Now I'm depressed!

Blitzkrieger

There was an interesting series of articles in this months Magill magazine about male suicide, which has become a huge problem. In a summary that doesn't do the articles justice - they state that the problem is not one of mental illness, but a socialogical problem. As you may or may not know, male suicide rates are alarmingly high and the ratio of male to female suicides is approaching 10:1. We know the cause is not genetic, as the suicide rate of females from the same gene pool is much lower. We also know the problem is not one of mental illness, as these men are clearly thinking rationally when they end their lives. It is a problem that society seems unable and unwilling to tackle.

From an ariticle by Phil MacGiolla Bhain, Magill magazine Nov. 2000

I believe it is because this social phenomenon is happening outside the main social policy paradigm in this State. That paradigm is a feminist one.
All current Irish social policy is based on the template of feminism. In the 1970s, women's groups, in angry opposition to the then status quo, constructed their paradigm, and today, akthough themselves being long ensconced in power, they continue to behave as a beleaguered oppposition fighting for themselves only.
It's no coincidence that the Health Boards were set up in 1970. The generations of unpaid religious who had provided the State with a rudimentary social service were at the end of their working life and it was clear that they would not be replaced in similar numbers from the seminaries and the convents. In the early decades of the Irish State the impoverished Dublin regime had happily relied on the free labour of the Catholic Church to provide the social infrastrucure underpinning Irish family life. It was an Irish solution to an Irish problem. Not only did the Irish Catholic Church provide a rudimentary service to the Free State, but it also advised goverments and citizens on how to live their lives. The Church had developed a clientelist relationship with it's flock's British overloards and had been given the franchise contract by Dublin Castle to control the native home and heart through manipulation and control of women. Mother Church quickly changed horses from denouncing the leaders of the Rising to being social as well as spiritual adviser to the new Irish State.
When this model began to disintegrate in the 1970s, the Irish Stare needed a new social policy and a new paradigm. We had the option of creating a genuinely native social policy to suit our own needs. Instead, we in effect bought one off the shelf from American academe. That social policy paradigm stated that women were oppressed and that state agencies had a duty in all things and at all times to intervene to protect and empower women.
Thus, the erstwhile dispossessed have become the establishment in all areas of social policy.
These are the glory days for the misandristic elite which run this State's social policy. The belief system of this elite permeates every interaction where social policy is exercised. This affects the awarding of research grants and the drawing up of legislation, the funding of all social intiatives and the implementation of social policy on the ground. All strategic and administrative decisions are made upon the premise that women are the primary vulnerable group in Irish society, and women, not men, require care and protection. If there is a gender issue to be addressed by social policy intervention or the provision of better state services it is always to be directed at women.
There is, of course, a corollary to this: men are OK, have no problems. Men don't suffer.
Within such a paradigm, massive male suicide statistics do not compute. In fact, the male suicide figures present an appalling vista to the current orthodoxy within the State's social policy make-up. Far better that young men continue to die by their own hand than for us to believe that the entire paradigm is wrong. The best that Irish feminism can come up with to explain this embarrassing body count is that men are violent and some men are violent to themselves. Tell it to the bereaved parents of our young men, who would appear by the very decision of suicide to be somewhat more sensitive than they are violent.
Young men are told at every turn that women have a noble cause in fighting for their "liberation" from omipotent, oppressive males. The reality of these young mens' lives is that they see themselves surrounded by confident professional women and pillowed, powerless men. The background music is at odds with the experienced material reality of their lives. To that confusion add the "Wimp/Bastard" double bind. This is the deadly Hobson's choice that a popular culture with a feminised logic offers young men: you are damned if you behave like a man and even more damned if you don't.

From an ariticle by Phil MacGiolla Bhain, Magill magazine Nov. 2000

Minutes before he took his own life in the early hours of the morning, a young Donegal man phoned his boss. Quite rationally he apologised to his boss for the damage he was about to inflict upon the delivery van. Nothing in his speech or thinking in that conversation would indicate that he was suffering from a major metal disorder. He was rational.

To be honest, I've never felt that anything in society was there to help or support me. All through my school years the only time a teacher went out of their way to speak to me was to yell at me. On the few occaisions I asked for help, the teacher would explain something once and once only. In contrast the teachers seemed to go out of their way to ask the girls in the class if they needed help, and spent more time with them than neccessary making sure they understand. One girl often complained of our maths teacher that he spent too much time with her, and treated her like a baby.
In retrospect though, I'm glad I didn't recieve any support from the church and no priest took an interest in me.
An alarming study of college freshmen showed that 55% believed suicide was a rational option and 45% had considered suicide. Typically when males attempt sucide it is not the "cry for help" psychologists are so fond of. They don't slit their wrists while forgetting to lock the bathroom door, or take a bottle of sleeping pills minutes before someone is expected home. They use shotguns, jump off high buildings and drive delivery van's into deep water. They carefully plan their death and make sure there will be no going back.

From an ariticle by Phil MacGiolla Bhain, Magill magazine Nov. 2000

It is perhaps not surprising that the Republic of Ireland should have a much more pronounced gender gap in suicide figures than Notheren Ireland. The conflict in the North of Ireland has called on young men to take on the role that males of military age have always selflessly taken on - perimeter guards of the tribe. Thus, in the ghettos of the North, young men still have the respect of their communities. Young men in the 26 counties have no such access to respect. Instead, the culture that greets them, a comination of decaying Irish Catholicism and North American feminism, is increasingly toxic to them.

The lack of respect thing is really getting on my nerves lately. I'm harldy a wise old man at 21, but I'm certainly no child. I'm really sick of being called a "good lad" and felt like attacking some old guy who called me a "good boy". A woman around my sister's age (26-28), who I wouldn't have minded shagging, clearly still regards me as a child and beneath notice from the way she says "hello love".
Society just does not take young males seriously. The insurmountable mountain of the mijag campaign (quick plug for www.mijag.com) is actually easy to what must happen, if the campaign is ever a success. A large part of the problem with the campaign for lower car insurance, is that society just will not take us seriously. We are being discrimiated against and most people just think we're having a laugh - that every demonstration we hold is just an excuse to meet and show off our cars. Discrimination on the basis of gender is illegal, and you can bet if it was women who were being discriminated against, society would be right behind them, the EU would be on their right shoulder and the UN on their left.
Yet despite this being a bigger problem for men (because in our culture a car is more important to a man than a woman) than for women, society takes no notice.
Even if the campaign is eventually successful - and at the moment there is no sign it will be - society will still have the prejudice that all young men are lead-footed Schumacher wannabes. My car is a old POS, and is difficult to keep going on cold mornings. I have to use a lot of choke and rev the **** out of it when I slowly pull away. Despite settling on a speed of 20mph throught the town, as soon as people hear my engine reving I get plenty of dirty looks from people, no doubt thinking "another young reckless hooligan". No surprise considering this view is preached by a goverment safety campaign! :mad: "Slow down boys", is the message. ****ing brilliant isn't it? Not only is the goverment totally blind to the realities of road safety, but in looking for a scapegoat they choose to humiliate the most vulnerable in our society. It the commercial stated "Slow down girls", it'd be banned before it was shown twice.

IMO, suicide is never the answer. Life is short enough without ending it too soon. If things ever got too bad for me here, I've always kept a few hundred quid handy to jump a plane with a one-way ticket to somewhere new. Probably a short-sighted answer given the plight of unemployed homeless emigrants. It'd be a huge gamble to find a job and somewhere to live before the money runs out, but IMO it's better than suicide.

Doc

Its a sad fact that most Doctors will diagnose most women with suffering with depression and proscribe drugs for the woman but male percents are usually just tooled to take more rest and not to over do it in work.
Therefore the levels of depression in men is much higher than most figures show and as nothing is done to help these men medically this depression can turn to suicidal tendencies.

You may think that suicide is never the answer (and I agree) but to some people death seems an easy end to there suffering and the consequences of there actions are not full thought out.

WhiteWashMan

i am very curious as to what would cause someone to kill themselves?
no matter how low ive felt, ive never considered taking my own life, except in a kevin and perry type way.
what problem does ending your life solve.
i would say that men are generally a lot less capable of dealing with emotions than women, but apart from that i have no idea as to why the suicide rate would be 10 percent higher than women.

SantaHoe

I heard somewhere that Dublin/Ireland has the highest suicide rate in Europe... I don't know how true that is, but somehow it doesn't surprise me.
As for the whole gender gap in suicides, I'd put it down to women being more open to sharing their problems and worries with other people... while men tend to bottle it all up inside, perhaps finding emotional release as a sign of weakness?

chernobyl

Originally posted by WhiteWashMan

what problem does ending your life solve.
.

It solves the ultimate problem..life.
Maybe its just too much for some peeps.

Boston

Originally posted by WhiteWashMan
i am very curious as to what would cause someone to kill themselves?
no matter how low ive felt, ive never considered taking my own life, except in a kevin and perry type way.
what problem does ending your life solve.
i would say that men are generally a lot less capable of dealing with emotions than women, but apart from that i have no idea as to why the suicide rate would be 10 percent higher than women.

Lads are thought that from an early age, they are the ones who carry the can, the pressure or expectation is allways harder on the sons.

Victor

Originally posted by WhiteWashMan
i have no idea as to why the suicide rate would be 10 percent higher than women.

Its not 10% higher, the figure quoted is ten times higher.

Quite simply, men bottle up their problems, can't accept them. Some lash out at others. Some kill themselves.

http://www.samaritans.org/

TwoShedsJackson

Originally posted by Victor


Its not 10% higher, the figure quoted is ten times higher.
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sorry, thats what i meant.

i had a good friend of mine who threw himself of dalkey quarry last year. we talked. we were close. he had problems, i had problems, we drank beer. he killed himself.

i dont feel bad for what he did. i dont think i could have saved him, but if he felt that bad about the things in his life then i dont know? i really dont?

i will never forgive him. he was popular. he was a fantastic hockey player and he was one of the nicest people ive ever met in a 'nice but dim' harry enfield kind of way.
if hed known how much he hurt his friends and family he wouldnt have done it.

so why?

i dont understand.
a selfish self centred act that hurts only others.#
]


sorry, this is still logged in as castor troy. it should of course be whitewash
hmm, maybe i can run amok on the humanities board erasing all posts that disagree with me

Victor

Admit it. Castor Troy IS WhiteWashMan.

---

But yes, I know what it is like to loose a close friend, in his case to epilepsy, at age 26. Only the week before we sat down and 'cleaned our consciences'. That Monday I phoned him, asking if he wanted a pint. He said no, maybe later in the week. He died the next day. Right now, as I type this, I’m wondering was the ‘cleaning’ deliberate, perhaps subconscious, but still deliberate.

Eight months later I was in a car accident, not really badly hurt. But I was freaked out. Afraid to cross the street. Forgot my PIN number. Quit my job a month later. Got another job, lost it after 6 months. I’m doing some contract work at the moment for about 2 days a week, but that assumes I show up at all.

I'm in psychotherapy, but I'm not sure how far I've progressed. I still want to hurt people, but if I come back on topic, sometimes I think “what if I hurt myself ......”

One promise, I have always made is “never hurt myself, hurt someone else instead”, however, as I now have the occasional swing at other people, I have passed the point where I could hurt myself.

pepperkin

By WWM..."i am very curious as to what would cause someone to kill themselves?
no matter how low ive felt, ive never considered taking my own life, except in a kevin and perry type way.
what problem does ending your life solve. "

Well I can only speak from my own experiences.
This may come off as sexist, but screw it...if a woman is pointing at women, is that sexist?

I was suicidal, many moons ago in a galaxy far, far away. What made me that way? Whole lot of small stuff that all added up to one big thing...I hated my life, felt like I was totally alone and had noone on earth (and, looking back, sad part is that that was true...I really WAS alone.) and I attempted suicide twice.
It would have solved a great deal, but in a far more severe and permanent way than neccessary.

I failed both times, because I am a wimp. Glad I failed, tho!
I'm a female, and we tend to take the wimpier ways out. Trying to slit my wrists with a razor (a standard, Bic double edge) didn't work, and (duh) I didn't think to take it apart. I was 15, what can I say...
And the other was also a true attempt, unfortunately, I was still stupid and 15 and didn't know that you had to take a whole lot more sleeping pills than I did to actually croak from it. Had I been smarter, or had I been not as spaced out by depression/self pity/self hate and all the other silly crap in my head, I'd have gotten it right, but then I would have missed so much.

On the other hand, I have had 6 guy friends kill themselves.
Why did they do it? I don't know all the stories. My friend Mike killed himself with an overdose of insulin. The only reason I've been able to figure out is that he was diabetic and had circulation problems, and he was about to lose his feet due to said circulatory failures. Also, he was clinically depressed and on about 6 kinds of meds. Was it the right thing to do, who knows...I guess he thought it was.

Two shot themselves...one jumped off a very high bridge. One got so stoned, he was getting sick, and then went swimming in deep water...maybe he forgot he couldn't swim? And the final one crashed his car. All left notes. 4 of these 6 guys seemed like happy guys, with no real issues...great jobs, gorgeous girlfriends, pretty happy go lucky and high on life. Just goes to show, you never really know what someone is feeling or thinking unless they choose to show you.

Victor, good luck, man, sounds like you've had the sh|t knocked out of you in many ways...I've lost friends too (not just to suicide, either) and it's always really, really hard to deal with.

"WhiteWashMan"

"i dont understand.
a selfish self centred act that hurts only others.# "

I agree, and I'll never understand it either. Only thing I know is I'm really damned sick of funerals.

pepperkin

WhiteWashMan

Originally posted by pepperkin


I agree, and I'll never understand it either. Only thing I know is I'm really damned sick of funerals.

pepperkin

amen to that sister........

Baz_

Some quite sad stories there. FS I just had a good cry there, not just about the stories but about my gran as well, but thats a different story.

What I wanted to add to this was that if I get that upset over reading a few peoples experiences I just wonder how the samaritan people do it. AFAIK they are absolutely voluntary and I don't know how they can do that job and listen to stories like this all day. They must be amazing people thats all I can say.

So thats it, just wanted to add my congratulations (cant think of a better word) to these people, they are super.

Shinji

Figures like this are depressing, but not exactly surprising.

Irish society places a lot of basic and unfair expectations on people. For all that the mantle of the church has been thrown off, and that we now consider ourselves quite a progressive society, it's not entirely true at all. Old prejudices die very, very hard indeed, and Irish people are very good at prejudice. Your religion, your sexuality, the colour of your skin, what job your father does... Everywhere in the world, kids in school will use these things as ammo - kids are cruel because they don't know not to be. What's shocking is when you come across 17 year olds, 21 year olds, 28 year olds, all acting in the same way...

British people are famous for the "stiff upper lip", for the reserve which is meant to prevent them from expressing their emotions; well, the Irish are worse. When something goes wrong in the life of a young Irishman, the only option seen as open to them is to bottle up the trouble, to repress the feelings and to present a brave face. And young men in this society don't half have problems; it's not politically correct to say it, but the behaviour of many women towards men - women who presumably think they're being "liberated" - is downright disgraceful and astonishingly hurtful. I've been lucky personally, but I've seen the pain caused to friends by the behaviour of girlfriends and even wives, and it's not pleasant in the slightest.

Sure, most of this is something that men have to sort out for ourselves. We don't talk about our problems; even when there's a sympathetic ear, we're afraid to discuss things close to our own hearts, and that's a big problem. We bottle up emotions. We treat each other badly, and the secure often prey on the insecure in a deeply unpleasant way. It would certainly help, however, if the feminist brigade could stop burning their bras for just long enough to realise the damage being done by the society they have created - not one of equality, but one of inequality in exactly the other direction; and it's not the type of men who would ever have been sexist in the first place who are suffering...

ButcherOfNog

hmm, life isn't always roses, sometimes its just all one big fscked up mess, and theres not that many alternatives for people. selfish? harldy, i think only people that feel truely alone could consider this so how could you call them selfish, with no one left to turn to and nothing in life worth holding out for, why not?

why not move into the oncoming lane and that HGV? why not bother taking that corner, and just take the wall instead? why not sit on the beach and let the tide come in over you, and fill your lungs?

go to the edge. look into the abyss.

MarcusGarvey

I've been at some low points in my life before and have actually considered taking lots of pills to escape where I was but never went through with the final act as I guess I like life too much, ****ty as it can be sometimes.

I've heard it said before that people haven't "had the guts" to go through with it and I find that quite disturbing. Its not some Japanese honourable thing. Its great that people didn't end themselves and were brave enough to stick around.

As for the reasons why there can be many, I always thought that it could be due to environmental, emotional and chemical reasons as well as access to the means. It could well be a combination of all the reasons I gave.

I often think the foul weather here in Ireland is a cause, its known that dark days causes depression and in Sweden they treat depressed people by having them sit for a few hours in rooms that are full of bright light. I've also heard that the suicide rate for plasterers is higher than average, maybe this is due to staring at grey walls all day.

I think there are emotional reasons such as a bad home life, love life and all sorts of pressures with the various relationships we have with people. Many of us know how upset each other can get over someone else.

Some people are just unlucky and their brain chemicals are not balanced correctly which can cause them to go into very black depressions which can end in suicide. Alcohol is a chemical that can seriously depress you. I used to work in the Accident and Emergency Dept in a hospital and the number of alcohol related parasuicides (attempted suicides) and suicides every weekend was amazing. Other drugs too can mess your head up which can cause suidical thoughts and actions.

Suicide rates can be linked to the availability of the means to carry out the act too. Vets have a high rate apparently, this could be due to the availability of chemicals to put down large animals, Doctors have access to strong chemicals too. The rate of those living on farms is meant to be high too, one reason could be the access to shotguns which many farmers have.

There are probably many other factors too, I don't think all the reasons can be easily identified. In the book The Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell he talked about the epidemic rate of suicide in Micronesia and how from zero deaths by suicide it turned into one of the highest means of death for young people only a few years later. I don't have the book here to quote from it or give exact figures but it was amazing and very odd.

Gladwell linked it to some sort of brand recogniton thing where it was becoming such a frequent event that the idea of suicide became some sort of trend and as suicide was occuring more people were thinking about it more and more. It might be upsetting to call it a trend but in Micronesia it was almost turning into a pasttime with younger and younger kids doing it.

neuro-praxis

If you think about it, most people you could name are, deep down, unsatisfied and a little unhappy. Socially they may be fine, but I could only name a handful of people that are actually happy.