“Women seek help — men die”

“Women seek help — men die” (Jules Angst and Celile Ernst). This is a blunt way of summarising the statistic that suicide is the single biggest cause of death in men aged 20 to 45 (in the US there are 3.53x more male suicides than female suicides). To seek help, to share the burden, implies that we are admitting defeat, and that we do not have the strength. “We are less of a man.”

Instead of seeking help, the statistics suggest that men deal with distress in other ways -

1. Men are nearly three times more likely than women to become alcohol dependent
2. Men are three times as likely to report frequent drug use than women
3. 73% of adults who ‘go missing’ are men
4. 87% of rough sleepers are men
5. Men make up 95% of the prison population
6. Men commit 86% of violent crime
7. Boys are around three times more likely to receive a permanent or fixed period exclusion than girls

The statistics were pretty similar in 2015, when I was interviewed about this by Wandsworth Radio (in London, United Kingdom). Even further back, in 2010, when I was carrying out research into male experiences of suicide and counseling, the statistics were a similar bleak picture for men.

So why have things not changed in all these years? Why are men still not seeking help when they need to? Firstly, we need to challenge our perception of men seeking help. Strength has many facets, and it includes emotional awareness, intellectual savvy and tactical planning. It is a sign of strength to learn what our vulnerabilities are, and to work out what our most constructive coping mechanisms are. When we are in distress, this can be difficult to do alone, and so it makes sense, it is a sign of strength, to seek help.

Novelist Matt Haig made this point when he quoted from the book ‘White Noise’ (Don DeLillo): ‘What could be more useless than a man who couldn’t fix a dripping faucet - fundamentally useless… to the messages in his genes?” And Haig added: “What if, instead of a broken faucet it is a broken mind?”

We need to normalise the concept of a man seeking help. To seek help for emotional distress is just about as normal as a man fixing a tap!

Chris Warren-Dickins LPC is a Licensed Professional Counselor with a practice in downtown Ridgewood, NJ 07450. If you would like to read more about his work, you can visit his website at https://www.exploretransform.c...If you would like to book a consultation, you can book online here https://square.site/appointments/book/9DTVNB35D9HWM/chris-warren-dickins-llb-ma-lpc-ridgewood-nj Or you can call him on +1 (201) 779-6917