Listening to a TED talk from 2018 given by Steph Slack on male suicide in the United Kingdom, she opens by stating that "by the end of this debate three men in the UK will have died by suicide."
Voice to text translation excerpt:
"I can still remember where I was when my dad called me to tell me that they found my uncle. He had taken his life and it had taken 3 weeks to find his body. Richard was 47. He was a doctor. Super smart, creative, artistic, he spoke new languages with ease, he played and wrote music and he understood science ands Math no one else I knew. He's the kind of kid you'd hate at school, right? He saved peoples lives for a living and yet, he decided to take his own. I'd like to take you back to 2010. I was at my new flat in Brighton having dinner with a friend, about to start my third year of university, when my dad calls me to that they found my uncle. That feeling, that sinking feeling, in your stomach, when your heart drops all the way down and all can think is: What could you have done to stop that from happening. That's a feeling I wish no one ever has to experience.
Men are facing a crisis. How many men do you think die by suicide each day in the UK? it's 12. That's 1 man every two hours. While we're all enjoying our day, we're gonna lose 12 men to suicide that same day.
In my work we talk a lot about the fact that 76% of all suicides are male. And that this silent killer is claiming the lives of more men under 45 than anything else. And I can't help but find myself asking: Why is that? Doesn't that trouble you, because it's troubles me? These are our brothers, fathers, uncles, partners, sons. These are our friends and they decide to die.
I think there are some hard questions we need to ask about male suicide. I don't believe there is anything wrong with men having suicidal thoughts. But is there something wrong with how we react to suicide being thought about. Let me explain.
We all die at one point or another, right? Our bodies will fail us and we'll die of disease or old age. Or we'll have our lives taken from us in a tragic accident. So isn't it perfectly normal to consider being in control of our own death? Yes, suicide is intentional but does that automatically make it wrong?
I believe suicide is preventable and I believe we should do everything in our power to prevent it. But I also believe there's nothing inherently wrong in thinking about our own death. I've considered what it's like to die.
<<She asks the audience to close their eyes and raise their hands if they've had a bad day, or week or month, has ever led you to harming yourself or taking your own life. When she tells them to put down their hands and then open their eyes, she tells them about half of the room raised their hand to this question. She then invites them to consider what might be different if we didn't see having suicidal thoughts as wrong, and what that might mean for the men in our lives thinking of suicide.>>
Let's go back to my uncle Richard. For most of his life, he experienced what was most likely bipolar disorder, and he had suicidal thoughts on more than one occasion. In fact, 6 years before his death he attempted to take his life. The sad fact was that Richard lived in a time when suicide was not considered something you spoke about. It was swept under the carpet as a cause for shame amongst families, there was something wrong with it. It was only in 1961 that we stopped making suicide a crime.
Richard's parents were medics, and anesthetist and a nurse, and they didn't understand suicide either. They didn't think that it was real. And I think they were probably in denial about what was happening with Richard. What happened to Richard isn't my grandparents fault. Suicide is complex and rarely attributed to just one factor. But when I reflect on Richard's experience, and how we still struggle to speak about suicide today, nothing's really changed. We still struggle to talk about it. We label it as abnormal or unusual. And we make men wrong for having suicidal thoughts. We say that they're unwell or that they need to get better. And because we think about it this way, it stops us from having a real conversation about it. We stay silent instead. And Suicide remains shrouded in this stigma. That stigma is only perpetuated by irresponsible and sensational journalism that happens in the cases of celebrity suicides. Just look at some of reporting at the time of Anthony Bourdain's death. When I was thinking how best to explain this point, it made me think of sex and sex education. It's really uncomfortable for us to talk to kids about sex, it's so tempting to think "if we don't talk about it, it won't happen. Our kids won't have sex". But we know that teenage pregnancy and STDs are the risks if we don't have that conversation. And we take those risks seriously. We introduce sex education into schools and it's now compulsory across the UK. It's far from perfect, but what it has been shown to do improve positive attitudes to safe sex, to delay sex, and to reduce teenage pregnancy when used alongside other methods.
With suicide, we know it's a myth that talking about it will plant that idea inside someone's head. And if suicide is claiming the lives of more men 45 than anything else, it's time we start accepting that suicidal thoughts are something that just happen, and start talking openly and responsibly about it. I don't think there is anything wrong with men having suicidal thoughts. But perhaps there is something wrong with our expectations of men in society that lead them to have those thoughts. Let's think about that.
What does it mean to be masculine? What does it mean to be a man? Society tells us men should be strong, dependable and able to provide for their family. There is very little research into why men choose suicide. But the recent research that does exist speaks about how men's high suicide rates are linked to risk factors: history of being abused a child, single status or relationship breakdown, financial difficulty & unemployment. So that means if you're a man who's had a troubled childhood, you're still searching for the one or you're worried about money, you're at risk of suicide. How many of us know men in that situation? Plenty, and my uncle Richard was one of them. In fact, I've probably just described half of all millenial men in the UK. Unsurprisingly, these risk factors are linked to those traditional notions of masculinity. It seems so that men can't meet what is expected of them, they make themselves wrong for that. The research backs this up too. Just last year there was a paper confirming that there is a link between men feeling unable to fulfill the stereotypical characteristics of masculinity and suicidal thoughts.
Many people don't agree with those masculine stereotypes but there also a lot who do. That conversation, however, is starting to change.
But is it just men who are perpetuating these outdated stereotypes of what it means to be a man and making themselves wrong for that? I don't think so. I'd like us to consider what our role is as women. Just last month I was chatting to a female friend of mine who described the guy she was dating as a "sponge" and "too sensitive" because he opened up to her about some of the anxieties he was facing in the relationship and how that was making him feel vulnerable. I cannot begin to describe the look on some women's faces when I speak about how men I know have broken down in tears in front of me. It's somewhere between discomfort and disdain.
Men are already making themselves wrong for not living up these masculine ideals of being strong, dependable, and being able to provide for their family. They're already shaming themselves for that. Are women compounding the problem by making men wrong and shaming them for demonstrating those open and vulnerable behaviours that women say they want men to show them? Are we making men wrong for breaking out of these rigid stereotypes and for just being fully human? To the women in the room I'm not saying male suicide is our responsibility. I absolutely acknowledge that men have a role to play in breaking down these stereotypes. But as a woman I can only speak to my experience and how I do see our role. What I'm inviting all of us to do, regardless of our gender, is to reconsider the expectations that we have of men in society, and reconsider how we view men who have the courage to show us their vulnerability. I'm inviting us to ask the men in our lives how they're really doing and if they're struggling with anything they haven't told us about. And can we think about how we respond to that. How we might try to empathize with their pain. Can we hold space for men and listen to them without trying to fix things, tell them that we love them and that it's ok to feel however they're feeling.
The full presentation is available at:
Voice to text translation excerpt:
"I can still remember where I was when my dad called me to tell me that they found my uncle. He had taken his life and it had taken 3 weeks to find his body. Richard was 47. He was a doctor. Super smart, creative, artistic, he spoke new languages with ease, he played and wrote music and he understood science ands Math no one else I knew. He's the kind of kid you'd hate at school, right? He saved peoples lives for a living and yet, he decided to take his own. I'd like to take you back to 2010. I was at my new flat in Brighton having dinner with a friend, about to start my third year of university, when my dad calls me to that they found my uncle. That feeling, that sinking feeling, in your stomach, when your heart drops all the way down and all can think is: What could you have done to stop that from happening. That's a feeling I wish no one ever has to experience.
Men are facing a crisis. How many men do you think die by suicide each day in the UK? it's 12. That's 1 man every two hours. While we're all enjoying our day, we're gonna lose 12 men to suicide that same day.
In my work we talk a lot about the fact that 76% of all suicides are male. And that this silent killer is claiming the lives of more men under 45 than anything else. And I can't help but find myself asking: Why is that? Doesn't that trouble you, because it's troubles me? These are our brothers, fathers, uncles, partners, sons. These are our friends and they decide to die.
I think there are some hard questions we need to ask about male suicide. I don't believe there is anything wrong with men having suicidal thoughts. But is there something wrong with how we react to suicide being thought about. Let me explain.
We all die at one point or another, right? Our bodies will fail us and we'll die of disease or old age. Or we'll have our lives taken from us in a tragic accident. So isn't it perfectly normal to consider being in control of our own death? Yes, suicide is intentional but does that automatically make it wrong?
I believe suicide is preventable and I believe we should do everything in our power to prevent it. But I also believe there's nothing inherently wrong in thinking about our own death. I've considered what it's like to die.
<<She asks the audience to close their eyes and raise their hands if they've had a bad day, or week or month, has ever led you to harming yourself or taking your own life. When she tells them to put down their hands and then open their eyes, she tells them about half of the room raised their hand to this question. She then invites them to consider what might be different if we didn't see having suicidal thoughts as wrong, and what that might mean for the men in our lives thinking of suicide.>>
Let's go back to my uncle Richard. For most of his life, he experienced what was most likely bipolar disorder, and he had suicidal thoughts on more than one occasion. In fact, 6 years before his death he attempted to take his life. The sad fact was that Richard lived in a time when suicide was not considered something you spoke about. It was swept under the carpet as a cause for shame amongst families, there was something wrong with it. It was only in 1961 that we stopped making suicide a crime.
Richard's parents were medics, and anesthetist and a nurse, and they didn't understand suicide either. They didn't think that it was real. And I think they were probably in denial about what was happening with Richard. What happened to Richard isn't my grandparents fault. Suicide is complex and rarely attributed to just one factor. But when I reflect on Richard's experience, and how we still struggle to speak about suicide today, nothing's really changed. We still struggle to talk about it. We label it as abnormal or unusual. And we make men wrong for having suicidal thoughts. We say that they're unwell or that they need to get better. And because we think about it this way, it stops us from having a real conversation about it. We stay silent instead. And Suicide remains shrouded in this stigma. That stigma is only perpetuated by irresponsible and sensational journalism that happens in the cases of celebrity suicides. Just look at some of reporting at the time of Anthony Bourdain's death. When I was thinking how best to explain this point, it made me think of sex and sex education. It's really uncomfortable for us to talk to kids about sex, it's so tempting to think "if we don't talk about it, it won't happen. Our kids won't have sex". But we know that teenage pregnancy and STDs are the risks if we don't have that conversation. And we take those risks seriously. We introduce sex education into schools and it's now compulsory across the UK. It's far from perfect, but what it has been shown to do improve positive attitudes to safe sex, to delay sex, and to reduce teenage pregnancy when used alongside other methods.
With suicide, we know it's a myth that talking about it will plant that idea inside someone's head. And if suicide is claiming the lives of more men 45 than anything else, it's time we start accepting that suicidal thoughts are something that just happen, and start talking openly and responsibly about it. I don't think there is anything wrong with men having suicidal thoughts. But perhaps there is something wrong with our expectations of men in society that lead them to have those thoughts. Let's think about that.
What does it mean to be masculine? What does it mean to be a man? Society tells us men should be strong, dependable and able to provide for their family. There is very little research into why men choose suicide. But the recent research that does exist speaks about how men's high suicide rates are linked to risk factors: history of being abused a child, single status or relationship breakdown, financial difficulty & unemployment. So that means if you're a man who's had a troubled childhood, you're still searching for the one or you're worried about money, you're at risk of suicide. How many of us know men in that situation? Plenty, and my uncle Richard was one of them. In fact, I've probably just described half of all millenial men in the UK. Unsurprisingly, these risk factors are linked to those traditional notions of masculinity. It seems so that men can't meet what is expected of them, they make themselves wrong for that. The research backs this up too. Just last year there was a paper confirming that there is a link between men feeling unable to fulfill the stereotypical characteristics of masculinity and suicidal thoughts.
Many people don't agree with those masculine stereotypes but there also a lot who do. That conversation, however, is starting to change.
But is it just men who are perpetuating these outdated stereotypes of what it means to be a man and making themselves wrong for that? I don't think so. I'd like us to consider what our role is as women. Just last month I was chatting to a female friend of mine who described the guy she was dating as a "sponge" and "too sensitive" because he opened up to her about some of the anxieties he was facing in the relationship and how that was making him feel vulnerable. I cannot begin to describe the look on some women's faces when I speak about how men I know have broken down in tears in front of me. It's somewhere between discomfort and disdain.
Men are already making themselves wrong for not living up these masculine ideals of being strong, dependable, and being able to provide for their family. They're already shaming themselves for that. Are women compounding the problem by making men wrong and shaming them for demonstrating those open and vulnerable behaviours that women say they want men to show them? Are we making men wrong for breaking out of these rigid stereotypes and for just being fully human? To the women in the room I'm not saying male suicide is our responsibility. I absolutely acknowledge that men have a role to play in breaking down these stereotypes. But as a woman I can only speak to my experience and how I do see our role. What I'm inviting all of us to do, regardless of our gender, is to reconsider the expectations that we have of men in society, and reconsider how we view men who have the courage to show us their vulnerability. I'm inviting us to ask the men in our lives how they're really doing and if they're struggling with anything they haven't told us about. And can we think about how we respond to that. How we might try to empathize with their pain. Can we hold space for men and listen to them without trying to fix things, tell them that we love them and that it's ok to feel however they're feeling.
The full presentation is available at:
