More than 800 000 people die by suicide every year worldwide, one person every 40 seconds. Men account for almost 80% of suicide while they make up only around 49% of the population. In 2020, the suicide rate for men was four times higher than for women. Although suicide attempts are more among females than males, males use more lethal ways resulting in certain deaths. There have been around 90k suicides this year [2023] alone according to www.worldometers.info
The first leading cause being depression. In 2021, 13,089 students died due to suicide in India. Every hour at least one student commits suicide in India. The academic pressure builds up so much that they don’t realize that you don’t need to be academically successful to live a happy life. With all the pressure at such a young age one can develop serious depression and other mental illnesses which can result in them taking extreme measures such as suicide and other self-sabotaging activities.
Females are more likely to seek mental help than males. Men are expected to never show emotional vulnerability and always look bold. When men try to seek mental help or show emotional weakness it is deemed shameful and unmanly. Men are always taught from childhood that crying is a serious weakness. They are expected to chug it all down and be brave, but they are human too who can face serious mental issues such as depression, anxiety etc. And because of their incapability to be vulnerable they are also more prone to loneliness.
There have been some attempts over the past few years to increase awareness about men’s mental health, but they rarely ever work. Men also have fewer friends compared women and even lesser when it comes to close friends.
I’ve had an experience of being a part of online groups, teenagers around 14–15 (depressed) ask for easy ways to kill themselves, usually for reasons which aren’t even considerable. This shows how unsupervised they are.
On the other hand, there are also some groups which promote toxic masculinity to some degree. And also, some groups where it’s mostly men who are more goal-oriented and support each other for their goals. But even with the friendly environment in the group, they rarely or never speak about their mental issues just because they don’t want to feel looked down upon or made fun of.
Men are loved conditionally that they provide something in return. Whereas that is not the case for women and kids, they are loved unconditionally. When men show weakness, they’re usually not given support but instead they lose their value as a strong person. Men who are composed round the clock, not vulnerable are preferred over men who are not as composed and show emotional instability.
But when the same “weak” men overcome their mental and physical struggles they are valued much more. But the catch is, they have to do it all alone. They get very little to no support.
And in this journey is where men spend more than half of their life, trying to just prove themselves and trying to become a distinguished and valuable individual. But not everyone accomplishes this, the ones who do, win in life and those who don’t, lose all hope and give up. Some turn into maniacs, a failure without any moral sense while others opt to kill themselves rather than live with the cruelty of the world and their own failure.
So, will men ever be taught and learn how to be vulnerable, and will their vulnerability be accepted?
“Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren’t always comfortable, but they’re never weakness” — Brené Brown
Thank you for reading. Hope you enjoyed the read.
