Male low esteem

Kell

Speaking to a psychologist friend of mine the other day, she mentioned that she has seen an unprecedented rise in the number of male patients she sees that suffer from low self esteem and lack of confidence.

She also pointed out that male suicide is generally more violent in terms of the method than that of a female, which again suggests to her that the victim doesnt have a very high opinion of himself to kill themselves in such aggressive ways.

What I would like to know, is what opinions posters would cite as being causes for low self esteem and low confidence in Irish males what you think is contributing to the increase in young male suicide.

K-

simu

Many teenage boys in Ireland are homophobic to an obsessive degree. They seem to have a rigid code of what's acceptable or not for a man to do and anyone who sways from this is mocked. Teenage girls just don't care as much about fitting in, in my experience at least.

Moriarty

er. so everyone that commits suicide is secretly gay?

simu

Moriarty wrote:

er. so everyone that commits suicide is secretly gay?

No. But male teenagers in Ireland, whether gay or not, are often unwilling to express themselves and do their own thing for fear of being called gay, pathetic as that may be. It could lead to depression, suicide etc in some cases.

Tusky

simu wrote:

Many teenage boys in Ireland are homophobic to an obsessive degree. They seem to have a rigid code of what's acceptable or not for a man to do and anyone who sways from this is mocked. Teenage girls just don't care as much about fitting in, in my experience at least.

I disagree 100%... not that many male teenagers are as you described but that it is any link to the rise in depression ETC If anything males are becoming much more open in recent years.

Steven

Er, ok, but that has decreased in recent years. It wouldn't account for any kind of rise in the figures.

bizmark

simu wrote:

Many teenage boys in Ireland are homophobic to an obsessive degree. They seem to have a rigid code of what's acceptable or not for a man to do and anyone who sways from this is mocked. Teenage girls just don't care as much about fitting in, in my experience at least.

Jesus Christ what a generalization sounds an awful lot like feminazi bull**** to me tbh maybe we should all strive to be like those fabled perfect opened minded teenage girls the world would be a better place! :rolleyes: .

pwd

men are portrayed as buffoons quite a bit in the media these days, particularly in advertising.
It is acceptable for women to behave in dreadful ways towards men these days and they do just that. Everything is always the man's fault by default.
Men are disempowered and women are irresponsible.

Neuro

Kell wrote:

Speaking to a psychologist friend of mine the other day, she mentioned that she has seen an unprecedented rise in the number of male patients she sees that suffer from low self esteem and lack of confidence.

It's not surprising given how emotionally isolated most men are in society. While most men have friends who they spend alot of time with, they are unable to discuss their problems amongst themselves in they same way that women can. As a result, men have very few people that they can turn to. This is compounded by the fact that men don't ordinarily discuss their problems with others from day to day making it less likely that they'll turn to others for help when a serious crises occurs e.g. clinical depression.

Kell wrote:

She also pointed out that male suicide is generally more violent in terms of the method than that of a female, which again suggests to her that the victim doesnt have a very high opinion of himself to kill themselves in such aggressive ways.

While this is correct the conclusion drawn is somewhat inaccurate.
It's a well known fact that women attempt suicides 2-3 times more often than men. They ususally use less lethal means e.g. drug overdose. This is usually because women tend to be more ambivilent about their death and their attempted suicide may in fact be a cry for help. Men attempt suicide less often but often use much more lethal means e.g. guns, hanging and are therefore more likely to succesfully commit suicide.

impr0v

Personally I think there are a whole plethora of factors causing the pattern that your friend has noticed. I think there are only relatively minor increases in the incidences of low male self esteem and confidence levels, but a major increase in individuals suffering from these afflictions seeking advice and/or treatment for them.

Previous generations of Irish men would barely have acknowledged these conditions as a condition, never mind actively seek advice on how to combat it, being taught from the minute they became able to absorb information, either subliminally or overtly from strong patriarchal figures within the home or society in general, that to seek help is to show a weakness. With the modernisation of Irish society, self analysis is no longer stigmatised, it is largely encouraged, leading to self-diagnosis and a cry for help. Also, given that the society we live in is generally devoid of conflict, the individual tends to look internally for it. Self-analysis is not nearly as much fun as war, but it's a bloodshed free substitute. When the individual does isolate a problem within himself he seeks professional help, believing that his peers are incapable of discussing the problem with him, or being incapable himself of approaching them because of the societal factors above, and referenced by Neuro in the previous post (simu may have been alluding to something along these lines too).

As for the increase in, or already high levels of, these conditions and the related mass-suicide of young Irish males, most of the factors are surely societal. The modern western man is at a crossroads of sort, having come from a history where he had fairly well defined masculine roles within the home, workplace and society as a whole, he has now seen an erosion of his responsibilities and a sea-change in the roles he is supposed to play. His entire vista has changed with the rise of the liberated, empowered, confident woman. He's told it's ok to be house-husband, to have a female boss, to wear mosturiser, to discuss his emotions, whereas the male role models he grew up clearly didn't do these things and many of his peers clearly still subscribe to the old school train of thought on these matters. The end result is that the modern man regularly finds himself in situations where he has difficulty reconciling the guidance he received as a youth with the needs of the situation, frequently having never received any applicable or relevent guidance at all. This can lead to an increasing feeling of lonliness or isolation, a sense of having being cast adrift to face life on his own.

We also live in an increasingly image-driven world, where it is considered de rigueur to judge an individual by their aesthetic appearance. This is, again, something that the Irish male would not traditionally have had to deal with and can have great difficulty doing so now, being from a genetic line not known for its cosmetic beauty and a tradition which venerated the beer gut. Couple these considerations with the changing topography of the Irish dating scene, now populated with more assertive, more affluent, young women and you are inevitably left with some casualties.

The economic situation is also taking a toll. Ostensibly we are the most well off generation of Irish people ever seen, yet the vast majority of that wealth is concentrated among a relatively select group of people, with the remainder trying to keep up appearances of being within that select group. I saw a feature in the Irish Times Weekend supplement about three weeks ago where they interviewed a sample of Irish twenty-somethings (male and female) and one common theme emerged pretty clearly from the conversations: the burning need to achieve. Seeing the wealth around him, wealth which has a lot in common with the emperors new clothes, the Irish male who is having difficulty making ends meet is left with a strong feeling of inadequacy, of being the one person without a house, or the one person that the economic good times missed. This will obviously spark feelings of low self esteem.

There are obviously more factors, some genetic I'd imagine, to explain this phenomenon, but in my mind the above are certainly some of the main influences.

Moriarty

simu wrote:

No. But male teenagers in Ireland, whether gay or not, are often unwilling to express themselves and do their own thing for fear of being called gay, pathetic as that may be. It could lead to depression, suicide etc in some cases.

You're serious?

You are aren't you. Jesus christ.

simu

Moriarty wrote:

You're serious?

You are aren't you. Jesus christ.

Well, most of the boys in my school when I was a teenager were very idiotic and could never be serious about anything. Again, I'm just basing this on people I've met. All the males I've hung out with after that have been 20 or over - they're all grand so I think most grow out of it.

bizmark

simu wrote:

Well, most of the boys in my school when I was a teenager were very idiotic and could never be serious about anything. Again, I'm just basing this on people I've met. All the males I've hung out with after that have been 20 or over - they're all grand so I think most grow out of it.

Well at lest ill know now that if any of my brothers or friends kill themselfs its because there idotic and just didnt take things serious as well as being homophobic a bit like this man if only he took things more serious.

Sleepy

impr0v, after that post I can't really contribute much to this thread other than to say I think you hit the proverbial nail on the head.

The emasculation of the male role in society, combined with a (relatively new) level of conscientiousness of image and the financial gap between the much-publicised economic 'elite' and the rest of us are the main contributors to our shamefully high suicide rates.

The homophobic tendancies of many Irish males have, in my opinion, absolutely nothing to do with rising suicide rates amongst men in this country. I'm not saying that it's easy for gay people to come out (it probably won't be within our lifetimes thanks to the bigotry espoused by many of the world's major belief systems) but it's certainly never been easier in Irish society. If anything I'd wager that suicides related to a fear of one's own sexuality are in decline.

Zulu

pwd wrote:

men are portrayed as buffoons quite a bit in the media these days, particularly in advertising.
It is acceptable for women to behave in dreadful ways towards men these days and they do just that. Everything is always the man's fault by default.
Men are disempowered and women are irresponsible.

This is an interesting point.

I feel the emotional repression Irish men are brought up can't be helping. The concept that you should "act like a man" isn't, I don't think, fully appricated by women. Repressing emotions, particulary for unstable people (seriously depressed/sucidle) can't be helpful. It can't be easy for young men to seek help/it surly must be easier for young women to seek help accounting for this.

Kell

impr0v wrote:

The modern western man is at a crossroads of sort, having come from a history where he had fairly well defined masculine roles within the home, workplace and society as a whole, he has now seen an erosion of his responsibilities and a sea-change in the roles he is supposed to play. His entire vista has changed with the rise of the liberated, empowered, confident woman. He's told it's ok to be house-husband, to have a female boss, to wear mosturiser, to discuss his emotions, whereas the male role models he grew up clearly didn't do these things and many of his peers clearly still subscribe to the old school train of thought on these matters. The end result is that the modern man regularly finds himself in situations where he has difficulty reconciling the guidance he received as a youth with the needs of the situation, frequently having never received any applicable or relevent guidance at all. This can lead to an increasing feeling of lonliness or isolation, a sense of having being cast adrift to face life on his own.

Thats almost precisely my thinking on the topic too. I think that males are awash with a bunch of different messages and roles that were never there for the more traditional male of the past, who was essentially the family provider and pretty much nought else.

I think our own generation grew up with emotionally autistic fathers, are surrounded for the most part by emotionally autistic male friends and therefore a lot of males are, as you say, feeling quite alone and lost without a clue as to what they should or shouldnt be doing.

I dont think women help with the situation either. As has been expressed by a huge number of posters in different forums, you can have at once gentlemanly behaviour requested of you and then be made fun of for it. This I think starts at a very early age and gets worse moving into puberty and later in college with guys having to deal with the empowered femme who will often quite behave extremely poorly towards males. Then theres the point someone made about a lot of young men almost revering women to the point where frustration etc is repressed when it should be out in the open. It seems that we are expected sometimes to display our feminine side a little too often, then in other situations, we are laughed at for it.

As to the point raised about female suicide, the poster missed my point entirely. A failed suicide on the part of the female is, yes, generally a plea for help. What I was referring to was how an actual female suicide tends to be less violent than a males. My therapist friend considered that as male suicide tends to be of a violent nature- hanging, guns etc, that the person has limited respect for themselves that they would consider a violent demise.

K-

BrianD3

It's just my opinion, but I reckon the Celtic Tiger is a factor. The boom in Ireland has resulted in a lot of prosperity and success for a lot of people. However, there will always be some who are left behind. The result is a society of winners and losers.

From reading boards.ie I see many posts from males in their twenties who really hate their jobs. A typical profile for a boards.ie user is a male around 20-30 years old who works in tech support and earns <25 k per annum. The guy looks around and sees guys the same age as him who work in the building industry driving around in BMWs and generally rolling in cash.

Given that males base a lot of their self esteem on their employment, it's not hard to see how this can cause males to feel depressed, downbeat and inferior. Of course it could be said that it's the person's own fault for making a poor career choice by not becoming a builder.

Also it's easy to work out why males place so much value on their job - women have always been attracted to successful males - but in modern western society this is even more apparent. Women's relatively new found status in society means they are more confident, demanding and shallow than ever before and will seek out successful alpha males. It's a jungle out there, there is serious competition between males to try to attract women. inevitably the non-alphas end up losing out.

<edit> having re-read impr0vs post, he seem to making similar points regarding prosperity and the celtic tiger

BrianD3

Sleepy

Just to add to the point about the Celtic Tiger. Another factor there that depresses a lot of males (myself included) is the feeling of being lied to or cheated by the demise of the tiger. When I started college in 1998, we were all sold the idea that once we graduated with computer skills we'd all be hired into great well-paid jobs where our skills would be appreciated. Fast-forward four years to 2002, the bubble has burst (but prices are still rising), and we're all graduating in a pretty barren job market (I would have been in the top quarter of my class and had to send out over a hundred CV's to get a pretty poorly paid job). There's a definite sense that we missed out on the opportunities that those only a couple of years older than us had. That we too should have the nice cars, apartments etc. Then you go out in Dublin, make the mistake of going somewhere like Café En Seine and run into all those that got out in time to make it and some snotty prick (there's always one) will decide to rub your face in it. Sure, you know you're probably a better person than him/her but it still makes you question your own worth to a degree. He/She may be an ignorant cvnt, but he's/she's an ignorant cvnt that has far more in life than you do.

It's a pretty personal observation but I'd very much doubt that I'm unique in this way...

I must say I'd be curious to hear some women's perceptions of this subject.

ixoy

Spot on Sleepy about the jobs market. I did CS in '97 and thought there'd be a nice job market. Fast forward to '01 and you're fighting with others to get a poor job or one where you're over skilled. It certainly demoralised myself for a while and people I knew - the feel that, after four years, this was it. What contributed to that was that, as you were doing college and people found out what you were going to do, they'd say stuff like "Oh you're going to be rolling in it", "you'll be the next Bill Gates", etc.

It sets up expectations that, when you couldn't meet them, could make you feel that you've screwed up or that your life is going awry. I'm currently in the position of trying to move sideways in the industry back into where I tried to get all those years ago. People in similar situations could easily feel they've wasted years of their life, particularly when the media has us believe that all our peers are purchasing multiple houses, whilst shopping in Brown Thomas for €100 bottles of water.

As a matter of interest, on the subject of the Celtic Tiger - does anyone know any of these affluent youngsters whom we're all meant to be? I haven't met them and it is, perhaps, because most of my friends are in the maligned IT industry... Is this image which we here of so often patently false? I know there's alarming reports of debt rising but I don't even known anyone with the means to generate a debt for a housing mortgage...

Zulu

Ixoy - I'm another CS in '97. Finished in '00. My bro did the exact same course but finished on '95. His class are all minted; very secessful.
I did CS because (and almost soley because) of the money I was "gaurenteed". I didn't study what I wanted to because I wasn't confident of getting a job.

Spot on what both of you have said.
It's now 5 years later and I still don't have the mansion or the penthouse suite or the McLauren F1 or the supermodel wife! What gives?

simu

Zulu wrote:

I feel the emotional repression Irish men are brought up can't be helping.

This is what I meant - fitting into a rigid steroetype of being "manly" and not gay is part of this. To rephrase what I said in a more sensitive way :eek:, teenage boys seem to be stuck in an idiotic way of behaving that's not very good for them and that can cause some of them problems. It's not really any of their faults - it's a way of behaving that has been passed on to them but it does lead many of them to act like idiots.

As for this guy, I still don't get why he killed himself. Why didn't he beg for money or steal it or eat food out of bins or do something else to survive? I would do anything to stay alive no matter how bad things got yet other people, like him, seem to be willing to throw it all away becuase things went down hill. Why this difference? Is it just that some people have a greater thirst for life/coping skills than others?

Zulu

simu wrote:

Why this difference? Is it just that some people have a greater thirst for life/coping skills than others?

some people are more susecptable to pressure.
In fairness: traditionally women didn't "need" a sucessful career. (I'm not saying women didn't want/need/aspire/deserve a sucessful career), but it was/is an admirable role to manage a home.
Conversly it is unfortunatly also an unwritten rule, that, as a "man", you must be strong; you must not cry in public. If you want the supermodel wife, you'd better be sucessful.

If your having a teenage crisis, that's not good sh1t to be dealing with.

Fysh

We live in an increasingly competitive capitalist market place. Advertising continues to generate more revenue; an industry founded on the notion of creating a need and then providing a means to satisfy it - in the words of Alan Moore, advertisers "think of new ways to make people feel bad about themselves". The 18-35 year old male is a prime target for certain products, possibly due to all that expendable income we've all got courtesy of our highly paid tech support jobs (hah! anyway...), and the teenage male is a prime target for pretty much any product that can be sold to us as making us more sexy or attractive.

Between this and the retarded social stereotype that "manly" men don't do a whole bunch of sissy things (like have emotions, cry, or have the occasional lapse of self-confidence), it's hardly surprising that a significant chunk of young men (and don't be fooled into thinking this is an exclusively Irish thing; it's not) find themselves feeling isolated and alone when they have some kind of personal crisis? Surely I can't be the only one who remembers being at school and having friends who, if I had ever been naive enough to be utterly honest about, say, my then-worrying lack of confidence around girls, would have done bugger-all except used it to take the piss, and possibly justification for calling me a bummer or something.

(Although, me not being entirely stupid, this just meant I became friends with girls, where such stupid restrictions on conversations and friendships were less markedly obvious).

Obviously I'm not saying that everyone who commits suicide is secretly gay, nor do I think simu was suggesting this. But I have to admit that I at least recognized quite a few of my classmates from school in her descriptions.

impr0v

A few people (pwd initially) have already mentioned the role-reversal that has occurred in advertising, and to my mind it's easy to under-estimate the effects of this as it's quite an insidious and at times, though it may appear otherwise, subtle message that gets delivered. For examples of the 'dumb man' sales pitch see the following:

--> The TV ad for the Fiat Punto where the sharp female skillfully pilots her new car around different areas of a European city while her dumb lazy boyfriend snoozes in the passenger seat. He doesn't awake when she lowers the window next to a group of road workers working a jackhammer, but instantly wakes with jealousy when she spies another easily led man and gives him the 'I want you' eyes.

-->The TV ad for those flushable bathroom wipes, where poor husband the klutz rummages in the cupboard for the cleaning equipment while smart woman cleans it all in a flash. Chubby husband even hits his head on the cupboard while extracting himself from it, the helpless git.

-->The radio ad for the VW Polo where n-n-nervous N-N-Norman can hardly speak to the confident woman he is giving a lift to, until he's safely inside the car, and then when he does gain some confidence the only thing he can do is ask her out.

The three ads above are just a small sample of the many that are out there, and it's easy to write them off and say that the products are being aimed primarily at women, and that the focus of the ad is the confident, empowered woman, but surely there is a way to market these items to their audience without belittling the other sex? There are very few voices being raised in opposition to the skewed image of males which such ads project, as the argument is easily countered with claims of 'women had to put up with for long enough' and it's true, they did, and still do. However, the short time period within which man has gone from being a debonair chap to which ladies politely come seeking to borrow some Gold Blend, to a chubby balding house husband who's only victory in life is fooling his wife into thinking he had cleaned the bathroom with elbow grease when in fact he just gave it a once over with Flash bathroom spray, has made the transition very noticeable. Are there clearly demonstrable effects of this? Possibly not, but it's certainly not helping the predicament modern men find themselves in.

Yet another aspect of the Celtic Tiger being discussed above is that increasingly men, and women in this case, are beginning to seek job satisfaction. The father of one of my friends laughed out loud when he heard the term, saying that there was no such thing in his day, and for a lot of people there wasn't. Economic situations dictated that you were happy with whatever job you could get, because a hell of a lot of people couldn't get them, and you rarely bothered yourself with thoughts of a career change.

Now however, individuals are realising, frequently after spending a considerable amount of time on a certain career path, that they are getting no real enjoyment out of it, and cannot see themselves doing the job for the rest of their working life. They begin to see themselves as working at jobs that they have little interest in, and making what they consider modest money for. They figure that they would much rather make modest money doing something they like, and struggle to identify that activity. When they do so, the cost of living is such that to leave their job and re-enter education would often involve financial hardship, if it would be all possible, and would leave the individual with sizable debts once they did re-qualify. Having gone through this thought process and then coming to the conclusion that it's not financially feasible to follow that route, the individual is left feeling bitter and trapped within their current career, heightening their sense of dissatisfaction with it.

Sleepy

Sleepy wrote:

The homophobic tendancies of many Irish males have, in my opinion, absolutely nothing to do with rising suicide rates amongst men in this country

I'd agree with you here. I don't think it has anything to do with their sexuality.

Rather we're living in a society that alienates people, males moreso than females. We're encouraged to live our lives separate from others from work to living. The only true contact people have with one another at a younger age is school/college, and pubs/nightclubs. Schools in themselves can be quite awful, with the strong preying on the weaker, which causes those targeted to close up, moving away from interacting in Fear. As for pubs/nightclubs, its generally quite difficult to integrate yourself with other people, unless you've got some decent self-confidence. Guys tend to go out in small groups of two or three. Women tend to have larger groups usually of 4-6 women. As such it can be quite difficult to join a group, which can give you the impression that you're on the outside all the time. Which can lead to you thinking that death might be the better option.

I contemplated suicide from time to time while I was in school, and again when I was in my early twenties. Luckily I met some good buddies.

elivsvonchiaing

[QUOTE:Bill Hicks]"Anyone here in advertising?" [/QUOTE] He goes on to suggest and insist they kill themselves.

I really think advertising in general is psychologically irresponsible - they are targeting a subset of the market - they don't give a fúck if the people who wouldn't buy their product resent their ad or even be triggered into suicide!

Q: So when'sa your Dolmio day ? :eek:

Zulu

Zulu wrote:

I feel the emotional repression Irish men are brought up can't be helping.

simu wrote:

This is what I meant - fitting into a rigid steroetype of being "manly" and not gay is part of this.

There is also the aspect that as men we're expected to be "alpha". Confident, strong, the provider etc. Its a steroetype complex thats applied to the sex at large.

The problem is that we're raised by our mothers, who have a different view on things. Mothers wish their sons to be honest, caring, respectable, gentle etc while they're growing up in their home. At teenager age, mothers want to create a male "suitable" for marriage which means further "patterning" into the gentle, caring, honest etc type of set.

Which of course isn't what young women want. Men are trained for marriage in the home, not for dating, not for fighting for relationships in the real world. Single females don't want a "nice guy" at the start, they want the "alpha" male thats confident, and mostly all the things that men have been told not to be. It's likely that women only want the "nice guy" when they've settled down, or as a friend.

How many times as a young man, have you been interested in a woman, and behaving in the traditional format (honest, caring, gentle etc) you persue this woman. However, she finds that she can only treat you as a friend, because you're not dashing, adventurous, confident, etc. I've been there and it can be quite demoralising.

This in itself can be very confusing. We're told for the start of our lives to be one way, and then find that we need to change to be suitable for the rest. Many men have problems with this and can't adapt. I'm not saying all suicides are as a result of this, but I do believe that a fair percentage (as much as 30-40%) can be traced to this issue. Now for the link fetishers, I'll look for some for you, but most of this can be found in many sexual psychology text books.

Vlad Drac

I'd agree that the media does play a large role in depression. We are bombarded by images of "lifestyles" that in reality rarely exist, through advertising, magazines, television etc. Still even though we know this, it can make our lives seem like they are missing something and can make us question our roles in society. I often find myself asking "Is this how exciting everyone elses life is?" and "What am i doing wrong that my life isn't like this?" even though i'm aware that most of its made up.

Vlad Drac

Also, does anyone else feel that society nowadays is merely concerned with pursuit of self interest. Many people seem to be concerned with themselves too much, and making themselves better of. No one seems to have any time for one another in the fast paced life that we all lead. These can lead to feelings of isolation and encourages people to keep problems bottled up as they feel that nobody cares.

omnicorp

exactly, if you do try to help someone else, you're seen as a do-gooder and are a pushover and need to be ignored so they can go away and stop twanging on their conscience.

eg| Why are all these immigrants getting MY car, my HOUSE, my Women?????
eg| It's their fault their homeless, why should I help him!?

pickarooney

Basic human flaw whereby we need tragedy in our lives to validate them. In times of extended peace, people will find any reason to feel bad, unwanted, kill themselves...
Existential angst still comes in two flavours - anorexia for girls, suicide for boys.

simu

Deleted User wrote:

How many times as a young man, have you been interested in a woman, and behaving in the traditional format (honest, caring, gentle etc) you persue this woman. However, she finds that she can only treat you as a friend, because you're not dashing, adventurous, confident, etc. I've been there and it can be quite demoralising.

It's possible to be honest, caring, gentle AND dashing, adventurous, confident together!

Fewer people believing in hell is also a factor in the increased suicide rate, I'd say.

It's possible to be honest, caring, gentle AND dashing, adventurous, confident together!

Sure its possible. I'm not saying its not.

What I'm saying is that many people are not born & raised with these factors being part of their makeup. Most people have to work on these aspects of their personality. God knows, I've been actively working on my confidence for the three year plus.

impr0v

simu wrote:

Fewer people believing in hell is also a factor in the increased suicide rate, I'd say.

You think that the fact that suicide was considered a sin actually stopped significant numbers of people from carrying it out? Personally, I'd be of the opinion that the only influence the catholic church's enlightened standpoint had on the statistics was to suppress the reporting of suicides by god-fearing relatives of the dearly departed, eager to protect their own place in a similarly pious community.

omnicorp

It might have something to do with increasing pressure at work.

Men especially are under pressure to bring in money and provide for a family and are not given leave to take care of newborn babies etc.
They are under pressure to work lonmg hours easily and to be very productive, even to work while sick.
Many people might see this life as boring, hard and with no goals at the end as bills keep stacking up and seeing many people on "TV" getting very succesful.

Zulu

simu wrote:

It's possible to be honest, caring, gentle AND dashing, adventurous, confident together!

It's also possiable to be thin, fit, sociable, polite, a good mother, a great cook, a good cleaner, and a whore in the sack - while keeping your virginity for your future husband <sic>

simu wrote:

Fewer people believing in hell is also a factor in the increased suicide rate, I'd say.

No it's not, I'd say. In fact - I'd say that has very little/nothing to do with it what-so-ever.

elivsvonchiaing

simu wrote:

It's possible to be honest, caring, gentle AND dashing, adventurous, confident together!

Fewer people believing in hell is also a factor in the increased suicide rate, I'd say.

I'd believe this to be true. I'm not knocking religion here. Just kicking 7 kinds of sh!te out of it in Ireland!

Anthropologists believe we became monogomous 20,000 years ago ( tv program too lazy to search for link!) Religion has been around for 12,000 years - prove me wrong ok!

We are nurtured by our parents - and are sent to school - we look sideways at a teacher - or a quasi-psychopath teacher who relishes the swing, the smell of, the glorious impact of the leather on the hand. We feel crucified - we realise there's a hell. We are born after 1990. We realise our parents have no control over us - the parental lock works :rolleyes: . They have threatened to lock me in my room - and haven't done so. I don't know it yet but when I have to work in the real world I'm going to hang myself!

I'm not one for slapping kids - but I reckon there are too many parents who want to wrap up their kids - safe from reality - only to have it crash in - in later life!

simu

Back to hell - people really used to believe in this in the old and not so old days - see the sermon bit in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, for an idea of the kind of things young men were taught about the sufferings they would face in hell. Nowadays, the Catholic Church seems to have abandoned the idea or at least, they put far less emphasis on it.

It's a lot easier to commit suicide if you believe that nothingness rather than endless, unimaginable suffering is what awaits you.

It's also possiable to be thin, fit, sociable, polite, a good mother, a great cook, a good cleaner, and a whore in the sack - while keeping your virginity for your future husband <sic>

Well, yes, it is if you adopt the kids.

Sangre

Jesus H. Christ, those men probably killed themselves because they were surrounded by the biggest bunch of whingers EVER. My God, just suck it up and get on with, you're lucky to be alive. You call yourself men...ffs.

omnicorp

The world tries to bubble wrap kids from the real world and when they get into it, they are surprised with the stress and hard work. It's no wonder Students are faced with so much debt with all the money they waste and then come crippling debt, there's no light at the end of the tunnel or so it would seem.

elivsvonchiaing

omnicorp wrote:

The world tries to bubble wrap kids from the real world and when they get into it, they are surprised with the stress and hard work. It's no wonder Students are faced with so much debt with all the money they waste and then come crippling debt, there's no light at the end of the tunnel or so it would seem.

Agree debt is depressing - I'm up to my gills in it right now! Still don't think anyone tops themselves 'coz they are bankrupt - are facing gaol 'coz of debt - think its more like parents shield the kids from reality and when that comes crashing -in....

Don't think it is as simple as that though - parents have ideas, values they want to impart to their kids, kids watch TV get other values from friends - parents are oblivious to external influences - persist with conflicting messages - hence a maelstrom of unresolved emotion. Kids develop an acceptable world view and when they test it - (having assimilated both parents dogma - friends ideas and what's on telly - it all then appears to be completely false)-> suicide.

I only know three people who attempted it - and no-one who achieved it. I'm not sure that gives me a right to post here - but suicide will never be totally prevented - with naive do-gooderness it would probably be accelerated - with real eductation it could be reduced! Imho!

omnicorp

our education systemsseem to focus on passing tests and our society seems geared to making more money for me, me, me... People seem to have no time to deal with these problems other than just giving them drugs to "help"

Sleepy

On the debt thing. Again, I think this comes down to the unrealistic picture that's painted of the working world to students at both secondary and third level in Ireland. Whilst in college I took out a number of student loans with the idea that "with the massive salary I'll be earning in two years, I'll barely notice the monthly repayment".

Many of us get into debt because we don't have realistic expectations for the future, we still expect to be earning the dot.com salaries that those not even a generation older than us were earning. In my first week of college I was told that I could expect a starting salary of £30,000 a year (Irish punts, not euro) if I graduated with a 2:1. With inflation I initially expected this to be even higher. By final year (and two bank loans later), it became obvious that this wasn't going to be the case. A post-grad later, I started full time employment at a little over half the salary I'd been told to expect. Now I'm not complaining about being underpaid (even though I am), the building up of expectations that the college sold me and the rest of my year was nothing more than marketing spin. We were their customers and they wanted us to think we were getting value for money (or tell us what we wanted to hear). Thing is, a first year student who's probably just turned 18 doesn't realise this and tends to take a representative of their college at his/her word.

So, any student's reading this, don't believe the figures you hear in college. If you can get a starting salary above 22K a year, you're doing well. Sure, you'll hear of higher paid graduate recruitment programs etc but the ones you hear of are the exceptions, not the norm.

The Corinthian

One thing to note is that there’s not really the same level of support mechanism for men as there is for women in modern Society. There’s a myriad of support groups specifically catering to women and very few to men. This is due to a combination of feminist self-empowerment of women and men’s macho need to be self-reliant - and speaking of the latter:

Sangre wrote:

Jesus H. Christ, those men probably killed themselves because they were surrounded by the biggest bunch of whingers EVER. My God, just suck it up and get on with, you're lucky to be alive. You call yourself men...ffs.

I’d tend to agree with you for the most part. Personally I’ve never suffered any depression or other issue that I couldn’t deal with on my own (generally though the exercise of nothing more than brute willpower), but it would also be foolish to assume that this is sufficient for all men in all circumstances.

The Corinthian

Sleepy wrote:

Many of us get into debt because we don't have realistic expectations for the future, we still expect to be earning the dot.com salaries that those not even a generation older than us were earning.

Unrealistic expectations for the future are an issue, but I think you may be exaggerating them also. Most get into debt because they don’t even do the maths on repayments. Indeed, they never actually think that they may have to repay anything, which is hardly surprising given one can extend a debt and even borrow more for decades as long as you keep up with minimum repayments.

The principle reason people are in debt is that they use it as a source of income rather than capital for an investment (such as a mortgage) - a bridging loan where the other end of the bridge cannot be seen.

omnicorp

yep, we need proper education on debt, loans and finance
PROPER, not a business class or two

Moriarty

What sort of education do you need, exactly? Don't borrow more than you can afford, don't spend more than you earn. It's hardly quantum frikin physics.

Kell

The Corinthian wrote:

Personally I’ve never suffered any depression or other issue that I couldn’t deal with on my own (generally though the exercise of nothing more than brute willpower),

More than likely backed up by a strong support network of colleagues, family etc that share your own belief in yourself. As you mentioned though, not all males have similar circumstances.

K-

The Corinthian

Kell wrote:

More than likely backed up by a strong support network of colleagues, family etc that share your own belief in yourself. As you mentioned though, not all males have similar circumstances.

Any support network of colleagues, family etc didn't really play a major part, TBH. However, as mentioned, there is an element of different strokes for different folks.

Zulu

The Corinthian wrote:

Any support network of colleagues, family etc didn't really play a major part, TBH.

That my well be true - but how would you have faired if they didn't exist? The existance of close relationships can be enough support without ever being exploited.

The Corinthian

Zulu wrote:

That my well be true - but how would you have faired if they didn't exist? The existance of close relationships can be enough support without ever being exploited.

I'm not saying that such support networks are not benificial, only that the need not be a prerequisite to sorting out such issues - they can help, but one can do without if one must. Again with the proviso that this might not apply to all.