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Raising awareness of men’s mental health on the SANE Forums
The month of November is for Movember, and we will be discussing and raising awareness of men’s mental health issues here on the forums.
Movember started in 2003 in Melbourne and has since become an international event and a positive symbol of men’s health. Movember has funded more than 1,250 projects worldwide and include programs that strengthen social connectivity, parenting programs, youth programs, practical tools to support conversations with men and an evidence-based training course to upskill health professionals on treating male clients.
According to the Movember website ‘The world loses a man to suicide every minute of every day’. That’s an alarming statistic and one the Movember foundation is determined to change. We know that by improving overall mental health and social connections of men, we can help improve this statistic.
MensLines Australia tell us that mental health issues amongst men and women are about the same, however in Australia, only 40% of men are accessing mental health services and are more likely to use coping strategies that can impact health and wellbeing such as drugs and alcohol, withdrawal and suicide.
Men’s mental health has come a long way, but we still have a long way to go so let’s celebrate our men and have the conversations we need to have so men can live longer and happier lives.
Movember supports ALL men and recently funded the Stop. Think. Respect campaign aimed to reduce anxiety and depression within LGBTQIA+ communities. We love that! Unfortunately, trans men are exposed to discrimination that negatively impacts their mental health and wellbeing. One study by beyond blue found that trans people experience very high levels of depression and anxiety and members of the LGBTQIA+ community are four times more likely to attempt suicide.
SANE too wants to support ALL men so please know this space does just that, however we will also be having a discussion supporting trans men in an additional thread, so look out for that too.
How will we be marking Movember on the SANE Forums?
This discussion will be open for the month of November, with a new question every Monday. We will be sharing some insights and hopefully learning from our fellow forumites. Peer support is such a key component of looking after men’s mental health, so the more the merrier!
You can get involved by:
- Making a post in response to each question
- Supporting posts made by other members
- Reading along
- Sharing your experiences and resources
Here are some SANE resources to get you started
Challenging stereotypes of masculinity
Talking about men's mental health
Check back in each Monday for a question! If you would like to be tagged when each new question is posted, click the "support" button on this post and we will make sure to notify you.
Open and honest discussions are really important, and we are committed to making this discussion a safe space for all people to share their experiences, thoughts and ideas. To keep this space safe and respect the experiences of our community, we ask that all members refresh their understanding of the community guidelines in advance so that we can make this discussion inclusive and welcoming.
If you have any questions about this month-long discussion, you are welcome to email the forums team at team@saneforums.org
I don't really feel qualified to answer. I'm not a man, and I dk if I'm any good at communicating with male friends and family members. So I'm interested in what everyone has to say about this @Paperdaisy
But since it's Movember, I can't resist a Ted Lasso quote, that includes a Walt Whitman quote:
“Guys underestimated me my entire life. And for years, I never understood why. It used to really bother me. But then one day I was driving my little boy to school and I saw this quote by Walt Whitman and it was painted on the wall there. It said: ‘Be curious, not judgmental.’ And I liked that. So I get back in my car and I’m driving to work, and all of a sudden it hits me. All them fellas that used to belittle me; not a single one of them were curious. They thought they had everything all figured out. So they judged everything, and everyone. And I realized that their underestimating me…who I was had nothing to do with it. Cause if they were curious, they could’ve asked questions."
@Paperdaisy wrote:Communication
Question 1:
Men: What do you find the most difficult about communicating your mental health needs? What has been helpful?
There are really a lot of problems with communication:
1. Confusion. It is at the heart of so much of the communication difficulties, and underpins many of the more specific issues I detail below. I just don't understand what everybody else wants; either from me or the wider world. So I never seem to find that talking with people is ever enlightening, just more confusing. And because I don't get them, I don't know how to explain my point of view to them, because to me, everything I think is plain obvious; so what don't they get, and why don't they get it?
2. Knowing that airing my problems will only lead to being blamed for my problems.
3. Knowing that airing my problems will only lead to being told that:
"those are [my] problems, so [I] just have to sort them out all [myself]." So what's the point in even bringing it up?
4. Knowing that others are only interested in how they can bully/coerce me into doing things that they want me to do, not in actually helping me, and that expressing my needs to only encourages them to dangle false promises/insinuations of having my needs met, as a way of manipulating me.
5. Knowing that others will only use the specifics of my misery to turn me in to a tragic tale that they use to make others feel bad/uncomfortable. There is already too much unpleasantness in the world, and I don't want to be a party to the cultivation of any more of it.
6. Knowing that others are opposed to my aspirations/needs, and want them to remain unfulfilled.
This has been demonstrated in disparaging remarks they've made about their coworkers, students, ect. who either live the sort of lifestyle that I aspire to live, or who have expressed views/ambitions that I can relate to. The people I have to talk to don't want people like me to exist, and they certainly don't want us to florish.
7. The fact that other people seem to considder suicide/death to be an illegitimate option (for reasons I don't understand), which creates a massive rift in between our respective mindsets, and stymies any hope for meaningful communication. e.g. An exchange such as this:
Them: "Well, we mightn't like being stuck with people we can't stand, but we all just have to put up with it."
Me: "Well, we don't have to put up with it, do we? We can die, instead."
Them: *Awkward silent response to an option their afraid to comprehend.*
8. The fact that I considder many people I know to be walking cautionary tales. It makes it really hard to have an earnest conversation with someone when one of the firm guidelines you try to live by is: "at all costs, don't turn out like this guy"; because you just know that at some point, your gonna have to explain why you refuse to go down a path that they considder to be perfectly reasonable, and you know that nothing good is gonna come from telling them that you desparately want to avoid ending up like them.
What has been helpful?
Ultimately, nothing.
When I first went in to therapy, doctor-patient privelage made it immensely easier to talk freely, because I knew that nothing I said to my therapist could be weaponized and spread around the community of people who knew me to darken my image.
This was unlike other attempts I'd made to reach out for help to "trusted friends"
, in which my miseries were spread around, and made everything much more unpleasant.
Likewise, the knowledge that "therapists are there to help", made me so eager to talk openly with a therapist; because with "friends" and family, I'd always encountered a response of: "Screw you! That's your problem! You sort it out! I'm not helping you with that!" But I "knew" that a therapist would never disappoint me like that, because they were duty-bound, and well paid to give me the help I was actually pleading for.
However, in both regards, all that trust was misplaced.
Although my therapist never broke my doctor-patient privelage, she used the intimate knowledge I'd given her to manipulate and abuse me. And as for her "official duty" to give me the help that she was being so well paid for? Well, as I later found out, there's this little thing called "the golden rule of therapy", which is an official industry-wide rule to not give patients any real help or meaningful advice with their real-world problems.
Which meant that all that talk was for nothing.
Thanks @Anastasia Can definitely relate to that! Particularly with my Dad, he was very stoic and always said he was "fine" even when he wasn't. Very frustrating for the people around him, particularly when he was leaving this world. 
@chibam I'm sorry, it sounds like this has been a difficult journey for you. Thank you for sharing and being so honest with us here
