Men’s health isn’t about your nuts, your prostate, or your lack of a hard-on. It’s about, quite literally, your life.
A group of experts spoke before lawmakers at the Massachusetts State House yesterday to discuss masculinity’s impact on health concerns. Men die 5.4 years, on average, younger than women not because we are incapable of a full lifespan, but because our cultural norms lead to riskier behaviors relating to seatbelts, boozing, smoking, and even mental health and heart disease.
From the Boston Herald:
Michael Addis, a psychology professor from Clark University, noted that men in America are four times as likely as women to commit suicide. Addis said poor trends in men’s willingness to obtain health care are amplified when it comes to mental health concerns. And the recent recession, which drove up unemployment particularly among men, exacerbated male suicide, substance abuse, and depression rates.
“We’re less likely to seek help for virtually every problem out there,” he said.
When Hanna Rosin wrote “The End of Men,” maybe she meant it literally—men’s extinction. Heart disease is the biggest killer in America and three-quarters of all death from heart attack before the age of 65 are men. Men are four times more likely than women to commit suicide.
The Good Men Project was inspired by all those guys out there suffering in silence, thinking they were the only ones who had lost a job, a marriage, or a child, struggling with work and family demands, with PTSD after serving our country, or trying desperately to go straight after a stint in prison. They’re not alone. We all, as men, are trying to find our way to a new model of manhood that works.
The stakes couldn’t be higher, however. Heart disease and suicide don’t happen by accident. They are the accumulation of years and decades of quiet desperation.
Until my mid 30s I always figured I was going to die young. I figured that it gave me license to take massively stupid risks with alcohol, money, and just about every aspect of my life. I didn’t think I could get sober. And I didn’t think I was worthy of a long and happy life.
It took hitting rock bottom, getting sober, and years of hard work before it finally became clear to me that I might actually live. The turning point for me was my kids and wife, who inspired me to at least try to be a better guy. And the men I met along the way kept telling me that I was not alone; they showed me by example that being a man didn’t mean being the asshole from a Bud Light commercial. I could be vulnerable and real.
To all those guys killing themselves slowly, or not so slowly, holding despair in the pit of your stomach because you’re too macho to let anyone know, this blog’s for you. You don’t have to die young. But you must have the guts to open up and talk about what’s really going on.
—Photo reid.gilman
I am so grateful for this project. Through your (collective your) eyes and through your minds I get a glimpse of straight men being real, not hiding behind the walls of masculinity; I get to see that straight or gay or other, we deal with the experience of being male in the world as best we can. Thanks for the sense of belonging and community.
I think that we guys sometimes forget that we are just human. While there are a lot of differences between the sexes, guys and girls need the same “basic” things. Food, water, air, etc. Opening up to another human being is just one of these basic things that all humans need.
Men need to chill out and stop trying to prove things to others. Sometimes you have to say, muck it!
To be honest, I have no particular desire nor expectation to live very long. My father died when I was a small child and I live under the expectation that I won’t make it to 40… but I don’t really feel unhappy about it. Life is an unfortunate condition and it is undeniably miserable so I just do what I want. If it kills me, there’s no real loss as I hate life anyway. Because I have no family and very few friends, the only thing I have to live for is my own enjoyment. Since I don’t enjoy life,… Read more »
I felt like you, until I read the last paragraph of this blog.
No wonder why you don’t have friends with that kind of attitude…
I have no sympathy.
I don’t think he was looking for sympathy, just describing how he sees things. You shouldn’t be so quick to judge other people, you have no idea what kind of life this person has lived to cause him to feel this way. If he doesn’t have any family or friends than whether he lives or dies really is his business and no one else’s. You also have no idea if this attitude developed before or after he became disconnected from the rest of humanity. If this bad attitude is a result of the loss of all his loved ones and… Read more »
Thanks for sharing these thoughts. For the last 30 plus years I have been writing about men’s health. It began when my son, Jemal, was born in 1969 and I made a vow to be a different kind of father than my father was able to be for me and to make a different kind of world where men were not isolated and alone. My father tried to commit suicide when I was 5 years old. Though he survived physically, our lives were never the same. We know that, on average, men commit suicide at 4 times the rate of… Read more »
Tom, the way you share your experiences is so universally human and unabashed that even though I don’t have a thing in common with you, I totally relate to your thoughts and emotions. Some because I’ve felt them myself regarding my own struggles. And others because I see your struggles reflected in men I know. I lost my Dad over a year ago because of heart disease. He was a very hard working man that spent decades working grueling, labor intensive hours (he had a farming and trucking business that often had him out of the house before 4 and… Read more »
Erin, you say exactly what I think. My dad was a hard worker and a wonderful provider to us. He frequently worked 70-80 hour weeks in a demanding and labour-intensive field of surgery, but he lacked much as a parent to younger children. No time, plus very strict ideals on what we should be doing and achieving as his children (based on his own father’s expectations of him) made him a very unhappy, angry and sick person. As a result I don’t think I had a relationship with my dad properly until he quit the position he was in and… Read more »
Thanks for this Erin & Bec. Very moving to me indeed. In a way it is the flip side of what I am talking about. Your fathers sound like such great men in the truest sense of the word, only with a definition that didn’t ultimately work for you or them. They thought that they were doing the right thing but at least in Erin’s case it killed them. I was on that path. Work hard, provide for my kids, slow but sure death. The unmerited gift in my life is that was so bad at trying to be that… Read more »
My daughter was 3 when I walked out of my marriage, and I went thru hell for years. And yes, like you Tom, my daughter was the only reason why I kept going. And with the support of my family, especially my brother, I got thru it all i one piece. (My brother, btw, is a stay-at-home dad who can kick my ass and possess 3x my wisdom in life. so yes, i think SAHDs are macho). All the struggles, advice I received, and experiences I have are, in one way or another, told thru this blog by the different… Read more »
Chito thanks for the kind words and your story. Sounds like you have a hell of a good brother. Peace to you and your daughter.
A year ago my wife threw me out of the house. She had finally had enough of our mediocre and unfulfilling partnership even though we had a 4 year old and a one year old. Depression that I’d carried for most of my life contributed to the relationship failing and worsened as a result. Becoming a dad has been the most postively transformative experience of my life. Becoming what feels like a part time dad has been devastating. The Good Men project has propped me up and kept me slogging forward.
Thanks guys.
Keep going Matt. It will get better. And focus on your kids. My daughter was 2 and son was six months when I got kicked out of the house. They were the only reason I kept at it. I was a divorced dad for six years before getting remarried. They taught me how to be good even when I had no idea how to myself. I am glad what we are doing here has been some help. That is the entire point of our efforts.