Part 2—Mental health crises put everyone at risk
This is part two of a multi-part series on The Future of Men’s Mental Health. I’ve been concerned about men’s mental health since I was five and my middle-aged father overdosed on sleeping pills after becoming increasingly depressed when he couldn’t support his family doing what he loved. In Part 1 of this series, “Men and Mental Health, What Are We Missing?”, I detailed recent research that shows the problems that have so far been neglected.
In a previous series of articles, “Healer Heal Thyself: Why Health Professionals Become Anxious, Depressed, and Suicidal,” I describe the challenging realities that health professionals face as well as those who seek them for health support and healing. In Part 1, I noted:
“Health workers compared to non-health workers have a greater risk of mental health problems and long-term absence from work due to mental disorders and are at increased risk of suicide, compared to workers in other sectors.”
“Our results extend previous research outside the United States that healthcare workers compared to non-healthcare workers are at greater risk for mental health problems and long-term absenteeism due to mental disorders,” said Mark Olfson, MD , MPH, Professor of Epidemiology at Columbia Public Health and Professor of Psychiatry, Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. “The significance of the increased suicide risk of health care workers is underscored by their increase from nearly 4 million in 2008 to 6.6 million in 2021.”
Pamela Wible, MD, is a family physician, author, and physician suicide prevention expert. In her book, Physician Suicide Letters Answered, she says, “I’ve been a doctor for twenty years. I have not lost a single patient to suicide. I have only lost colleagues, friends, lovers – ALL male doctors – to suicide.”
Men are not the only ones who die by suicide, but we are much more likely to die. Dr. Wible details the reasons why so many doctors and other health professionals die by suicide, including:
- Medicine is more than just a job. it is a calling, an identity.
- With so much need, we often put the needs of others before our own.
- Most exercisers burn out, overwork or burn out.
- Workaholics are admired in medicine and other health professions.
- Caring for the sick can make us sick if we don’t take care of ourselves.
- Seeing too much pain and not enough joy is unhealthy.
- We don’t take very good care of ourselves or each other.
- We fail to recognize the reality that we are at high risk of overwork, burnout, collapse and self-injury.
These issues are not only prevalent in men, but there are gender differences that we need to understand and address. According to Marianne J. Legato, MD, Founder of the Gender Specialist Medicine Partnership,
“Until now, we have acted as if men and women were essentially identical except for differences in their reproductive function. In fact, the information we have been collecting over the last ten years tells us that this is far from true, and that wherever we look, the two sexes are initially and unexpectedly different not only in their physiological function but also in the way they who experience the disease. .”
In Part 2 of the series, I talk about the future of gender-based healthcare and describe my interview with Dr. Legato, who told me,
“The premature death of men is the most important – and neglected – health issue of our time.”
I also described my interview with Richard V. Reeves, its author Boys and Men: Why the Modern Man Struggles, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It and its founder American Institute on Boys and Men (AIBM). Reeves says,
“It became clear to me that the problems of boys and men are structural in nature, rather than individual. but they are rarely treated as such. The problem with men is typically framed as a men’s problem. It is men who must be corrected, one man or boy at a time. This individualistic approach is wrong.”
In Part 3, I discuss the unique times we live in today, where the rapid change of modern life has created a unique set of mental health issues that need to be addressed at a systemic as well as a personal level. Futurist, Alvin Toffler called the problem Future Shock and he said,
“It will not be found in the Index Medicus or any list of psychological disorders. However, unless intelligent measures are taken to combat it, millions of human beings will find themselves increasingly disoriented, progressively unable to deal rationally with their environment. The malaise, mass neurosis, irrationality and free violence already evident in modern life is just a foretaste of what may await us unless we understand and cure this disease.”
Toffler notes that Future Shock results when societies face too many changes in too short a time. Not only are we overwhelmed by the pace of change in our lives, but also by the overwhelming complexity of our social systems that can lead to the collapse of entire civilizations. Rebecca C. Costa describes the effects of complexity in her groundbreaking book, The Watchman’s Rattle: A Radical New Theory of Collapse. The result is a critical increase in fear and anxiety, affecting everyone.
In his book, Anxious: Using The Brain to Understand and Treat Fear and Anxiety, Joseph LeDoux, one of the world’s leading mental health experts, says:
“Collective fear and anxiety disorders are the most prevalent of all psychiatric problems in the United States, affecting approximately twenty percent of the population with an associated economic cost estimated to exceed $40 billion annually.”
Dr. Wendy Suzuki is a professor of neuroscience and psychology at the Center for Neuroscience at New York University, says,
“We live in a time of stress. Like a ubiquitous, noxious odor to which we have grown accustomed, stress has become a constant state, a fact of life on this planet. From global pandemics to collapsing economies to intense, day-to-day family challenges, we have many legitimate reasons to feel anxious.”
The effects of all these changes are causing social and political upheavals. On April 7, 2024, The Morning Show on CBS aired a segment of the new film, “Civil War” which follows a group of journalists who travel across the United States during a rapidly escalating Second American Civil War, which has engulfed the entire nation. It offers an unflinching look at a nation divided and violent, not in the 1860s, but today. The film is a warning of possible things to come and like all wars, men are the main combatants.
Bringing healers and health seekers together in the community
It is becoming increasingly clear that the division between “healers” and “help seekers” is an artificial divide. We all need help and support to cope with mental health problems and we are all capable of learning to help ourselves and others. I believe it is time to bring healers and seekers together. In a recent article, “The Future of Mental Health: Bringing Health Seekers and Providers Together,” I noted the following:
“We live in crazy times where everyone seems angry, anxious, stressed and depressed and things are getting worse. In 2018 the American Psychological Association surveyed a thousand adults in the US about the sources and levels of their stress. The APA found that 39% of Americans reported being more anxious than they were in 2017, and an equal percentage (39%) had the same level of anxiety as the previous year. That’s almost 80% of the population experiencing anxiety.
What concerns people the most? The APA survey reported that:
- 68% are concerned about health and safety.
- 67% cited finances as a source of stress.
- 56% were stressed about our political system and elections.
The APA also found that 63% of Americans felt the nation’s future was a major source of stress. 59% chose the framework that “the United States is at its lowest point in recorded history.”
Men in the United States die by suicide, on average, at four times the rate of women. But the suicide rate for men is even higher in older age groups.
It is clear that with statistics like these, we can no longer think of “mental illness” as simply a problem of individuals. We face a problem of whole systems collapsing and we need to develop new systems to fix it. My colleague, Margaret J. Wheatley, author of the book, Who Do We Choose To Be? Facing reality, claiming leadership says,
“Our task is to create Islands of Reason, both internally and within our sphere of influence, where reason reigns supreme, where people can remember and practice the best human qualities of generosity, caring, creativity and community” .
It seems appropriate and timely to create a health community focused on men’s mental health as an “island of sanity” that can provide support and services to heal men, as well as our families, our communities and the world.
We need a new approach to tackling men’s mental health problems. In the next parts of this series, I will address the important topic of depression and anxiety. I will look at the differences between the ways males express their illness and the lyrics of wounds the way females do. If you want to read more articles like these, visit me at MenAlive.com and get our free newsletter with new articles and tools you can use to improve your mental, emotional and relational health.
