyone in society no matter gender, race, religion, ability are treated the same, or as close as possible, is treated the same...
Thank you very much for the video Owen. I am a volunteer for the Samaritans. I am proud of the work that we do as a charity, we have had to fill a need for support that the cuts to mental health has created to people with varying degrees of mental health issues. A big trigger for depression is isolation, people who are disabled either physically or mentally often have a lot of trouble socialising and speaking to people, causing a lot of loneliness and isolation. In young men it can be a silent killer, they might not appear lonely or isolated, they have lots of mates and go out but they have no one to really to talk to. In a lot of cases what most people need in their dark times is just someone to listen, an ear and a comforting voice to let them get out the thoughts and feelings and fears that bubble inside their head. You have it in your video but just in case any one has missed it the new free call number for Samaritans is 116 123, for emotional support during any difficult time, call.
+homer blair Well this video speaks about people who die by suicide as a result if depression. And my point (as well as CALM's) was that people who die as a result of suicide due to depression do not commit with it. It's archaic use as good (terrible to be precise!) as calling people with Down's syndrome as Mongoloid idiots which is nothing but insensitive and you are making yourself sound super thick. Simple!
+homer blair You just are getting repetitive here. No one is pandering to anyone. These are based on hard facts. People who are suffering from depression are not depressed by choice but by multitude of factors that lead them to this state just like any other disease (congenital, auto-immune or a cancer). Lot of people don't even realise that they have depression until it hits a saturation point. Unless you diagnose and handle it head-on its never going to go away. Your 'man-up', 'take responsibility' agenda is like asking a person with a blood cancer (with zero bad habits, following a good lifestyle) to take responsibility for what they've got. Its just going to mask more people from coming out to seek help and stigmatize them further. Human body is not pre-programmed like a robot and how your body takes a life-event (e.g) losing a parent, getting fired from work etc varies from how another person does. Its just like how some people smoke and still don't get a lung cancer for life while some don't even smoke and but still get it. Its very narrow and insensitive to ask someone to man-up and tag them as being weak when you don't even fully understand what it took them to reach a situation like that. Do you have a hard facts to support that de-stigmatizing depression and suicide has made it worse? Since time immemorial depressed suicidal people have been stigmatized and till date the rates are only going up. So according to your theory it should have declined rapidly by now? Please get out of your ignorance mate!
+homer blair CBT is the only therapeutic intervention that can be quantitively measured which is why it wins the 'most effective' plaudits. My experience (and many others) is that it is highly limited, symptom reduction. Talking like you can just click your fingers and get help is so misguided.
+homer blair Don't mean to be exclusionary, but you've never been affected by depression, have you? It comes through in what you're saying. I would agree with you that we should keep the terminology of "committing" suicide, even if it saved a single life. Trouble is - it doesn't. The last thing most suicidal people tend to think about in those crucial moments are the relevant notions of responsibility. I would bet that no one has ever thought anything along the lines of "oh, I was going to slit my throat in order to kill myself, but that's called 'committing suicide'... I don't want to be responsible for that, guess I'll put the knife down now". I don't think that changing this language is going to help that much, and I don't think you should try and censor yourself: if your chosen words are to "commit suicide", that's find, it doesn't really do that much harm. It's just that by varying the language we tend to think of these things in different ways, which helps us to understand them. So by saying "die by suicide" instead of "committing suicide", more of an emphasis is put on the reality that you will actually *die* (and this can easily be forgotten: in terms of depression suicide is pretty much an escape from the pain, David Foster Wallace, in some quote, compares suicide to jumping out of a burning building by reflex). If anything, surely that's more likely to save someone's life than using the cold language of "committing"? Let me know what you think of what I've said. This is an extremely complex issue and as such, people are misunderstood all the time. It's hard to get people to understand what depression is actually like, so very often in truing to get people to understand, silly suggestions may be made - but again, since it's so complex, very sensible suggestions may be made, but they can appear very silly because they're a bit counter-intuitive (I think this is an example of the latter). We'd do a lot better if we actually tried to understand other points of view and taking them on rather than just assuming people are saying what they're saying just for attention or whatever. tl;dr: nobody's trying to police the language (or trying to please anyone), it's just that using different ways to express situations helps people understand them better.
I am suffering from depression right now. Just getting through the day is a huge challenge. The problem I find is while talking about it you feel others are looking at you thinking " he is just looking for sympathy." When that is the last thing you want. All I want to do is go to bed and hide away from the outside world and yes to die is the easy way out. Getting up for work is so difficult but I know if I don't work I don't eat. Then as winter is coming the choice of staying warm or eating also by xmas day I have got to be out of my flat due to a new landlord wanting to re vamp it. So I have to look for a new place but I can't afford anywhere due to my low wages. Time still ticks on and xmas gets closer and being homeless becomes an almost inevitable prospect. Hence the depression gets worse and suicide seems the easy way out. Thank you Owen for bringing this subject up, it deserves more time than it gets.
Thank you for this. Definitely needs the recognition that it's mainly men who kill themselves and that's in part thanks to a stupid and toxic idea of what it is to be a man. I've been struggling a lot myself recently, so I'll definitely be checking out the website after this. Keep fighting the good fight, Owen. :)
+Toast4001 No thats irrelevant - feminism again has nothing to do with what Owen Jones is discussing. What is toxic is reactionary ignorance against equality the solution to this is to go and receive an education. I mean how do you know men in society has been masculine for 'thousands of years' was you alive then? The modern society should do away with gender stereotypes.
I think it's important that we discuss here just why this person suffered depression and why he attempted suicide. I don't believe "man up" culture, whatever that means, is responsible for this man's problems. I, and many males who have attempted to identify the problems in our society, feel that the very opposite is why men are committing suicide now more than ever. Lack of control in relationships, lack of control in our own lives and in society, is what I believe is leading to this epidemic. Feminism isn't the same feminism it was 20 or 50 years ago. Today, it is an institution in our society that seeks to take rights away from men. It IS man hating. This has had a serious effect on society and to deny it is ignorance. Redefining marriage, redefining relationships, redefining our identity. This has caused damage that needs to be reversed, or else the problems will get worse.
+Mercian Identitarian Feminism has ment that Women to some degree have multiple paths of life the can choose. Men have a much narrower choice of paths. I worry more for my son than my daughter.
+Mercian Identitarian Feminism has ment that Women to some degree have multiple paths of life the can choose. Men have a much narrower choice of paths. I worry more for my son than my daughter.
gmonkey808 Women who CAN compete in male environments should be allowed to take that path. However, we shouldn't be mandating quotas, or trying to force people to believe men and women are the same. We are different, and 3rd wave feminists need to be told.
19 year old student going through a similar thing Owen. Received my first council session and going to begin medication soon. Interesting to hear exactly how you feel and struggle to communicate to others through someone else's mouth.
I couldn't watch this yesterday as I'd found out that a childhood friend had recently died from suicide. He had long term mental health problems. This is a very important topic. thank you Owen .
This was amazing. Such an important message, yet mostly ignored. But you'll have to excuse me, I have to go call a friend. I think I've undervalued how much I could help him before now.
Young boys are falling behind in school, in college, in University. Universities are normally have an admission ratio of about 60:40 girls to boy. I also saw study recently that suggest women were 2 times more like to get a job in engineering than a man which means on an individual basis men are having to work twice as hard to get into the jobs they aspire to. Male homelessness outnumbers female homelessness 6 to 1. Perhaps we need to start looking towards these things, realise the effects of the women's rights movements have been felt and perhaps apply some similar policies for men. Women's health funding tends to get greater priority than men's but on average men die 2 years younger than women, causes may vary obviously, but surely if the genders were swapped there would be a lot more serious government enquiry. This notion that the suicide rate it is so high because "men can't speak about their emotions so easily" is ignoring the root of the thing making them want to commit suicide in the first place. For all the good feminism has done it has failed to address the generational gap and how that influences the genders. There was a report out the other week that actually suggested for women under 30 the gender earnings gap had shifted towards favouring women. Older men reap the benefits of a previously misogynistic generation; young boys have been raised in the opposite and that fact cannot be ignored. The studies and reports need to become more diverse with age specifics, we need to find the specific contributing factors and tackle them.
wildthingsable 10 so let's just forget about men's needs altogether to keep improving society (for women) is that what your saying no human lives matter the strong must help the weak in developed countries men are behind women at pretty much everything it's all been made in women's favor all along men have defeated our natural predators so now in the safety of our new technological world it favors women because of their mental development women need to have more compassion & empathy towards the weak of which is now men they need to take the good with the bad with wanting equal rights suffer with us men as well as exceed or are you too "weak" for that if reduction of society is need to help men to better survive this environment that we are clearly at a natural disadvantage in then isn't it the right thing to do to help us better survive it or are the suffering & self inflicted death of men worth it if so why ? men are your other half we're in this world together as a species if we both work together to brave the future. how much pride could we have in a society that's built on the degradation & suppressants of one gender to overly enhance the other ? women themselves should know the answer to that question since men have put them through the same thing but slightly worse in the past & that held us back as a society & the same thing is happening now I've heard some women are being put into higher jobs whether they are qualified for it or not so their performance brings some companies to the ground & one woman was put in charge as a manager for a mining team & a man died on her watch because of lack of educated requirements. bottom line men have a lot more to offer if women would only help us by improving our environment & gender friendly society & give us confidence in our abilities for both genders to work together as a team for our future together that's how we can truly improve our society at an accelerating rate not gender biasism "Welfare Before Glory"
Robert Roberts your argument if you can call it that, is so inadequate as you have made a bunch of sweeping statements and not supported it with evidence. If you get so emotional about hearing that women outperform men in education explain what your feelings are on the vast majority of governments including the British being male dominated, or how the majority of business CEOs are men or how men on average earn 15% more than women. That's what you call inequality and if you want both genders to work together for the future as you say you do then stop arguing against people who want progression and equality. If you believe that men dominate society due to natural circumstances as opposed to women being denied the same opportunity then I'd love to see the scientific evidence that supports your argument. By the way you also made another mistake you assumed I was a woman, it's strange how men seem to become aggressive when a woman makes an opinion against patriachy. Think again, I opposed feminism until I educated myself.
The biggest problem with mental health support for men is not the availability of support, but the quality of support. I have ADHD so I have plenty of experience of the mental health support system in the UK in all painful glory. The main problem is that all psychiatrists are interested in doing is pumping you full of drugs, which is merely treating the symptoms rather than addressing the cause. It is an extremely one-dimensional approach with very limited effectiveness, and can, in many cases, make matters much worse. It does astound me in the modern age of the internet how few people with mental health problems do their own research and instead, put their lives entirely in the hands of medical professionals, who by their own admittance do not have a clue what causes the problems they are treating. There is a wealth of alternative information about how to treat mental health conditions and there are many alternative doctors who are having great results using nutrition rather than drugs. Unfortunately, people are so closed minded to anything that doesn't come out of a doctors mouth because doctors are very good at making people believe they have been ordained by god to do what they do, when in truth, they are nothing more than government sanctioned drug dealers. When I told my cocaine-addicted psychiatrist that I wasn't going to take the cocaine analogue he wanted to give me and instead do my own research, he looked like he was going to cry. Another big problem with some mental health patients is that whilst they may claim they want to get better, on a deeper level they are addicted to the victim mentality their condition affords them. I have a friend who committed suicide through depression 2 years ago who claimed he was desperate for help, which I offered him on many occasions, yet every single time I tried to explain to him that eating shit, taking no exercise and sleeping during the day whilst staying up all night for cocaine fuelled sex parties probably wasn't helping his situation, I was greeted with the usual "la la la, I'm not listening" cracked record, promptly followed by the equally usual "poor me I'm so victimised" b-side. As sorry as I am to say it, when he finally killed himself, I was actually quite relieved, because he was clearly beyond any ability to be helped and all he was interested in doing was dragging everyone else down to his level. I personally think that the solution to improving mental health in this country is not providing more support which in most cases is extremely substandard, but rather by encouraging people to take responsibility for their own health and understand that there is a wealth of information out there beyond the scope of traditional psychiatry that could be of benefit. The support for those with mental health issues in this country is a joke, but if you use that to understand that the only person who can change your life is you, then that can actually be quite empowering. I don't complain about my ADHD, even though it can be an extremely uncomfortable condition to live with sometimes and I do have some really dark moments, but rather than complain about it, I just accept it and keep trying new things until I find a solution. I am doing loads of research into treating it with nutrition and other therapies and am starting to love certain aspects of it. It gives me razor sharp wit and intelligence and a gob the size of Katie Hopkins which has made me the hero of the hour many a time when something needed to be said that everyone else was thinking, but no one had the balls to say.
Great video Owen. This is an issue that needs far more attention. If it were the same rates for violent homicide or a disease, it would have a far higher profile.
Well for a start it would help if male students were able to establish their own men's support groups at University without having them blocked by Student Unions on the grounds that they are too 'dangerous' (as was the case at Staffordshire University) or ‘too similar to those of [the feminist society]’ (as what happened at the University of Durham).
Your program is exactly the way to broaden people's understanding of the various aspects of what a modern male. I really like the response to the comment about suicide being thought of as a "selfish" act. That perspective is taken only from a person who is in a better state of being or from an outside person looking at the symptom. Thankfully, your program goes against the grain of that thinking and considers what the person who attempts suicide is thinking which in Jake's case is quite the opposite. Only when one sits and listens to that point of view can understanding begin to fruition and thus real solutions can arise. Thanks and please more programs like this one...
I just got back from Hendon police training academy helping officers in their training to become negotiators (the ones who are on call and go out to those who are suicidal). A lot of this stuff came up (I myself suffer from Bipolar Disorder). All of them said it was extremely eye opening, that it was a day that would stay with them and has informed them on how to approach those in distress (and those with mental health issues in general) in ways they never considered. You should come down Croydon way and I'll give you a tour of the charities who have helped me and many others in exactly this regard and talk about the work that still needs to be done on the ground level. This is a topic you should definitely do again.
I have had my battles with depression and one of the most helpful books I have come across is from Andrew Solomon's "The Noonday Demon". I find it useful to give those, without personal insight into the illness, a short description of how it felt for me. When I feel the 'Black Dog' might have my scent again, I bring to mind a part in the book where, having suffered repeated bouts throughout his life, he is laid low yet again and a good friend is sitting by his bed. His friend says something like: "There is one thing you need to keep remembering, no matter how bad you feel right now: You will feel better again. You've been down this road already and it WILL go away again like it always has before. It doesn't last forever." I find that, even if I can conjour no other positive thought, this has kept me on my feet. (*possible trigger alert for next paragraph*) I don't have the book to hand but, as I recall, he notes that depression is sometimes described by others as viewing life through dark lenses. However, the sufferer would say that, on the contrary, they feel that they have actually had the rose-tinted spectacles slapped from their face and are now seeing life in all its true, futile ugliness. This is why all the "Pull yourself together!", "Quit moping!" and "Cheer up!" comments are counter-productive and insensitive.
Doctors, prescription (which I was told to renew on christmas day, instead I just dropped it), waiting list for counselling about sums it up. Waited 3 months for counselling, second session "you've got a job now, you'll be fine" - apparently two half hour sessions was all it took to determine that two years of unemployment caused depression rather than depression caused two years of unemployment.
Excellent, I have a lot of respect for Jake who has become a friend over the past couple of years. I hope everyone who watches this shares it via social media to help encourage people who are may be suffering to open up and seek help. I campaign through Mental Health Football UK as I know that #footballtherapy changes and saves lives, it certainly saved my own. Well done Jake Mills, you continue to be an inspiration to me and I will continue to campaign until mental health is spoken as openly about as physical health is. @soccer_4_all @Colin_Dolan The more we can get talking about mental health the more we tackle the stigma that surrounds mental health illness.
Great video Owen, well done to both of you for addressing something that doesn't get nearly the attention it deserves. The world needs more compassion and understanding, and it starts with dialogues like this. Keep up the good work, and next time you're in Liverpool bring your wrinkly shirts and give us a shout, I know someone that'll do your ironing for a tenner an hour.
I don't always agree with you Owen with regards economic policy but you make great content that's very varied in its scope; great to see different points of view conveyed in a professional manner.
This is an important video and I feel that this kind of stuff should be talked about in school. I know depression is obviously a problem for both genders but I feel that it's harder for men to identify it and know what to do about it. From what Jake's said, Chasing the Stigma is a great cause.
Brilliant video. My life was touched by a stint of illness too. I got the help I needed and was able to make a complete recovery. You can get over this stuff, though it is hard work, it can be done.
The thing is that many of us guys aren't really that worried about emotions, I definitely know that I wasn't until I started to develop some OCD. I suffered a year of health anxiety because of this one day in which I had a health scare. I was pretty loud and open about my paranoia of my health. Then finally it came to an end after my ninth doctor visit, and then that same month I met an old friend and she suffers from anorexia and he complaints about life slowly made me depressed. When I just stopped worrying about my health, I switched over to a month of depression, it was TERRIFYING. My own parents complained about how I was just thinking about myself, and it took me to break down in tears for my mum to realise that shit went real, but not REAL REAL. I felt like life became a trap, because obviously I didn't want to die, but at the same time I was experiencing every day of torture feeling like life is pointless because we will all die anyway. My mind went dark, and everything was just getting boring. Two months later with some good support, I made a 100% recovery. Fucking phew... I am so grateful that this disease is gone. I had to cut contact with that friend of mine, because her pessimism was really weighing me down. As far as I know, she seems to be currently stable, which I'm glad for.
The fact is from my experience is, men don’t open up and talk about their feelings because we’re often laughed at/mocked or even just ignored. It isn’t just about society’s expectations of men or ‘toxic masculinity’ 🙄, it’s also about society not listening or caring about men’s issues. But there are plenty of individuals who do care including myself. You are not alone guys. Never.
Very good video. I see the problem as being modern life with impossible expectations with regards to role models and what it is to be a success in life. We are social animals and yet society is divided by technology, culture, education and life chances. I see so many people with very poor social skills and yet they can text at the rate of knots. People should be encouraged talk and open up more and look out for our neighbours regardless who they are and not because they are old but because it's a good thing to do and we all benefit. Us men need to learn what being a man is really about, telling others how you feel, asking for help doesn't make you less off a man, in fact it makes you more of a man because you are strong and secure which others will recognise x
I've been off work since February and now I'm about to lose my job, still haven't had a proper CBT season yet.... it bloody sucks. I don't have any suicidal thoughts though, too much to live for!
We live in a survivalist world where there is so much pressure to be strong and resilient. I think this has also link with masculine or macho culture. Men tend to have 'warrior complexes' where we hold on or resist our feelings for fear of being weak. If i ever cried as a kid i was told by an elder 'don't be a big girls blouse' so right from the start we are conditioned to restrain, to not allow ourselves to feel. Then it is reinforced by all this macho culture. Men are becoming obsessed with muscles and 'being hard'. Whilst it is a separate issue I'm not saying macho culture is the cause of suicide but I truly believe that it doesn't help.
For me this is due to strive for gender equality without focus on men or whole population as a whole.. Men's roles are changing, long time ago men were expected to protect, work hard for money to support whole family alone, need to be strong mentally and physically.. but now with gender equality, female started to earn more and has greater success in career and the world outside is not as dangerous as it used to be, female no need guys to protect them as much as they used to be, they can make money for them self, but the stigma of men with no good career, weak, poor esp compared to female still around. That is why men generally has higher rate of suicide in developed countries, as they have better gender equality and safer living environment, which make men less useful.. Just my opinion..
boys are stopped from crying where girls aren't. they are humiliated and abandoned for crying -showing their feelings. crying is healing, it is good for your mental health. crying is the outward manifestation of healing from hurt feelings.
Great interview there on something which is really common amongst men. I feel like there needs to be more information on alternatives to anti depressants such as meditation which has now been proved to give the same positive benefits of anti depressants but without having inducing chemicals.
Depression and anxiety have been on the rise for several decades. It's the way we humans are living; the rat race and chasing happiness when humans are not designed to live life in five minutes and constantly seek something that can always be obtained. We have the obsticles of most prominent meanstream media, bombarding us with nothing but 24/7 negativity all the time. Yep, on a planet of 7 odd billion people, a huge number can ride it out yet, they end up as miserable drones. The rest of s fall into depressoin and anxiety. Is that any wonder when there's just a saturation of negativity, an activity hive of judgement being controlled all of the time. Being cntrolled by each other, society, time etc. Our mind are just not designed for what we've got now; this unending programming.
So good to raise awareness. And this is exactly why we ALL need feminism, so that men and women can be equal socially and emotionally too. Everyone should be able to feel comfortable talking about these issues.
+Hannah Taylor You think we need feminism? Feminists are the ones talking about toxic masculinity, male tears and #killallmen. Do you think this helps?
+MightyBl00d I think we need the sort of feminism that allows men and women to act as equals. Emma Watson's HeForShe speech: "If men don’t have to be aggressive in order to be accepted women won’t feel compelled to be submissive. If men don’t have to control, women won’t have to be controlled.Both men and women should feel free to be sensitive. Both men and women should feel free to be strong… It is time that we all perceive gender on a spectrum not as two opposing sets of ideals.If we stop defining each other by what we are not and start defining ourselves by what we are-we can all be freer"
+MightyBl00d Um, no. The campaign that recognised that both genders will benefit greatly from increased equality, (eg men not having to "man up") so we all should work together for that common goal. (And as a side note, since when does only a specific group have to fight for their own liberation, like should we not support each other's struggles?)
Hannah Taylor The campaign is called HeForShe, and it implies that men should solve the issues that women face, which is a gender role. Second wave feminism was about female liberation from men, and now you wan't men to help you? Do you not think there would be a backlash if there was a campaign called SheForHe?
And this is why the economy isn't the only thing that matters in keeping a country "healthy". A nation shouldn't merely be something to compete in the Int'l market, it should act primarily as a service and provider for the well-being of it's citizens. No not complete socialism but something better than most nations have today.
"Do you know, that right now, somewhere around the world some guy is getting ready to kill himself. A million people a year, 28 000 a day. That's one every 30 seconds............................................. .......... There goes another guy. I say guy as men are four times more likely to kill themselves than women. Even though women try it more often. So men are better at it! That's something you girls should be thinking about. Well, if you wanna be truly equal, you have to start taking your lives in more equal numbers". (George Carlin)
I found when the missus was hinting at marriage and buying a house, I work in a well paid job but its alot of hours, one day I realised I enjoyed being at work more and she was depressing, changed her out. Everything become a whole lot less of a problem.
71,000,000 prescriptions for anti-depressants signed in 2018.The reasons? I believe most of us live dull, uninspiring, isolated, lonely, repetitive lives.The vanity within all of us keeps us silent from speaking out.
Not sure why but when you're walking through the train station at the beginning I was struck by the strong impression it must be full of pickled onion space raiders and cans of vimto.
As my son committed suicide He just wanted the insanity to stop. the pain to stop. You see his father betrayed him and the mother of his son took his son from him. It was 10 days since he had seen his son and the day before his birthday you couldn't take it anymore. Let me backup a little . His father had stold him from me after the divorce and so when the mother of his son took his child from him she was going to turn his son against him and that his son would hate him as this is what his father tried to do between my son and I. So the day before he turned 22 he took his precious life. All she had to do is to call me. I left many messages for her to call me so I could have an Honest answer to tell my son in regards to possibly seeing his son. But she didn't and he sank to a low.
I've been open about my mental health problems since my 20s and the stigma 40 years ago was worse than now. If I could do it all over again, I'd lie about it and about many other things too. Without doubt I would now be comfortably off if I had lied but, as it is, I'm as poor as I was 4 decades ago.
A big part of the reason is the lack of support for men. The family court system, for example, is heavily on the side of women. Many fathers who lose access to their kids end up committing suicide. The family court system seriously needs reform to make things more fair for fathers. Concepts of "toxic masculinity" and "male tears", which as we know are based in hate speech, and which are frequently used in the media, even by the Guardian's own Jessica Valenti don't help. These terms degrade and dismiss emotions and outbursts that men make as a result of a system that is not built to support them, based solely on the fact that it is a man that is expressing them. Society has this idea that men have it so much better than women. The evidence shows that this is simply not the case.
One other thing nobody talks about is how many people kill themselves on anti depressants, read the small print on side effects as these things can make you worse !
This was released the day I start my coursework on the marginalization of the mentally ill and I get told my antidepressants have to be increased in strength. How coincidental.
Adam Adams Excuse me? What gives you the right to be so rude to me? How did that benefit anyone? You think that comment will help my depression, but, of course, you couldn't care less about anyone except yourself.
Toughing video. If there was a magic money tree, i don't think any government would not implement suitable help. Thus, it's a great idea to create the website which can give people a local charity/service that they can go to. Effective without any state interference - and thats brilliant.
owen: great content, but please address the comments from this video in your next 'talks...'! cis, hetero white males: stop blaming the acknowledgment of inequalities, their intersections and the fact that something needs to be done about them for the patriarchy (toxic masculinity, look it up), austerity (how many more services will be cut?) and capitalism's wrongdoings.
Guys, let's leave feminism out of this; the rise in reported male depression or suicide MIGHT be a side-effect of third-wave feminism, but it certainly wasn't an intentional one. It's simply a matter of high expectations being placed on us that, because we can't live up to them, we beat ourselves up about it rather than being able to say, "Fuck what lad culture thinks, fuck what the media thinks, fuck what the negative people in your lives think". Of course, that's easier said than done. I don't really have any solutions, since this issue is pretty much like an immovable force against an unstoppable object.
A lot of this resonates. I'm a sufferer too and I have a great family. And I like how he says about feeling numb, and how alcohol made him feel. What I can't get is how he failed to kill himself. If I genuinely wanted to kill myself, I most definitely would not fail. This guy's from Liverpool. Surely a gun isn't hard to get hold of. Not many people survive a bullet in the mouth.
It's interesting to see the negative impacts of gender roles on the safety and well-being of men, but to do so exclusively, without reference to the larger picture of a patriarchal society and mens oppression of women implies a false symmetry.
+Bob Blackadder And this is why people hate feminists. Can you just shut the fuck up while we talk about men killing themselves for 10 minutes Bob? Normal service will be resumed tomorrow when we can redouble our efforts in tackling such horrors as mansplaining, manspreading, unrealistic depictions of women in video games and sexist air conditioning.
Hi this chap might suffer with a cluster b condition called borderline personality dissorder. Lots of negitife thinking rage outbursts and hurting cutting yourself deep depresions. Stressfull situations can trigger a meltdown I realy like jake mills and wish him all the luck in the world
Most of these comments are just people blaming depression in men on feminism Personally I agree also if you think about if feminist were nice to hitler the holocaust wouldn't have happened in fact they're probably the reason the dinosaurs went extinct, I can't think of a particular reason why but probably
Women talk about their feelings, men talk about their problems. That's how it is and always has been. That's how men heal. We have done that forever until therapy became totally feminized. Now it's all about expression and therapists will actually get frustrated if a man wants a path to resolution rather than crying and puking up feelings. Today, men are shamed for talking about their problems. "Women talk about their feelings, men drink!". What do you think were doing when we drink you moron? This guy realized he had value when his family showed up and he FINALLY saw their concern for him. Where in society is the lack of concern for men coming from?
Owen, though I applaud your attempts to raise awareness about suicide amongst males, I cannot support this video. I sympathise with the man that you interviewed, but believe that you conflated depression with suicide. Though many people die by suicide because of issues with their mental health, there are many people, men specifically, that die by suicide precisely because it IS a choice. I ardently believe that suicide CAN be RATIONAL, and that it is suicide amongst this demographic that is the most taboo of those who die by suicide because of an inability for others to understand the complex thinking that underlies their choice. Suicide is not always irrational, which is a point that I believe you have not addressed sufficiently.
I thought about doing it after my ex wife cheated on me. She took our two kids with her, and I was left on my own. It was very tough at first, and I drank a lot. I was also in a pretty low paid job. The only thing that probably kept me going, was the thought of my two kids. After a very long period of feeling for myself, I decided I needed to find something to focus on. A friend suggested I try an OU course, so I did! Now I haven't the time to hardly think about anything else!
It might not work for everyone, but I would say education gives your life more focus, and can make it feel more worthwhile. I think having a goal to work towards is definitely a good thing. Everyone's circumstances are different, but so far, it's working for me.
I'm so sorry you went through that. Keep fighting, you will make it.
+Annissa Thanks for the reply. I see my kids every Saturday, which I look forwards to immensely. The study certainly gave me focus at a difficult time.
+Pablo C Agreed. Everything favours the woman in a divorce where there are children also involved. I was the innocent party, and yet she still got the children, even though my son had expressed his wish to stay with me. The courts don't give a shit about the father in these situations. They just wanted to tie it up as quickly as possible. Even my solicitor was useless, and almost disinterested in my concerns. Because they know it isn't a case worth fighting for. But you are right about divorce being granted too easily. Marriage isn't worth the paper it is written on these days. On a plus note, my children always say it is better coming to daddy's house!
+Flang's Ulular haha, I just had to Google what an 'MRA' was! Well I wouldn't go as far as that, but it's pretty common knowledge that women get custody of the children in a divorce. Then they try to make you feel better by saying it's joint custody! My divorce was five years ago, so I'm not as bitter as I once was! But is a horrible experience. It might sound a bit sad to some people, but even after I knew she had being having an affair, I tried to make the marriage work. I mean, a man can't just walk away can he? Because if he does, he loses his children too. Women can walk out anytime, knowing the courts will side with them. Anyway, that's my ten bobs worth, now I'm off to partake in some manly pursuits like huntin' and fishin'! That's if some bird hasn't nicked my favourite peg! haha
+Luke Belecco I guess thats the best thing you can do in your situation. If you are a good role model for those kids (Which I don't doubt you are) they will grow up wanting to spend as much time as possible with you. When they get old enough to make their own choice I would think they'd want to be with the parent who cared about the happiness of his children and not the one who sacrificed that happiness for a quick shag. What goes around comes back around.
Owen, thank you for making this video. Mental health awareness is a huge part of my life, I even founded a mental health charity, and having been through a lot of negative experiences, it's really important to me that it's addressed on platforms like this. It's really hard to talk about mental health issues, particularly with the whole 'it's invisible so it doesn't exist' mentality.
I had clinical depression last year and after my family finally made me go the doctors what the doctors said to me pushed me further into depression after what they said to me.
From my experience there is no help they just prescribe you anti-depressants and send you on your way.
You are left to battle it on your own.
+homer blair won't see me going back the doctors again if my depression returns after the experience of my last visit snowballed my depression with what they said.
At the end of the day no one gives a #### you can only beat depression on your own and it's a hard battle.
+homer blair well as I've said i won't be going back the doctors for help any time soon if my depression returns as bad as it did.
+adam c It can be very tricky finding someone appropriate to listen properly without judgment, and NHS appointments can take a long time and CBT courses are often very short. If seeing a therapist privately then, like plumbers, best to get a good word-of-mouth recommendation. The other option is helplines: CALM are great, and have a helpline: 0800 58 58 58 and lots of great resources on their website especially for men.
+Dan Aurora Couldn't agree more. In my experience they are worse than useless. And not just for mental health issues, for physical health issues too.
Been to every doctor at my surgery, and if I could find someone who would recommend doctor I would move. But everyone I ask has virtually the same response. They are fuckin' hopeless.
+adam c Oh yes, you wnna hear what the doctor's said to me when I had anxiety. They immidiately proscribed SSRI's. I was told that it'll be fine; 3 weeks and they wo't do a thing. Be patient cos by the fourth week I'd be feeling really good. Ok... well, just so happens I spent six weeks feeling like I was coming down from a very bad excasty trip (no, I've never taken illegal highs). That's what it felt like; drawsy, feeling very low but walking around with an involuntary manic grin on my face, having major panic attacks and feeling completely hopeless. Thank god another doctor I went to prescribed diazapan to get me through this period.
Basically, I was lied to be the first doctor. They don't have any idea and talking theorapies are so underfunded and very hard to get any. i have a friend who's been waiting since April this year for this service. When does he start, Jan next year.
Hope you're finding a way to cope mate cos, that really all we can do.
Media induced expectations + reality ( NO job, NO prospects, NO home, NO wife, NO kids ) = DEPRESSION
+011258stooie it's not like what you said is not valid, but I wanted to make it clear that the roots of depression need not be the ones you mentioned. There is an almost infinite number of possible causes of depression, including but not limited to the ones you mentioned.
+Vikkio92 It's true. Some people can have all those things and be clinically depressed. Plus media expectations only might really apply to the young who might be more influenced by such nonsense. My own personal depression would be due to my divorce, so it is also true that life failures can be significant.
+Luke Belecco you're right it doesn't have to have something to do with the media. Depression arises when you cant mesh your expectations/understanding of the world, with reality. The media is just one of the things in modern culture that distorts peoples understanding of how the world works.
+011258stooie By ignoring the real issues means bonanza for The Pharmocracy by promoting the fiction of Slychiatry. Describing walking whilst ignoring the floor. "You are not socially isolated you have something wrong with your brain. Here is a heavy chemical preparation that will shorten your life, may cause coma, death, blindness, diabetes but you'll be able to function for the economy." Happy-go-lucky lefty maybe knows that he is following an astro turfing agenda creating business for The Pharm as the Corps pays the Piper of Gov (Big hitter Astrazenecca, accounting for 2.4% of UK economy, share price increase up 1000 points since the TIme to Change, Time to Talk, Time to Drug astroturfing campaign relaunched by MIND in 2013. Happy Go Lucky Lefty plays unaware maybe as Jesus Corbyn has appointed Luciana Berger as a Shadowy Minister for Mental Health). 2014 was the biggest increase in prescription requests for psychiatric medication (Anti-Psychotics & SSRIs). How clever we are in our stupidity up against the glare of the trillionaire's viddy screen. Fake issues + not fit for purpose treatments = death (half a million a year globally). After all ONLY 50% of the UK adult pouplation are on prescription snake oil pills. SLY - Believe in Bitter.
+Tom Collins Er yeh, it was a bit hard to follow. Are you suggesting that drugs shouldn't be prescribed, and that therapy of some description works best? Or what?
I seriously can't believe some people in this comments section are blaming the suicide rates of men on feminism.
+MrManCrisps The more likely women are independent, the less 'use' men feel in many ways. Right or wrong, this changing world f...s up old expectations.
+fenackerpan I kind of get what you're saying, but IMO these 'expectations' and ideals of men somehow having less meaning in life, if this is mainstream thought, is totally unrelated. I'd say the motivations for suicide and depression are specific to each individual and we can't find one reason to explain it, other than in today's society it seems mental illnesses are on rise in all demographics and genders of all ages. To say feminism causes Male suicide has as much sense as to say Male suicide causes a rise in Feminism. I'd like to hear responses to this because I know many people see parts of feminism as quite toxic, but I think more focus should be put on the complete lack of support for male suicide in this country.
Personally, I think it's a simplification (though not necessarily a complete untruth) to say that men are killing themselves because of a male stigma around mental health.
For a start, there's a massive discrepancy between the way society deals with boy's emotions, versus the way we deal with grown men's emotions. Over the last three decades or so, we've been encouraging boys to deal with their emotions in a mild-tempered, self-analytical way (much closer to the way we've traditionally socialised girls). Then, as soon as boys hit puberty, they're confronted with a society that still demands they behave in much the opposite way; forceful, confident and useful. We're raising armies of Mark Corrigans, when society-at-large still mostly wants Tony Starks. It shouldn't be a surprise that many young men feel like men-without-a-country when they reach adulthood.
And, whether we like it or not, failure is a much grimmer spectre for men than it is for women. If a man loses his job, his house, his girlfriend, etc., then (in society's eyes) he has no value; he's a loser, he's a bum, he's cannon fodder. He's lost all his status. Meanwhile, women still have the intrinsic value of being wives, mothers, etc (much more beloved and protected roles than their male equivalents), as well as have the residual 'damsel in distress' stuff left over from the old days.
If people have clinical depression (like Jake Mills evidently did), then they should absolutely be free of the stigma of seeking help. But let's not be squeamish and opt for comfortable answers. That stigma is far from the only reason for the over-proportionate male suicide rate.
+neonatalpenguin Spot on. If it was women making up nearly 80% of suicides, we would all know that statistic, all be talking about how this is evidence of an anti-female society, and huge well-resourced government campaigns would be racing to bring the numbers down.
As someone who has worked in male and female mental health for many years, I would only add the over-arching expectation of men that often gets skirted around or completely omitted from discussions like this: Strength. Men are still expected to be physically and emotionally strong, and male weakness is still looked at with disdain or even outright contempt by other men, and most crucially, by women too.
I don't blame women for having that natural inclination toward male strength and dominance in their biology (as I don't blame men for their biological preferences), but neither should we ignore it as a factor, as the Left shamefully often does, seemingly for dogmatic ideological reasons. We happily berate the shallowness of male biological desires and the consequent pressures that puts on women, but we ignore or even outright deny female desire for strong high-status men, and the corresponding pressures this puts on men as a group. Instead, men get still more berated for having "no emotional intelligence" or for their supposedly silly and groundless fears of 'opening up', as if such fear comes from nowhere but irrational, stubborn pride.
Male suicide is rarely talked about on the Left, very probably because it seems to contradict the standard Left narrative that we live in a patriarchal system that privileges all men and oppresses all women. Both 'traditionalist' Right and 'progressive' Left express a similar contempt for male suffering, but in slightly different ways: the Right says: "Man Up!"; the Left says "Check Your Privilege!"
I think there's a real ideological fear in parts of the Left to admit men might actually sometimes have it worse than women in any given area of life. So some will respond to suicide stats with "Oh yes, but lots more women self-harm, so actually women suffer more", or "more women *attempt* suicide but don't succeed, so it's just as big a problem for women." As if they would put up with those comparisons if the genders were reversed and 80% of suicides were female but more men cut their arms, or more women threw themselves off bridges while more men took a dozen paracetamol and then rang A&E to say they'd taken an overdose (an actual example, by the way, of a woman in a service I know whose notes said "attempted suicide").
The task for us all, I think, is to reflect on our own reactions to male 'weakness' and challenge them repeatedly, forcefully and compassionately.
Alas, it's often true. It's the equivalent of a fairly well-off man reaching middle age and leaving his ageing wife for a younger woman. Men find signs of age in women unattractive as it signals decreasing fertility, but as we get older the best of us realise that other things are more important. Women find signs of 'weakness' (such as displays of distress, or loss or money or work) unattractive because it signals a lack of ability to provide and protect, but again, the best of them will realise other things are more important. What percentage of either gender makes up "the best of us" at any one time is open to debate.
Well, we get mixed messages as boys growing up: we're 'feminised' in the sense that natural boisterousness is discouraged in modern schools, and we are taught to be kind and thoughtful and considerate and quiet, especially to girls. But also we're taught from an early age, mostly by women, not to indulge or explore our emotions like girls are permitted to do -- that is "boys don't cry" and "man up" are still attitudes that pervade, as parents and teachers fear creating a 'weak' man, but have hardly any such worries about creating 'weak' girls. Why should they? Women are perfectly allowed to cry and be weak and it doesn't affect their life chances much at all.
That being said, we should not to fall into the trap of thinking that girls have "emotional intelligence" and boys don't (as some feminists claim). Indeed, it's not necessarily true that just because someone cries a lot they must be more emotionally healthy, any more that to say because someone shits a lot they must have healthy bowels. Permission to become emotionally incontinent is not what we should be seeking.
In our society, and many others, when women display weakness, our response individually and collectively is most often to comfort and nurture them and love them no less, because that's going with the grain of the male role to protect. But for a woman to love a man when he's 'weak', that's going against the genetic grain, and it seems to take a remarkable woman to let her compassion and principles over-ride her baser instincts, and to stay with her 'weak' man rather than seek a 'stronger' one.
So what do average-status men do when we find ourselves dealing with overpowering emotions? Well, unless we hit the jackpot with an extraordinary woman, we will have to find someone else to open up to. Most likely a good word-of-mouth-recommended counsellor or helpline (such as CALM in the UK).
And for most of us that also means coming to terms with abandoning the fairytale dream of living with a woman who will understand and love us in all our strength *and* weakness and be someone to truly share our inner emotional lives with. Women can share those aspects of themselves and still be desired. Men I think, alas, very rarely.
But with the right regular emotional outlets, perhaps just a call a month with a sympathetic counsellor or volunteer, we can get those feelings out of our heads where they can be more easily understood, and then we can get on with the many other things that make life worthwhile. :-)
+homer blair I'm hesitant to blame the whole of feminism for this. Personally, I'm all for women's liberation. Still, I worry that, during the process, we've completely ignored several uncomfortable truths about society and sexuality, and haven't redistributed gender roles fairly in the aftermath. Owen Jones alludes to this in the video, but I'm guessing he's careful not to rock the boat too much.
Many people are so nervous about being called an MRA (or whatever equivalent bogeyman existed before that term), that it's become difficult to talk openly about the realities of being a modern man (even as I type this, I'm wary of someone responding to it with 'Oppressed White Male Alert, LOL', or some other snarky shutdown technique). There's a kind of irony to people who shame men into not talking about their issues, and then claim that it's patriarchy that makes men unable to talk about how they feel.
In our polarised political landscape, certain feminists seem to genuinely believe that being a man is an all-you-can-eat buffet of privileges. They have an acute awareness of how many CEOs or politicians are male, but don't see any significance in how many homeless people, unskilled manual workers and violence/combat deaths are male too. And crucially, they don't understand the extreme pressure to avoid the latter group (as well as the lack of safety net for men who fail) partly creates the former group.
+ohgawblimey I wasn't thinking of this as a left vs. right tribal issue. But yeah, it's interesting that social conservatives and social progressives increasingly come out with similar restrictive messages about how people (particularly men) should behave. To be fair to Jones, though he pushed his own agenda a bit, he didn't do what many other commenters have done in pretending to have a preternatural understanding of all male misery.
Women may face unrealistic ideals today, but at least those ideals are relatively consistent and easy-to-identify. When I hear female friends of mine complain about some weird chat-up line they heard (or some other supposedly strange male heterosexual behavior), I want to tell them that the guy in question probably has some kind of beaten dog syndrome. All his life, he'll have been bombarded with contradictory messages about women, masculinity and sexual attraction (from schoolteachers, family, friends, TV, porn, etc), and he's probably trying to cut through all the despair, loneliness and chaos with some sleazy line that his friend successfully used as an ice-breaker once.
Society has become this collection of extreme and contradicting expectations that just drives people to the edge.
AnnoyedDragon bugger expectations, you are more important, then other people’s expectations
Great piece Owen - a very close friend killed himself over 10 years ago. The ripples from his death are still being felt today among his friends and family
Feminists be like "But women get depressed more than men!", as if it's a competition and the winners gets to call themselves oppressed.
+Sam Barkley I'm a feminist and I volunteer for a suicide helpline. Don't put us all in one box.
+Hayley Gray feminists put men all in one box. You should call yourself an egalitarian if you believe in gender equality. Feminism is a gender supremacist hate group.
+Sam Barkley I've never heard that argument put forward by any woman. Ever...
+Sam Barkley You do understand that feminism just means women fighting for equality right! Of course some feminists out there are militant and some are simply men haters but to portray all feminists as putting all men in one box is a little paradoxical wouldn't you say...
***** So what you mean to say is women can't understand what equality is. See I thought it meant that everyone in society no matter gender, race, religion, ability are treated the same, or as close as possible, is treated the same...
Thank you very much for the video Owen. I am a volunteer for the Samaritans. I am proud of the work that we do as a charity, we have had to fill a need for support that the cuts to mental health has created to people with varying degrees of mental health issues.
A big trigger for depression is isolation, people who are disabled either physically or mentally often have a lot of trouble socialising and speaking to people, causing a lot of loneliness and isolation. In young men it can be a silent killer, they might not appear lonely or isolated, they have lots of mates and go out but they have no one to really to talk to. In a lot of cases what most people need in their dark times is just someone to listen, an ear and a comforting voice to let them get out the thoughts and feelings and fears that bubble inside their head.
You have it in your video but just in case any one has missed it the new free call number for Samaritans is 116 123, for emotional support during any difficult time, call.
Great piece, Owen, and well done Jake (as always). Any chance of changing 'commit' suicide to 'die by' suicide. Stigmatised and archaic terminology...
+CALM Thanks for pointing this out - we have made the change now.
+homer blair Well this video speaks about people who die by suicide as a result if depression. And my point (as well as CALM's) was that people who die as a result of suicide due to depression do not commit with it. It's archaic use as good (terrible to be precise!) as calling people with Down's syndrome as Mongoloid idiots which is nothing but insensitive and you are making yourself sound super thick. Simple!
+homer blair You just are getting repetitive here. No one is pandering to anyone. These are based on hard facts. People who are suffering from depression are not depressed by choice but by multitude of factors that lead them to this state just like any other disease (congenital, auto-immune or a cancer). Lot of people don't even realise that they have depression until it hits a saturation point. Unless you diagnose and handle it head-on its never going to go away. Your 'man-up', 'take responsibility' agenda is like asking a person with a blood cancer (with zero bad habits, following a good lifestyle) to take responsibility for what they've got. Its just going to mask more people from coming out to seek help and stigmatize them further. Human body is not pre-programmed like a robot and how your body takes a life-event (e.g) losing a parent, getting fired from work etc varies from how another person does. Its just like how some people smoke and still don't get a lung cancer for life while some don't even smoke and but still get it. Its very narrow and insensitive to ask someone to man-up and tag them as being weak when you don't even fully understand what it took them to reach a situation like that. Do you have a hard facts to support that de-stigmatizing depression and suicide has made it worse? Since time immemorial depressed suicidal people have been stigmatized and till date the rates are only going up. So according to your theory it should have declined rapidly by now? Please get out of your ignorance mate!
+homer blair CBT is the only therapeutic intervention that can be quantitively measured which is why it wins the 'most effective' plaudits. My experience (and many others) is that it is highly limited, symptom reduction.
Talking like you can just click your fingers and get help is so misguided.
+homer blair Don't mean to be exclusionary, but you've never been affected by depression, have you? It comes through in what you're saying.
I would agree with you that we should keep the terminology of "committing" suicide, even if it saved a single life. Trouble is - it doesn't. The last thing most suicidal people tend to think about in those crucial moments are the relevant notions of responsibility. I would bet that no one has ever thought anything along the lines of "oh, I was going to slit my throat in order to kill myself, but that's called 'committing suicide'... I don't want to be responsible for that, guess I'll put the knife down now".
I don't think that changing this language is going to help that much, and I don't think you should try and censor yourself: if your chosen words are to "commit suicide", that's find, it doesn't really do that much harm. It's just that by varying the language we tend to think of these things in different ways, which helps us to understand them. So by saying "die by suicide" instead of "committing suicide", more of an emphasis is put on the reality that you will actually *die* (and this can easily be forgotten: in terms of depression suicide is pretty much an escape from the pain, David Foster Wallace, in some quote, compares suicide to jumping out of a burning building by reflex). If anything, surely that's more likely to save someone's life than using the cold language of "committing"?
Let me know what you think of what I've said. This is an extremely complex issue and as such, people are misunderstood all the time. It's hard to get people to understand what depression is actually like, so very often in truing to get people to understand, silly suggestions may be made - but again, since it's so complex, very sensible suggestions may be made, but they can appear very silly because they're a bit counter-intuitive (I think this is an example of the latter).
We'd do a lot better if we actually tried to understand other points of view and taking them on rather than just assuming people are saying what they're saying just for attention or whatever.
tl;dr: nobody's trying to police the language (or trying to please anyone), it's just that using different ways to express situations helps people understand them better.
Your a brave guy opening up in this way. Good on you.
It's really sad that it takes attempting suicide for people to realise that they are loved. We need to talk about how we feel more.
I am suffering from depression right now. Just getting through the day is a huge challenge. The problem I find is while talking about it you feel others are looking at you thinking " he is just looking for sympathy." When that is the last thing you want. All I want to do is go to bed and hide away from the outside world and yes to die is the easy way out. Getting up for work is so difficult but I know if I don't work I don't eat. Then as winter is coming the choice of staying warm or eating also by xmas day I have got to be out of my flat due to a new landlord wanting to re vamp it. So I have to look for a new place but I can't afford anywhere due to my low wages. Time still ticks on and xmas gets closer and being homeless becomes an almost inevitable prospect. Hence the depression gets worse and suicide seems the easy way out.
Thank you Owen for bringing this subject up, it deserves more time than it gets.
+sweecho00 I have just watched the rest thank you both so much and I shall go on to the chasing the stigma site.
My cousin commited suicide on Friday, he died the same way as his mother so tragic I'm gutted...
Thank you for this. Definitely needs the recognition that it's mainly men who kill themselves and that's in part thanks to a stupid and toxic idea of what it is to be a man. I've been struggling a lot myself recently, so I'll definitely be checking out the website after this.
Keep fighting the good fight, Owen. :)
+Toast4001 No thats irrelevant - feminism again has nothing to do with what Owen Jones is discussing. What is toxic is reactionary ignorance against equality the solution to this is to go and receive an education. I mean how do you know men in society has been masculine for 'thousands of years' was you alive then? The modern society should do away with gender stereotypes.
+Arsenal Good for you my friend onwards and upwards mate.
"Be kind; everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle".
I think it's important that we discuss here just why this person suffered depression and why he attempted suicide. I don't believe "man up" culture, whatever that means, is responsible for this man's problems. I, and many males who have attempted to identify the problems in our society, feel that the very opposite is why men are committing suicide now more than ever. Lack of control in relationships, lack of control in our own lives and in society, is what I believe is leading to this epidemic. Feminism isn't the same feminism it was 20 or 50 years ago. Today, it is an institution in our society that seeks to take rights away from men. It IS man hating. This has had a serious effect on society and to deny it is ignorance. Redefining marriage, redefining relationships, redefining our identity. This has caused damage that needs to be reversed, or else the problems will get worse.
+Mercian Identitarian I agree that societal changes are part of the problem, but so is "man up" culture; I think the two go hand in hand.
Darius1295
How do they go hand in hand?
+Mercian Identitarian Feminism has ment that Women to some degree have multiple paths of life the can choose. Men have a much narrower choice of paths. I worry more for my son than my daughter.
+Mercian Identitarian Feminism has ment that Women to some degree have multiple paths of life the can choose. Men have a much narrower choice of paths. I worry more for my son than my daughter.
gmonkey808
Women who CAN compete in male environments should be allowed to take that path. However, we shouldn't be mandating quotas, or trying to force people to believe men and women are the same. We are different, and 3rd wave feminists need to be told.
19 year old student going through a similar thing Owen. Received my first council session and going to begin medication soon. Interesting to hear exactly how you feel and struggle to communicate to others through someone else's mouth.
I couldn't watch this yesterday as I'd found out that a childhood friend had recently died from suicide. He had long term mental health problems.
This is a very important topic. thank you Owen .
*"if you are feeling suicidal, you have come to the right place..."*
* Rips off his face to reveal that he's Filthy Frank *
This was amazing. Such an important message, yet mostly ignored. But you'll have to excuse me, I have to go call a friend. I think I've undervalued how much I could help him before now.
Young boys are falling behind in school, in college, in University. Universities are normally have an admission ratio of about 60:40 girls to boy. I also saw study recently that suggest women were 2 times more like to get a job in engineering than a man which means on an individual basis men are having to work twice as hard to get into the jobs they aspire to. Male homelessness outnumbers female homelessness 6 to 1. Perhaps we need to start looking towards these things, realise the effects of the women's rights movements have been felt and perhaps apply some similar policies for men. Women's health funding tends to get greater priority than men's but on average men die 2 years younger than women, causes may vary obviously, but surely if the genders were swapped there would be a lot more serious government enquiry.
This notion that the suicide rate it is so high because "men can't speak about their emotions so easily" is ignoring the root of the thing making them want to commit suicide in the first place. For all the good feminism has done it has failed to address the generational gap and how that influences the genders. There was a report out the other week that actually suggested for women under 30 the gender earnings gap had shifted towards favouring women. Older men reap the benefits of a previously misogynistic generation; young boys have been raised in the opposite and that fact cannot be ignored. The studies and reports need to become more diverse with age specifics, we need to find the specific contributing factors and tackle them.
+Wildthingsable 10 They don't have equal opportunity, they have extra opportunity.
wildthingsable 10 so let's just forget about men's needs altogether to keep improving society (for women) is that what your saying no human lives matter the strong must help the weak in developed countries men are behind women at pretty much everything it's all been made in women's favor all along men have defeated our natural predators so now in the safety of our new technological world it favors women because of their mental development women need to have more compassion & empathy towards the weak of which is now men they need to take the good with the bad with wanting equal rights suffer with us men as well as exceed or are you too "weak" for that if reduction of society is need to help men to better survive this environment that we are clearly at a natural disadvantage in then isn't it the right thing to do to help us better survive it or are the suffering & self inflicted death of men worth it if so why ? men are your other half we're in this world together as a species if we both work together to brave the future. how much pride could we have in a society that's built on the degradation & suppressants of one gender to overly enhance the other ? women themselves should know the answer to that question since men have put them through the same thing but slightly worse in the past & that held us back as a society & the same thing is happening now I've heard some women are being put into higher jobs whether they are qualified for it or not so their performance brings some companies to the ground & one woman was put in charge as a manager for a mining team & a man died on her watch because of lack of educated requirements. bottom line men have a lot more to offer if women would only help us by improving our environment & gender friendly society & give us confidence in our abilities for both genders to work together as a team for our future together that's how we can truly improve our society at an accelerating rate not gender biasism "Welfare Before Glory"
Robert Roberts your argument if you can call it that, is so inadequate as you have made a bunch of sweeping statements and not supported it with evidence. If you get so emotional about hearing that women outperform men in education explain what your feelings are on the vast majority of governments including the British being male dominated, or how the majority of business CEOs are men or how men on average earn 15% more than women. That's what you call inequality and if you want both genders to work together for the future as you say you do then stop arguing against people who want progression and equality. If you believe that men dominate society due to natural circumstances as opposed to women being denied the same opportunity then I'd love to see the scientific evidence that supports your argument. By the way you also made another mistake you assumed I was a woman, it's strange how men seem to become aggressive when a woman makes an opinion against patriachy. Think again, I opposed feminism until I educated myself.
Jeremy Schwarting care to elaborate?
***** where is the evidence to support that?
This is very powerful, alot of what this guy said resonates with me and Im sure many young men similar.
The biggest problem with mental health support for men is not the availability of support, but the quality of support. I have ADHD so I have plenty of experience of the mental health support system in the UK in all painful glory. The main problem is that all psychiatrists are interested in doing is pumping you full of drugs, which is merely treating the symptoms rather than addressing the cause. It is an extremely one-dimensional approach with very limited effectiveness, and can, in many cases, make matters much worse.
It does astound me in the modern age of the internet how few people with mental health problems do their own research and instead, put their lives entirely in the hands of medical professionals, who by their own admittance do not have a clue what causes the problems they are treating. There is a wealth of alternative information about how to treat mental health conditions and there are many alternative doctors who are having great results using nutrition rather than drugs. Unfortunately, people are so closed minded to anything that doesn't come out of a doctors mouth because doctors are very good at making people believe they have been ordained by god to do what they do, when in truth, they are nothing more than government sanctioned drug dealers. When I told my cocaine-addicted psychiatrist that I wasn't going to take the cocaine analogue he wanted to give me and instead do my own research, he looked like he was going to cry.
Another big problem with some mental health patients is that whilst they may claim they want to get better, on a deeper level they are addicted to the victim mentality their condition affords them. I have a friend who committed suicide through depression 2 years ago who claimed he was desperate for help, which I offered him on many occasions, yet every single time I tried to explain to him that eating shit, taking no exercise and sleeping during the day whilst staying up all night for cocaine fuelled sex parties probably wasn't helping his situation, I was greeted with the usual "la la la, I'm not listening" cracked record, promptly followed by the equally usual "poor me I'm so victimised" b-side. As sorry as I am to say it, when he finally killed himself, I was actually quite relieved, because he was clearly beyond any ability to be helped and all he was interested in doing was dragging everyone else down to his level.
I personally think that the solution to improving mental health in this country is not providing more support which in most cases is extremely substandard, but rather by encouraging people to take responsibility for their own health and understand that there is a wealth of information out there beyond the scope of traditional psychiatry that could be of benefit. The support for those with mental health issues in this country is a joke, but if you use that to understand that the only person who can change your life is you, then that can actually be quite empowering. I don't complain about my ADHD, even though it can be an extremely uncomfortable condition to live with sometimes and I do have some really dark moments, but rather than complain about it, I just accept it and keep trying new things until I find a solution. I am doing loads of research into treating it with nutrition and other therapies and am starting to love certain aspects of it. It gives me razor sharp wit and intelligence and a gob the size of Katie Hopkins which has made me the hero of the hour many a time when something needed to be said that everyone else was thinking, but no one had the balls to say.
Great video Owen. This is an issue that needs far more attention. If it were the same rates for violent homicide or a disease, it would have a far higher profile.
Such a brave fellow.
Great video.
Because we are not allowed to express our emotions.
Well for a start it would help if male students were able to establish their own men's support groups at University without having them blocked by Student Unions on the grounds that they are too 'dangerous' (as was the case at Staffordshire University) or ‘too similar to those of [the feminist society]’ (as what happened at the University of Durham).
Your program is exactly the way to broaden people's understanding of the various aspects of what a modern male. I really like the response to the comment about suicide being thought of as a "selfish" act. That perspective is taken only from a person who is in a better state of being or from an outside person looking at the symptom. Thankfully, your program goes against the grain of that thinking and considers what the person who attempts suicide is thinking which in Jake's case is quite the opposite. Only when one sits and listens to that point of view can understanding begin to fruition and thus real solutions can arise. Thanks and please more programs like this one...
I just got back from Hendon police training academy helping officers in their training to become negotiators (the ones who are on call and go out to those who are suicidal). A lot of this stuff came up (I myself suffer from Bipolar Disorder). All of them said it was extremely eye opening, that it was a day that would stay with them and has informed them on how to approach those in distress (and those with mental health issues in general) in ways they never considered.
You should come down Croydon way and I'll give you a tour of the charities who have helped me and many others in exactly this regard and talk about the work that still needs to be done on the ground level. This is a topic you should definitely do again.
I have had my battles with depression and one of the most helpful books I have come across is from Andrew Solomon's "The Noonday Demon". I find it useful to give those, without personal insight into the illness, a short description of how it felt for me.
When I feel the 'Black Dog' might have my scent again, I bring to mind a part in the book where, having suffered repeated bouts throughout his life, he is laid low yet again and a good friend is sitting by his bed. His friend says something like:
"There is one thing you need to keep remembering, no matter how bad you feel right now: You will feel better again. You've been down this road already and it WILL go away again like it always has before. It doesn't last forever."
I find that, even if I can conjour no other positive thought, this has kept me on my feet.
(*possible trigger alert for next paragraph*)
I don't have the book to hand but, as I recall, he notes that depression is sometimes described by others as viewing life through dark lenses. However, the sufferer would say that, on the contrary, they feel that they have actually had the rose-tinted spectacles slapped from their face and are now seeing life in all its true, futile ugliness.
This is why all the "Pull yourself together!", "Quit moping!" and "Cheer up!" comments are counter-productive and insensitive.
Doctors, prescription (which I was told to renew on christmas day, instead I just dropped it), waiting list for counselling about sums it up. Waited 3 months for counselling, second session "you've got a job now, you'll be fine" - apparently two half hour sessions was all it took to determine that two years of unemployment caused depression rather than depression caused two years of unemployment.
Excellent, I have a lot of respect for Jake who has become a friend over the past couple of years. I hope everyone who watches this shares it via social media to help encourage people who are may be suffering to open up and seek help. I campaign through Mental Health Football UK as I know that #footballtherapy changes and saves lives, it certainly saved my own. Well done Jake Mills, you continue to be an inspiration to me and I will continue to campaign until mental health is spoken as openly about as physical health is. @soccer_4_all @Colin_Dolan The more we can get talking about mental health the more we tackle the stigma that surrounds mental health illness.
Great video Owen, well done to both of you for addressing something that doesn't get nearly the attention it deserves. The world needs more compassion and understanding, and it starts with dialogues like this. Keep up the good work, and next time you're in Liverpool bring your wrinkly shirts and give us a shout, I know someone that'll do your ironing for a tenner an hour.
I don't always agree with you Owen with regards economic policy but you make great content that's very varied in its scope; great to see different points of view conveyed in a professional manner.
this video made my cry
This is an important video and I feel that this kind of stuff should be talked about in school. I know depression is obviously a problem for both genders but I feel that it's harder for men to identify it and know what to do about it. From what Jake's said, Chasing the Stigma is a great cause.
Brilliant video. My life was touched by a stint of illness too. I got the help I needed and was able to make a complete recovery. You can get over this stuff, though it is hard work, it can be done.
....OK.
A very insightful guy and a worthy video from OJ.
The thing is that many of us guys aren't really that worried about emotions, I definitely know that I wasn't until I started to develop some OCD. I suffered a year of health anxiety because of this one day in which I had a health scare. I was pretty loud and open about my paranoia of my health. Then finally it came to an end after my ninth doctor visit, and then that same month I met an old friend and she suffers from anorexia and he complaints about life slowly made me depressed. When I just stopped worrying about my health, I switched over to a month of depression, it was TERRIFYING. My own parents complained about how I was just thinking about myself, and it took me to break down in tears for my mum to realise that shit went real, but not REAL REAL. I felt like life became a trap, because obviously I didn't want to die, but at the same time I was experiencing every day of torture feeling like life is pointless because we will all die anyway. My mind went dark, and everything was just getting boring. Two months later with some good support, I made a 100% recovery. Fucking phew... I am so grateful that this disease is gone. I had to cut contact with that friend of mine, because her pessimism was really weighing me down. As far as I know, she seems to be currently stable, which I'm glad for.
Nice one Owen, keep up the good work. love your channel.
The fact is from my experience is, men don’t open up and talk about their feelings because we’re often laughed at/mocked or even just ignored. It isn’t just about society’s expectations of men or ‘toxic masculinity’ 🙄, it’s also about society not listening or caring about men’s issues. But there are plenty of individuals who do care including myself. You are not alone guys. Never.
'If', a poem by Rudyard Kipling. I couldn't have said it better myself!
So good to see stuff like this out there. Industrialisation and technology play a big part of this as does the rampant individualism and consumerism.
Yeh im a man with depression and you're right that everyone just says get over it, man up, im being selfish feeling this way etc
Thank you for doing this
Fantastic interview Owen. You best so far.
Very good video. I see the problem as being modern life with impossible expectations with regards to role models and what it is to be a success in life. We are social animals and yet society is divided by technology, culture, education and life chances. I see so many people with very poor social skills and yet they can text at the rate of knots. People should be encouraged talk and open up more and look out for our neighbours regardless who they are and not because they are old but because it's a good thing to do and we all benefit. Us men need to learn what being a man is really about, telling others how you feel, asking for help doesn't make you less off a man, in fact it makes you more of a man because you are strong and secure which others will recognise x
Hope you're fine, Owen, Jake and everyone else. Take care.
I've been off work since February and now I'm about to lose my job, still haven't had a proper CBT season yet.... it bloody sucks. I don't have any suicidal thoughts though, too much to live for!
Very helpful video
Taking yourself out of the situation to save the one's around you, is not an option. The one's left behind is more lost that the suicideale person.
Im much more Centrist than Owen but I do give him credit for helping to draw attention to this important issue.
We live in a survivalist world where there is so much pressure to be strong and resilient. I think this has also link with masculine or macho culture. Men tend to have 'warrior complexes' where we hold on or resist our feelings for fear of being weak. If i ever cried as a kid i was told by an elder 'don't be a big girls blouse' so right from the start we are conditioned to restrain, to not allow ourselves to feel. Then it is reinforced by all this macho culture. Men are becoming obsessed with muscles and 'being hard'. Whilst it is a separate issue I'm not saying macho culture is the cause of suicide but I truly believe that it doesn't help.
Because life in our "society" has been made unbearable for so many. We have to try something different, there is another way.
Great Video Owen !
For me this is due to strive for gender equality without focus on men or whole population as a whole..
Men's roles are changing, long time ago men were expected to protect, work hard for money to support whole family alone, need to be strong mentally and physically.. but now with gender equality, female started to earn more and has greater success in career and the world outside is not as dangerous as it used to be, female no need guys to protect them as much as they used to be, they can make money for them self, but the stigma of men with no good career, weak, poor esp compared to female still around. That is why men generally has higher rate of suicide in developed countries, as they have better gender equality and safer living environment, which make men less useful..
Just my opinion..
boys are stopped from crying where girls aren't. they are humiliated and abandoned for crying -showing their feelings. crying is healing, it is good for your mental health. crying is the outward manifestation of healing from hurt feelings.
Great interview there on something which is really common amongst men. I feel like there needs to be more information on alternatives to anti depressants such as meditation which has now been proved to give the same positive benefits of anti depressants but without having inducing chemicals.
Cheers Owen, and cheers to the guy Jake, I can relate...
Good to expose and open up this tabu..
So lovely to see Owen in love. Body language gives it away. Bless 😘
Depression and anxiety have been on the rise for several decades. It's the way we humans are living; the rat race and chasing happiness when humans are not designed to live life in five minutes and constantly seek something that can always be obtained.
We have the obsticles of most prominent meanstream media, bombarding us with nothing but 24/7 negativity all the time. Yep, on a planet of 7 odd billion people, a huge number can ride it out yet, they end up as miserable drones. The rest of s fall into depressoin and anxiety. Is that any wonder when there's just a saturation of negativity, an activity hive of judgement being controlled all of the time. Being cntrolled by each other, society, time etc. Our mind are just not designed for what we've got now; this unending programming.
So good to raise awareness. And this is exactly why we ALL need feminism, so that men and women can be equal socially and emotionally too. Everyone should be able to feel comfortable talking about these issues.
+Hannah Taylor You think we need feminism? Feminists are the ones talking about toxic masculinity, male tears and #killallmen. Do you think this helps?
+MightyBl00d I think we need the sort of feminism that allows men and women to act as equals. Emma Watson's HeForShe speech:
"If men don’t have to be aggressive in order to be accepted women won’t feel compelled to be submissive. If men don’t have to control, women won’t have to be controlled.Both men and women should feel free to be sensitive. Both men and women should feel free to be strong… It is time that we all perceive gender on a spectrum not as two opposing sets of ideals.If we stop defining each other by what we are not and start defining ourselves by what we are-we can all be freer"
Hannah Taylor HeForShe? The campaign that wanted men to work for the liberation of women?
+MightyBl00d Um, no. The campaign that recognised that both genders will benefit greatly from increased equality, (eg men not having to "man up") so we all should work together for that common goal.
(And as a side note, since when does only a specific group have to fight for their own liberation, like should we not support each other's struggles?)
Hannah Taylor The campaign is called HeForShe, and it implies that men should solve the issues that women face, which is a gender role. Second wave feminism was about female liberation from men, and now you wan't men to help you?
Do you not think there would be a backlash if there was a campaign called SheForHe?
And this is why the economy isn't the only thing that matters in keeping a country "healthy". A nation shouldn't merely be something to compete in the Int'l market, it should act primarily as a service and provider for the well-being of it's citizens. No not complete socialism but something better than most nations have today.
Men just want some love. Unfortunately feminists think that's problematic. We need to look at how evil we are to men. It's abuse.
"Do you know, that right now, somewhere around the world some guy is getting ready to kill himself.
A million people a year, 28 000 a day. That's one every 30 seconds.............................................
.......... There goes another guy. I say guy as men are four times more likely to kill themselves than women.
Even though women try it more often. So men are better at it! That's something you girls should be thinking about.
Well, if you wanna be truly equal, you have to start taking your lives in more equal numbers". (George Carlin)
I found when the missus was hinting at marriage and buying a house, I work in a well paid job but its alot of hours, one day I realised I enjoyed being at work more and she was depressing, changed her out. Everything become a whole lot less of a problem.
71,000,000 prescriptions for anti-depressants signed in 2018.The reasons? I believe most of us live dull, uninspiring, isolated, lonely, repetitive lives.The vanity within all of us keeps us silent from speaking out.
Not sure why but when you're walking through the train station at the beginning I was struck by the strong impression it must be full of pickled onion space raiders and cans of vimto.
As my son committed suicide He just wanted the insanity to stop. the pain to stop. You see his father betrayed him and the mother of his son took his son from him. It was 10 days since he had seen his son and the day before his birthday you couldn't take it anymore. Let me backup a little . His father had stold him from me after the divorce and so when the mother of his son took his child from him she was going to turn his son against him and that his son would hate him as this is what his father tried to do between my son and I. So the day before he turned 22 he took his precious life. All she had to do is to call me. I left many messages for her to call me so I could have an Honest answer to tell my son in regards to possibly seeing his son. But she didn't and he sank to a low.
I've been open about my mental health problems since my 20s and the stigma 40 years ago was worse than now. If I could do it all over again, I'd lie about it and about many other things too. Without doubt I would now be comfortably off if I had lied but, as it is, I'm as poor as I was 4 decades ago.
A big part of the reason is the lack of support for men. The family court system, for example, is heavily on the side of women. Many fathers who lose access to their kids end up committing suicide. The family court system seriously needs reform to make things more fair for fathers.
Concepts of "toxic masculinity" and "male tears", which as we know are based in hate speech, and which are frequently used in the media, even by the Guardian's own Jessica Valenti don't help. These terms degrade and dismiss emotions and outbursts that men make as a result of a system that is not built to support them, based solely on the fact that it is a man that is expressing them.
Society has this idea that men have it so much better than women. The evidence shows that this is simply not the case.
Owen interview Nick Cohen!! It'd be great!!! Lots of things to discuss between 2 great minds!
One other thing nobody talks about is how many people kill themselves on anti depressants, read the small print on side effects as these things can make you worse !
Jake: i was pulling me own hair out
Owen: sinkers
Anytime i tell someone that im depressed they look at me and say life is what you make it... wtf so its my fault lmao
I suppose its simple no one really wants to help when they say this.
respect to that man
This was released the day I start my coursework on the marginalization of the mentally ill and I get told my antidepressants have to be increased in strength. How coincidental.
Adam Adams Excuse me? What gives you the right to be so rude to me? How did that benefit anyone? You think that comment will help my depression, but, of course, you couldn't care less about anyone except yourself.
+Will Gardner Freedom of expression. What gives you the right to not be offended?
Quality Jake and Owen. Great piece, an that's not just because it was in the greatest city on earth!!
Toughing video. If there was a magic money tree, i don't think any government would not implement suitable help. Thus, it's a great idea to create the website which can give people a local charity/service that they can go to. Effective without any state interference - and thats brilliant.
honestly felt like suicide was the only way. i dont want to hurt my family
owen: great content, but please address the comments from this video in your next 'talks...'! cis, hetero white males: stop blaming the acknowledgment of inequalities, their intersections and the fact that something needs to be done about them for the patriarchy (toxic masculinity, look it up), austerity (how many more services will be cut?) and capitalism's wrongdoings.
Where is the unedited Petter Hicthens vidoeo?
fair play to you jake..
The elephant in the room, despite what Elon Musk says, is overpopulation; how is anyone meant to find their place in such an overwhelming world?
Guys, let's leave feminism out of this; the rise in reported male depression or suicide MIGHT be a side-effect of third-wave feminism, but it certainly wasn't an intentional one. It's simply a matter of high expectations being placed on us that, because we can't live up to them, we beat ourselves up about it rather than being able to say, "Fuck what lad culture thinks, fuck what the media thinks, fuck what the negative people in your lives think".
Of course, that's easier said than done. I don't really have any solutions, since this issue is pretty much like an immovable force against an unstoppable object.
A lot of this resonates.
I'm a sufferer too and I have a great family. And I like how he says about feeling numb, and how alcohol made him feel.
What I can't get is how he failed to kill himself.
If I genuinely wanted to kill myself, I most definitely would not fail. This guy's from Liverpool. Surely a gun isn't hard to get hold of. Not many people survive a bullet in the mouth.
Did you ask him why he didnt die? Did he get the dose wrong or the rope snap or what?
important video
It's interesting to see the negative impacts of gender roles on the safety and well-being of men, but to do so exclusively, without reference to the larger picture of a patriarchal society and mens oppression of women implies a false symmetry.
+Bob Blackadder And this is why people hate feminists. Can you just shut the fuck up while we talk about men killing themselves for 10 minutes Bob? Normal service will be resumed tomorrow when we can redouble our efforts in tackling such horrors as mansplaining, manspreading, unrealistic depictions of women in video games and sexist air conditioning.
Hedgehogkin www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2012/leader%E2%80%99s-suicide-brings-attention-men%E2%80%99s-rights-movement
Hi this chap might suffer with a cluster b condition called borderline personality dissorder. Lots of negitife thinking rage outbursts and hurting cutting yourself deep depresions. Stressfull situations can trigger a meltdown I realy like jake mills and wish him all the luck in the world
Most of these comments are just people blaming depression in men on feminism
Personally I agree also if you think about if feminist were nice to hitler the holocaust wouldn't have happened in fact they're probably the reason the dinosaurs went extinct, I can't think of a particular reason why but probably
Paul Mason, Frankie Boyle or the rapper Akala would be interesting interview videos
Jake is a great spokesperson
Women talk about their feelings, men talk about their problems. That's how it is and always has been. That's how men heal. We have done that forever until therapy became totally feminized. Now it's all about expression and therapists will actually get frustrated if a man wants a path to resolution rather than crying and puking up feelings. Today, men are shamed for talking about their problems. "Women talk about their feelings, men drink!". What do you think were doing when we drink you moron?
This guy realized he had value when his family showed up and he FINALLY saw their concern for him. Where in society is the lack of concern for men coming from?
I know Jake and he’s the real deal, join the hub of Hope and pass on the message 👍
Wow, Owen has some seriously knocked knees!
Owen, though I applaud your attempts to raise awareness about suicide amongst males, I cannot support this video. I sympathise with the man that you interviewed, but believe that you conflated depression with suicide. Though many people die by suicide because of issues with their mental health, there are many people, men specifically, that die by suicide precisely because it IS a choice. I ardently believe that suicide CAN be RATIONAL, and that it is suicide amongst this demographic that is the most taboo of those who die by suicide because of an inability for others to understand the complex thinking that underlies their choice. Suicide is not always irrational, which is a point that I believe you have not addressed sufficiently.