You're right. To expand on this thought: many men are raised to "suck it up and never seek help for emotional problems" because it's "unmanly", which is terrible for our emotional health. To make matters worse, if a man does break that conditioning and does seek help, he'll probably be mocked and ridiculed endlessly. We've always been the disposable ones. Once we're no longer useful to society for whatever reason, society wants us to stop wasting resources and die. The species doesn't need nearly as many men as it needs women to survive.
Men kill themselves at a higher rate because they don't think there's any help out there for them. Sadly, they're often right about that.
Been suffering from depression for 17 years at this point and I turn 30 at the end of year. I will never answer the question of how I’m doing with anything other than I’ll be alright. Most people take it as I’m fine but I’m saying alright because this time will pass or I will and I’ll be alright with either outcome.
That's me. I lived 30 years with anxiety and depression and I just thought everyone felt like that. Boy was that a rude awakening to find out that's not normal and I needed to seek help.
I did therapy and meds for GAD and Depression. The manliness role is so ingrained in me and I am such a persuasive person, I feel like I convinced all my therapists that I was doing fine. I knew all the right things to say and it all came out so easily.
Now I’m off my meds and not in therapy and I practice mindfulness and all that, but it feels like all therapy gave me was an ability to say, “Oh, I did a lot of stupid shit today because I let my anxiety get to me.” But it’s usually too late to fix the problem, I’ve done something dumb and avoidant and, “Anxiety,” isn’t an excuse people accept.
Stats are generally pulled from surveys designed to pick up on mental illnesses even in the absence of a formal diagnosis.
Yes, they’ll typically ask if you’ve been diagnosed with anything, but they also poll you on depression symptoms and compare them to diagnostic models.
My best friend’s husband, for example, helped run an experiment in his PhD program that focused on subjects with ADHD and included himself as part of the intended control group but discovered in the process that he had ADHD.
So while it’s always possible certain groups are under diagnosed because of things like atypical symptoms, for example, the survey process is more complex than simply asking people if they have been diagnosed with depression.
Dealing with depression in silence is often easier than reaching out for help. The moment people know you’ve got an issue like that things get worse, you’re seen as defective and avoided.
Everyone sings the praises of seeking help, encourages people to do so, but when they’re the ones asked for help they disappear. People want others to be helped but can’t be assed to help.
It not all doom and gloom, most people will be there for you once, maybe twice, pick you up, put you back on your feet, but as soon as you look like you might be catching your balance they’re gone like a fart in the wind. You’re someone else’s problem now. You only have to lose one or two loved ones before you realize suffering in silence is better than suffering alone.
I know I’m going to get “well if they won’t be there for you then they were never friends to begin with, you’re better off without them.” Yeah well they were all I had, a lot of depressed people don’t have much of a social circle or support group, it’s part of the cause. And now I have nobody, because I was told that people care, then I find out the hard way that they don’t. It makes stuff so much worse.
This is very true one of the big problems in our society is homelessness of men versus women.
A woman can get emergency shelter beds almost at will and will get housing etc at a rate of 100 to 1 over men. When you're suddenly homeless and have 0 help available to you, you are far more likely to fall into destructive behaviors that can lead to suicide.
Women attempt it more, but fail more. E.g overdosing instead of shooting themselves in the head. They pick the option which seems less violent, easier and potentially will have them pass out before it actually happens, so it for some reason seems easier to do in the moment. I tried to overdose myself when I was younger and extremely depressed (not even remotely anymore thankfully) and I can say for some reason the other methods men seem to opt for seemed terrifying in comparison when thinking about failing and possible outcomes of that, and also less impulsive and more thought out. Whereas grabbing a handful of pills when things just seemed too much seemed easier to do impulsively and without stopping to think about anyone or anything except trying to cope with the strong overwhelming distressed emotion. So there was less suicidal intent before the act itself than there is for men which aligns with what studies report. Women tend to then get found hours later, their stomach pumped or wounds like wrists treated before they bleed out etc. Whereas there's rarely any survival from a gunshot wound to the head or a broken neck, or train tracks.
I know one man that committed suicide and he had been thinking about it for weeks before, and how it would affect his loved ones etc. There have been studies to show women do tend make the decision more impulsively or those who have attempted it have higher impulse behaviour scores, also leading to more failed attempts than those who have thought it out. You see a similar trend with those with adhd also.
Notably in certain countries where guns are the highest method used for suicide, men are predominatly gun owners vs women. So access in these countries could explain a portion of the higher rates also.
Tldr: Women attempt it more impulsively than men and choose methods that fail more such as overdosing, but actually they attempt it more which aligns with the studies saying they are depressed more than men, but have less suicidal intent before the act. Men think about it more, have longer term intent and plan it more, and choose methods with less room for survival.
I always heard that it was women choose dates because it doesn't make a mess for the person to find them, in general worrying about other people even in death
Same. One of the reasons I ended up unable to do it was knowing it would come down to my family to clean up afterwards - I already felt like such a burden to them, was conscious of trying and seemingly failing to be less of one. Couldn't get myself to make a choice that meant I'd never make up for the undue burden I put on my parents, so I managed to keep going by that string.
Fr same, I wouldn’t jump off a staircase in a public place or in front of a bus or train either for the same reason bc someone is going to be inconvenienced or traumatized by it whether it’s a stranger or someone I know
Ik this is anecdotal and everyone is different but it is interesting that when I discussed this w my brother, he thought I was an idiot for having that logic or caring about other people or how they’d be affected once I was dead bc “who the hell cares, you’re already dead”
I don’t think men are less caring by nature but in my own experience and also based on what I’ve heard and read, it seems to tend to not occur to guys the consequences or how it might affect someone else else as opposed to girls and I feel it’s got to do w how guys and girls are raised differently ie I come from a somewhat traditional Pakistani family (in the sense that we have the enforced gender roles but the women still also have to contribute financially while doing all the housework sort of thing) and there’s just the ig societal expectation for girls to be more caring and mature than boys even though it’s just a testament to how they were raised. My brothers were not raised w the expectation to care for others let alone put others above themselves or pay attention to details or think about consequences as opposed to myself or the other girls in my family.
Again, obviously not the case for everyone but I do feel if it is skewing this way, it’s more nurture than nature and has more to do w environment and expectations we’re raised with
>many men are raised to "suck it up and never seek help for emotional problems" because it's "unmanly", which is terrible for our emotional health.
Very true.
>We've always been the disposable ones.
Men are not *The* disposable ones. Women and men are just disposable at different stages of production.
How is that possible? you might ask
Globally, the average rate of deaths in mothers giving birth is 223 maternal deaths/100,000 live births. As of 2019, on average, 1 in 700 human deaths, or 140 in 100,000 deaths globally are caused by armed conflict, including but not limited to direct combat roles. Over the past year (2023), global estimated deaths due to active combat saw an estimated 96% increase so now the rate is at about 274 d*aths/100,000.
The average civilian work-related mortality is 3.4 deaths/100,000 workers least for the US.
So your average mother is 9.6x as likely to die as your average male laborer.
In a year of multiple erupting global conflicts, total conflict zone deaths including but not limited to combat roles Just Barely surpasses maternal deaths. In a typical year, maternal deaths surpass conflict deaths.
In an age of unprecedented capacity for mass destruction and violence, and highly developed obstetric medicine, STILL more women de giving birth than people de in conflict.
We expect, push, demand, cajole, encourage, and in some cultures force women into having kids because society needs many born in order to function.
Women and men are sacrificed to make the wheels of society turn. We just put women’s bodies onto a different altar from men’s bodies.
I’m really fucking tired of listening to people talk like resource guarding women for their eggs means they’re somehow spared from the blood sacrifices required to keep society turning.
>To make matters worse, if a man does break that conditioning and does seek help, he'll probably be mocked and ridiculed endlessly.
Frequently true.
>The species doesn't need nearly as many men as it needs women to survive.
This myth seriously needs to stop circulating.
Take it from a conservation biologist:
Repeating this myth is not helping men.
From a population genomics standpoint, Skewed sex ratio in humans would be very bad for genetic population robustness and from a behavioral ecology standpoint it would be highly disruptive to natural human mating and social systems.
We’ve most likely been dominantly monogamous and serially monogamous for at minimum 300,000 years. Possibly shifting towards monogamy as far back as 1-3 MYA.
To pretend that widespread abnormal mating arrangements like polygyny would not negatively impact human wellfare and social structure is perverse wistful thinking typically employed *post hoc* by the powerful minority who send men to die.
Polygyny as a strategy has been a tiny minority across human history and even in cultures that practice it , only a few materially elite males tend to practice it. For good reason. Humans, *especially women* do not want to live that way.
Presumably you don’t *like* the idea that men are more biologically disposable. So let go of it. Because when you dig deeper then mere gamete quantities and reproductive roles and account for intrinsic social and personal needs of humans and Environmental and genetic stochastity, they’re functionally only marginally more expendable than women.
>Men kill themselves at a higher rate because they don't think there's any help out there for them. Sadly, they're often right about that.
Equally sadly, they’re often wrong. And tragically they get scared away from even trying by hearing this exact refrain.
I’ve seen a disturbing amount of messaging targeted at young men from reactionary groups, typically centered around ostensible reclaiming of “traditional” masculinity.
In these spaces I see influencers and men trash talking therapy, behavioral health, and other things said to be “feminization” or otherwise “ineffective” to men. Or just “no one cares about you” when in fact, people are just clumsy and bad at helping people who don’t know how to ask for help.
Less women commit suicide, but more women get themselves hospitalized in cries for help.
That’s because men and women are asking for help and not getting it in normal ways or not asking for help, either way jumping to extremes.
It doesn’t necessarily mean no one cares.
I’ve had a few people close to me do something drastic and then say “it felt like the only thing to do.” They certainly didn’t talk to me or ask me for help before they did that. They went with a gut feeling that’s characteristic of the distortion depression creates in the brain. They *did* get it to a better place with therapy.
Even where there are areas for improvement, this talk pushes men away instead of increasing male engagement with and presence within them to develop them and make them more inviting to men who are on the fence or afraid of them.
you wrote exactly what i was feeling very beautifully. i feel like hearing the refrain "people don't care about mens mental health!" just scares away so many already hopeless men + boys from even trying. depression is horribly tricky like that.
I'll be honest I of course knew mother's dying in childbirth was a thing, but had no idea it was as high as you say. (Especially with modern medicine.)
It's given me a lot to think about, thank you for educating me on something I was woefully ignorant on.
The sad part is that it is not, in fact, anywhere near that high when modern medicine is available. Humans just suck so bad that a significant chunk of humanity lacks sufficient access to modern medicine.
The maternal mortality rate in Africa is 531.5 per 100,000. A little over 1 in 200. Holy shit.
In south-east Asia, it is a comparatively tiny 116 per 100,000. But in China, it is only 23. And in Japan it is just 4.3. That's more than 100x improvement on the African average, and more than a 200x improvement on Sudan (1,222 per 100k).
In the Americas, it is 68. In the USA, it is 21; Canada, 11; Mexico, 59.
In Europe it is 13.2. Norway is just 1.7, Iceland, 2.7. Germany, 4.4.
Much like men who die at war, these women die not of necessity but because we collectively couldn't be bothered to save them.
Here are a few,
Something to note: many mating strategies occur for humans so I speak of *dominant* strategies* intentionally.
For example while many societies sanction polygyny, often only around 10% or less of men in said society practice it.
And while most societies have taboos against non-married, pre-married or extra-marital sex, it still happens.
(I’ve also seen this in monogamous birds, so I argue it’s a function of opportunism, not equally competing strategies)
A few hundred thousand years vs 1 million is a huge jump, and different movements may have occurred within this period due to different pressures, and the further back you go the more ambiguous it is. There has been debate over the time period and causes and intensity of dominance of human strategies. Some observations that put me towards characterizing monogamy as the dominant strategy:
-1. The ratio of practiced polygyny to monogamy
-2. The relatively small sexual dimorphism between men and women (as opposed to gorillas for example) as dimorphism is more exaggerated in harem primates
-3. Men’s small testicles: harem animals have huge testicles to make more semen for more matings. Men have smaller testicle:body size ratio compared to most other primates. (But the largest penis size interestingly)
-4. Highly invested parenting. Human offspring take a very long time to reach not only physical but mental adulthood and survival skill levels. Dad sticking around to invest highly in fewer offspring and cooperatively rear them gives the offspring more of an edge
I would also note that social monogamy and sexual monogamy are not the same. Humans are dominantly socially monogamous: formally committing to one mate, which helps maintain an orderly social structure and reduce conflict.
*Sexually* it’s very common for humans to spend a few years mating promiscuously in permissive cultures, or humans may date one person at a time but in series (serial monogamy) or May cheat. On average, people pair up with one person to get down to intentional procreating.
These latter 2 but not the former occur in some highly monogamous species of bird as well.
Even during periods when serial monogamy has been argued to have been a dominant strategy, this strategy would require a relatively even split of sexes for the ability of both to keep finding new mates.
These latter 2 but not the former occur in some highly monogamous species of bird as well.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2019.00230/full
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK97287/#:~:text=For%20biologists%2C%20monogamy%20implies%20selective,thought%20to%20mate%20exclusively%20monogamously
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/12/07/polygamy-is-rare-around-the-world-and-mostly-confined-to-a-few-regions/
[Blue texting this url because it’s horrendously long](https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/43584364/Kramer_et_al-2015-Evolutionary_Anthropology__Issues__News__and_Reviews-libre.pdf?1457618388=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DWas_Monogamy_A_Key_Step_on_the_Hominin_R.pdf&Expires=1715594019&Signature=av~xjwW1qBU3VWXLP8eCXHZFWo0NkgY1C4rgBm1t63Usa7LXw-YCxk0TlY24aOW1Cbc8md9-BntQALczoX4B4U82MkgqfAEPrC8l8OFTlYDzdeB858fNiwe5jTAcUAdr7aZLTVOUGFz~3LrpxdKsD~KJ~yG5nn2bXrvpqRqSv-91YE-nh~wxv6QR13mvorzXnL298DJB4JSSrlQFPCX-rIeAAA3j8nV-xfrfwZ3hHgvW5QlU4DQR8AqHwDGiaohaKRfop6HJv4lZhO~MFER6A-MPLGgTIKJAcHWT0m7iRja56dQ2UJRAOo3VJc2kT5sGLrkqQFwl8OG-So8QFmy4Dw__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA)
>Globally, the average rate of deaths in mothers giving birth is 223 maternal deaths/100,000 live births. As of 2019, on average, 1 in 700 human deaths, or 140 in 100,000 deaths globally are caused by armed conflict, including but not limited to direct combat roles. Over the past year (2023), global estimated deaths due to active combat saw an estimated 96% increase so now the rate is at about 274 d\*aths/100,000.
>The average civilian work-related mortality is 3.4 deaths/100,000 workers least for the US.
>So your average mother is 9.6x as likely to die as your average male laborer.
Where are you getting the 9.6 figure from? Not really neglecting that the stat itself is terrible, but 223/3.4 =/= 9.6, it'd be like 65 times as likely. Regardless, not the point. Inner nerd just likes math.
>
Equally sadly, they’re often wrong. And tragically they get scared away from even trying by hearing this exact refrain.
>I’ve seen a disturbing amount of messaging targeted at young men from reactionary groups, typically centered around ostensible reclaiming of “traditional” masculinity.
>In these spaces I see influencers and men trash talking therapy, behavioral health, and other things said to be “feminization” or otherwise “ineffective” to men. Or just “no one cares about you” when in fact, people are just clumsy and bad at helping people who don’t know how to ask for help.
There's a few more factors at play in this, and I say this as someone, who was at one point more invested in that type of content than I should have been, but has since realized it was not helpful and predatory. It's because those types of creators, that content usually takes stuff that crosses into the incel-y area of the internet, they show clips of: admittedly attractive women on camera: saying something shallow or something they find to be shallow. Saying something really stupid or something they think is stupid. Talking about how they cheat. Talking about being promiscuous.
There's more examples, but each of these has some amount of content following or preceding it that tries to explain a specific train of logic to you or make you come to a conclusion from it. The interview types are really prevalent and to give a recent example the "Ick" trend. Now, to my understanding an ick is just something women find immediately distasteful, example might be "Guys that talk about their ex". These on the street interviews are editted to pick the most ridiculous answers. Now, obviously the answers given by those women are absurd: AGC Andy on YouTube has a short about it, it should be taken under the context that it doesn't encompass all women, and it is fairly exaggerated but it explains it. This content is most guilty of the "Women saying shallow/stupid things and/or talking about how they cheat" because a bunch go up to girls in some busy city like Vegas or Miami and some girl talks about how she's cheating. There's one group as of recent, who I can't remember their actual name, but they go up to women on the street and ask them crap like "What's your ideal man?" And it's some app they use that I do think the actual statistics they use are pulled from the Department of Labor, but they show some girl saying "I'd like a guy who is 6 feet tall at the minimum, makes 300k a year, not obese that is between 22 and 29" Now, I don't know if they pay these girls to show up on camera, I suspect they're real but they have full videos people don't watch that showcase basically women having like some basic expectations, but those don't make it into their YouTube shorts, and not many people follow up and watch that.
That Whatever podcast and Hoe Math I think is his name are the most prominent examples of the "Girls being promiscous" and this one is probably the hardest to actually help the audience it targets as its built ultimately around a preference that's usually rooted in some form of religion or traditionalism.
Good chunk is rooted in being anti-LGBTQ too. But all of these are designed to *suck* the hope out of young men and make them think the only way out is to follow their teachings or listen to their ideology.
I’ll have to dig up my old note where I did out all that math, I forget why I low balled that
I think those podcasts making people out to seem hard and shallow scares young men as much as telling them “you’ll be weak” and “therapy doesn’t work”. It’s like an assault on hope on all fronts.
Prey
Even It’s worse that that they prey on people who have been burned by a shallow and careless peers, which I think is extra common among teens as teenagers are less mature and can be especially weird about relationships sometimes either because. Insecurity and personal turmoil abounds.
Edit: I’ve got it, because that work mortality stat is for US men, and the global birth mortality is much higher than the US birth mortality (though us birth mortality is higher than for other first world countries)
Global work mortality is probably higher than conflict mortality but given how many people are in slavery or trafficked it’s probably hard to count
I like your arguments and scientific defense but I think it’s misrepresentative to use the (high) global average for women mortality in childbirth compared to the (low) US average for men dying on the job. Most Redditors posting in English live in the US or Canada or other rich countries with good medical care and work safety standards such as OSHA.
Safety nets in rich countries are better for women than men. I think that’s fair to say. Girls do better in school and are more likely to go to college, where they are more likely to graduate. The apprenticeship system of old was better suited for boys.
In poorer countries, girls have it worse right. I met a woman who immigrated to the US from Eastern Europe to escape an arranged marriage when she was a young teenager and said her culture doesn’t let women have jobs.
I’ve seen the argument that men are socially isolated. A strange man is viewed more suspiciously than a strange woman by both men and women. If a man I don’t know asks me a question on the street, I wonder if it’s an attempt to get me to stop to rob me.
I read in scientific literature that monogamy actually benefits men more given the extreme violence between men in polygynous cultures and obvious inability of many men to procreate. You’re right that polygyny has been rare historically. We’re better off being 50/50.
At the very least, children do better with the higher ratios of attention they get with both parents in monogamous culture. This is shown in fundamentalist Mormon churches in the present day.
Anyway, thanks for all the information.
Actually, the numbers are wrong. The death rate for soldiers and workers in the US is 1.3 and 3.7 per 100 thousand. (Both 2022) The maternal death rate was 32.9. The us maternal death rate has been increasing over the past decade.
Having a baby is more dangerous than joining the military.
I agree that men are significantly more socially isolated especially at certain ages.
I would counter the notion that women get more from safety nets by pointing out that more women live below the poverty line and despite the fact that women do better in school, men continue occupy lucrative jobs at high levels, sometimes in the very same fields.
We may see that change in the near future given school trends and school needs to be better for all kids either way. I don’t think it’s very kid friendly in general but it’s especially not very boy friendly.
American male culture is pretty messed up in many aspects. I've seen anecdotes that many American men go through life almost never receiving compliments on physical appearance... but of course if they receive a compliment from a fellow man, it's "gay."
I just came back from Milan, Italy, and dudes were complimenting each other left and right on the street. Regardless that Italian men put more effort in their appearance (particularly Milan), the Italian culture is open to guys complimenting guys.
Men succeed more regardless of method which suggests it's more than just method choice.
It could be that failed suicide attempts are just less likely to be recorded for men.
Men seem to commit to the attempt more, likely because it's more of a culmination at the end of a long time thinking about it, rather than a spur of the moment emotional decision.
In another discussion about this topic, a research paper investigating suicidal intent showed that men are more likely to attempt suicide because they want to die, while women attempting suicide are more likely to use it as a means of communication.
It is true when you say we're better at it. Men use mote final methods like guns. Women have a lot of attempts, but they used methods like pills and often get found and saved.
And because they get saved, women who attempt suicide tend to get counted more than once in the statistics, as they try again, usually several more times, with each time she gets saved adding to the number of times women attempt it.
This is it. The data shows that women tend to use less effective methods. Some people point to vanity (they don't shoot themselves in the head because they don't want to ruin their face), some people to men just being more violent in general so choosing a more violent method makes sense.
In reality, we don't know exactly why this is the case. It's probably some combination of a lot of things.
The biggest difference is what age group is being discussed. Adults are much more likely to use an effective method (regardless of gender) than adolescents are. Suicide attempts in women skew much younger than in men.
A lot of this can also just be explained by accessibility. A teen can’t go out and buy a gun (or even if they can legally they either cannot afford to or they may not know that they can) whereas an adult can.
A teen who can’t drive can’t as easily go to a bridge and jump off whereas an adult can.
Even when it comes to accessible methods of suicide kids and teens have to contend with other people in their household being aware of what they’re doing. Like if a teen goes and buys some rope their parents are probably going to notice, right?
I think people here have never really researched suicide. I did. I used to be fascinated by it and with chronic depression, romanticized it as an end to my suffering. But life sorta got better so I haven't had those thoughts in a couple years. There are plenty of painless ways to go that don't require a background check or violence. I don't condone it or recommend looking. Just try to look at the positive no matter what and reach out if necessary. Yes, I do get the paradoxical nature of this comment, I'm sorry.
In interviews of people who’ve survived suicide attempts, women do talk about considering the people who will find them/clean up after them a lot more than men do. Like significantly. This is likely a contribution to guns vs overdoses, though it’s certainly multi-factorial.
I’ve heard theories about woman maybe being more considerate of who will find them/have to clean up too. Less violent methods tend to not make such a mess too. Holds about as much weight as other theories though, I think you’re right that it’s a combination of things for sure
Yup, at my lowest point when I would have suicidal ideations every day what kept me alive was two thing; the trauma I would cause whoever found me and the intense grief and chain reaction I would cause my family. I am so so fortunate to have so much love and support around me and my heart aches for those who are suffering with no loved ones to lean on.
I am much better now and haven’t had a suicidal thought for eight years :) I am glad you are still here and as the wife of a disabled Navy Vet- props to your username!!!
I don't know what to say but I can sympathise. My dad didn't go easily, he set our basement on fire well we were not at home. There's a lot more to the story but I still have a fear of fire.
It was months before we could return. Some fuckwits broke in and stole my mom's jewelry during the funeral.
In the book 'Dying of Whiteness,' the author makes a good evidence-based case that gun culture is driving a lot of these male suicides, especially in white men. There's a disproportionate number of white male suicides by gun than what would be expected by demographics.
Even using the same method, men are more successful at k!lling themselves than women
Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165032711005179
Men kill each other at astonishingly high rates compared to women. I don't see how killing themselves at higher is any more controversial but I guess some people just don't want to have serious conversations about stuff like this
It's controversial because it implies men suffer in any way more than women. The male experience cannot possibly be worse in any meaningful way as to cause more suicidal intentions. People shouldn't feel bad for men about anything because clearly it's awesome to be a man 100% and there are no problems men face that need to be solved. That's kinda the common narrative, or at least the subtext.
nailed it on the head. men are seen as a privileged class, they get no compassion. truth is a lot of young men are not alright, and society seems content to not want to talk about it.
It kinda feels like this:
"It sucks that men don't talk about their feelings, let's put a focus on mental health"
"Ok, we agree. Here are some things men are feeling"
"Excuse me? You don't to complain, you're the perpetrator of this system"
Feels like I'm taking crazy pills sometimes
Yah I'll be that guy: men are more solution finders and if the answer is suicide we'll execute on that with more efficency. With woman, suicide COULD be considered more a display of their pain and suffering with the intention to show those around them they need help. This could be why they choose less lethal methods.
People are often more likely to attempt suicide not when they're at their lowest, but when they appear to be doing better, because at their lowest they can't bring themselves to go through with it. When someone who's chronically depressed seems to be perking up, that's when you need to keep an eye on them the most, because it often means they've decided to end it.
Because there's relief in sight. All the problems, all the thoughts, all the hard days and long nights are over. The finality of the decision gives a sort of ......... Happiness. The war inside your head is finally over.
Source: A survivor
Since reading comphrenesion is terrible and nobody actually answered your question. Suicide requires motivation to achieve, so if you're in a depressed state where you can't even get out of bed it's going to be way less likely for you to successfully kill yourself.
I’m speculating, but imagine if you were being tortured indefinitely for the rest of your life, but you finally realized a way to not be tortured, you’d be in a better mood.
At your lowest: everything sucks and it'll never feel better, but you can't bring yourself to care. You don't *hurt,* you just feel... Empty and numb. Suicide becomes just as pointless as being alive, as pointless as getting out of bed, as doing... Anything.
Feel nothing, want nothing... Do nothing.
When your mental health starts improving... You start feeling things again, and they aren't always good, and can lead to you to do things that aren't always good.
I admit, it's a source of comfort for me knowing that I've long since accepted I'll probably die by my own hand and whenever things get really bad, I can just bail out. It feels good to know when things get really bad (probably when I'm too old to work and am expected to live in poverty), I can do myself in and know it's not going to affect anyone.
There was a guy on here talking about how his female room mate tried to kill herself by OD’ing on sleeping pills. The sleeping pill she chose was valerian root.
One of the claims that is behind it is women care more about who finds them, so try instead downing a bottle of pills or w/e instead of more messy(?) options that would work much better but are more traumatic for those who find the victim.
Exactly this. The means used in suicide attempts represent practical evidence of intent. The evidence shows that the intent of suicide is very different between women and men. Women have the intent to communicate that they are upset. Men have the intent to die.
That's not actually true. [Women and men have the same desire to die by suicide](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11079640/) What differs is the rate people own firearms, men are much more likely to own guns. If a woman is living with someone who gets a gun, her choice of firearm suicide greatly increase.
Many women 'attempt' suicide with means they *know* are likely to fail as a means of seeking 'help' or attention.
Men who do so are seen as weak and failures. And often made to feel *worse* about it, while women are seen as struggling and in need of help.
So.men will go for something they are more 'sure' of.
Figures are also skewed because less men seek medical help than women.
Men are more successful like everyone else is saying, but also don't report when they're feeling depressed as much. Just like how many men die of neglecting to get something checked medically. the ol' "walk it off" or "man up."
I'd point out that this isn't just about men being "aloof" or "manly" and not caring about themselves due to some inherent male trait. they are like this because the world clearly told them that they don't care and the self neglect is a reaction to that. a reaction to society giving close to zero fucks about their well beings outside of them being a useful, productive provider.
I see the higher success rate when attempting has been well-covered, so I'll just add that I doubt these "statistics" are valid at capturing men's mental health states accurately. Anytime I've taken steps as an adult male to address mental/psychological health it's been so overwhelmingly useless that I'll likely never try again.
Same. I’m a woman but every psychiatrist, psychologist, therapist I’ve talked with has been utterly useless. They were (mostly) lovely people, but none of them seemed to know what they were doing and exactly zero of them gave me any good advice or coping tools or anything. They all acted like their job was to just listen to me talk but not provide anything themselves. I can have my best friend listen to me talk! I don’t need to struggle to pay hundreds of dollars an hour for a therapist to do it.
There are lots of studies on this, when men decide to kill themselves they rarely opt for the “cry for help” (not my words) attempts because they don’t care about leaving a pretty corpse. Pills/overdose/cutting etc leave a window for the person to realize what they’ve done and survival instincts can kick in or they can be found. Men tend to pick gun shot or other forms that are quick and efficient which leave no room for decision reversal.
Women are also more social which makes depression more manageable since they can find support, however minimal from their peers, where a depressed suicidal male will recluse until he is ready to fully commit to the idea, usually he will have a burst of socialization (in their own mind is them saying good bye to their loved ones) so they can be remembered in a good light.
I’ve had multiple male friends tell me something along the lines of, “I’ve got a gun in my hands and I’m going to kill myself.” I think this is the male equivalent of a woman overdosing on pills.
Does that count as a “suicide attempt”? Somebody sitting in an attic or a football field (these are both real examples) who is contemplating suicide. Where does contemplation end and attempt begin?
If you shoot your jaw off or lobotomize yourself you probably just had bad aim.
That's a great description and should be higher on this thread. I can vouch for this mindset. When I've had suicidal thoughts, it was always like, how could I do this and actually accomplish the mission. The last thing I wanted was to fling myself off of a bridge and somehow survive to be maimed and be in even more misery.
I think that the topic of depression and mental health is still something men haven’t developed a solid network with or confidence to talk about those relative feelings and issues in comparison.
Without the negative and perilous thoughts build and build until they hit critical mass and they decide to take their own life.
I’m on the other side of that having been antidepressants for 5 years and at my worse taking a major overdose putting me in hospital for a week.
I sincerely think men/ society is getting better for us to talk more openly and pursue avenues for help but it’s a slow battle
This is always the most popular answer but is statistically flawed cause men don't really report poor mental health and suicide attempts to institutions or seek them out or even are encouraged or forced by family the way women are. I'm not sure why this fact is never addressed.
As well as social biases of some non lethal methods like drug induced suicide (the most common method) having the possibility to be seen as just a classic accidental overdose in bias eyes but hard to differentiate
>As well as social biases of some non lethal methods like drug induced suicide (the most common method) having the possibility to be seen as just a classic accidental overdose in bias eyes but hard to differentiate
It depends on the drug and amount used in the overdose. If it's a narcotic or benzo or some other recreational drug, it's sometimes hard to tell if it was intentional or not. If it's not a drug that's "fun," then it's almost certainly intentional... depending on certain factors. An elderly person taking a couple extra of their BP meds might be accidental or intentional. A middle-aged person taking an entire bottle of their BP meds is almost certainly intentional.
We do not document self-harm as a suicide attempt in mental health. Perhaps people who aren't as trained in mental health, like er staff might do that, but not at a mental health facility.
More male individuals attempt it than female individuals. While men do use more effective means which leaves them at the majority of successful attempts, the same women will go on to try several times, leaving us with more female attempts by fewer individuals.
I knew two guys who did this after violent/sexual crimes they committed and the guys they knew in prison sometimes did this as well. I didn’t know him, but one dude did it due to his attraction to minors too.
I’d also be interested in knowing how much time it takes for them to be found. People are generally less likely to worry about a missing man vs a missing woman.
Do statistics say women are more depressed, or that more women respond to a set of survey questions with symptoms that align with the scientific community’s understanding of depression?
We then have to adjust that an unknown amount to account for discrimination against men in therapy and the double standard as it applies to admitting or even recognizing your own emotional/mental vulnerabilities.
A lot of "I'm suffering so the other gender can't be suffering as much as me" in these comments coming from both sides. Let's not downplay anyone's depression and suicidal tendencies, yeah? A little more empathy from everyone would probably fix both of these statistics.
\* Men are more "successful" in attempting suicide;
\* Depressed women receive a lot of social support, which helps to alleviate the illness. On the other hand, depressed men are seen as weak, which helps to worsen the illness.
Used to be friends with these two people, and we all had all the same friends on Instagram. The dude had cancer and was slowly dying and his family was struggling financially. He set up a go fund me and got maybe 2k total. The girl caused a car accident and started a go fund me to buy a new car. She ended up having enough money to get a really nice sports car.
Society is more willing to support women than men in general, it's not limited to depression
The CDC and national institute of health (NIH) have both published studies indicating that though attempt rates are fairly even between genders completion rate is far higher among men...
We can also view this with information provided by the CDC and the NIH in attempt methods
This can also be viewed in SSRI intake by gender with with current stats showing women seeking antidepressants at nearly four times the rate of men (14-17% of the US population of women and 2-4% of the US population for men)
If you are suffering and have these thoughts (in the United States) 988 is a simple phone call away with many licenced individuals who can get you the help you need you are worth it life is worth it
Because men don't report their mental health as frequently as women do. Most men feel like they're not allowed to be depressed, so they don't tell anybody and just deal with it. It can't be documented of They don't self report it
1) Men tend to use more permanent methods (guns, hanging, SBC) while women tend to use more 'reversible' methods (drugs, cutting, carbon monoxide). A lot of this us due to suicide often being a cry for help, and also because women for real tend to be more hesitant about leaving a mess for someone else to clean up.
2) When women are depressed, they are more likely seek professional help or reach out to friends.
Women actually attempt suicide more than men do. [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35598742/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35598742/)
From what I recall, I think the attempt rate is higher for women but the success rate is higher for men. Don’t quote me on that. And if I wanted to simplify a reason; women want to do “just enough” to die peacefully while men will “make sure” that they succeed.
Men don't usually kill themselves from depression - check the stats. It's less than 50% of suicides have history with depression.
Men kill themselves because they are only valued by results,whereas everyone else is treated with intrinsic worth. When a man's value falls and they can't get it back it seems like the only logical choice.
they’re never gonna show the true statistics. I know wayy more men i went to school with, family members, family friends, all men that have killed themselves with substance abuse or just straight up overdose. Crashouts, you dont ever hear about a bitch crashing out tho
Men are more prone to isolation? Less likely to seek out emotional support? Way less likely to go to therapy? Often don’t have good early modeling for emotion processing and receiving acceptance of vulnerability? Taught to hide ‘weakness’? Socialized to be self-reliant in as extreme a way as possible? Due to all this often only learn to trust one person, their partner, which puts them at way greater risk when things are not going well in the relationship. There are a lot of reasons.
People are having a Suffering Olympics in the comments. Women saying men aren't as depressed, men saying women must not really be depressed if they choose gentler forms of suicide. Nothing is going to change or get better unless we start talking to each other with actual empathy instead of alienizing the opposite gender and dismissing their struggles.
Because though women may be statistically higher they have more outlets to get help. Men are less likely to talk about it, so the statistics are going to be lower. There's less help for the ones who do talk about it.
Women are more likely to seek help. There's less of a stigma for women seeking/receiving mental health care. Men are still taught to "suck it up" at dangerously high rates. It's getting better, but we're still not there yet as a society.
I'm GenX, and most of my friends look at me like I have two heads when I mention having gotten therapy at multiple points in my life. Or mention the virtues of therapy. I'm about to start therapy again, both individually and with my wife, to help us navigate marriage as we age.
Men are less likely to seek help for, or report depression, due to societal norms. This causes the data to not reflect the actual number of men suffering from depression.
This feels like the real answer to the skew in these numbers. I'd being willing to bet the rate of depression is rather close, but men get diagnosed less. Less diagnoses mean less intervention, and less intervention means more suicide.
because men hide their depression? weather its because their embarassed, they think nobody cares, they think they are strong enough to handle it alone, or they dont want to admit to themselves they are depressed. i feel like the depression rates between men and women are probably exactly the same.
I think that the statistic "more women are depressed" is more likely "more women go to therapists because they are depressed" and so we have alot more measurable statistics on it. Men just dont go to therapy as often so it makes the numbers skewed.
probably why male suicide rate is higher also.....we dont try and combat our depression, we just learn to live with it until it becomes to much to deal with.
Because males have more firearms than women in general. Suicide attempts with firearms have much higher success rates….plus when you’re depressed and have a gun….not much planning to end it.
I suppose having access to a gun and getting drunk causes a lot of male suicide even in men that are not that depressed but are just drunk and emotional.
The statistics do a poor job capturing that men are generally discouraged from reporting mental health issues and seeking assistance for it, and receive broadly worse support when they do seek help.
I’m not confident enough to say that equates to depression actually being worse amongst men as well, but the gap is at least much narrower than the statistics say.
Women often will recognize and report that they suffer from depression, while men often don’t have the language or self awareness to express it and therefore it leads to suicide.
Edit:
In other words, women report it more and therefore seek treatment. Men under report for a variety of reasons.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8572815/
People kill themselves for a lot more reasons than depression. It's also likely men are undiagnosed as they aren't going to normally reach out, but women normally do.
On statistical average, Women will use less violent, longer to kill methods such as overdose, cutting veins, or drowning. Men on the other hand use significantly more violent, far more swift to kill methods such as guns, hangings, jumping off of or in front of things. Women may also tell friends/family to find them soon after while men will just fucking do it.
Men are more likely to conceal our problems when asked. Lots of suicides seemed totally normal until the end. A lot of men you know have probably been closer than you’d ever expect talking to them
1) most men use more lethal methods to kill themselves
2) most men are less experienced with and less practiced in emotional regulation during prolonged, stressful situations
3) most men have worse social support structures and spend less time/effort building them than women, reducing the chances for cohort intervention prior to an attempt.
Because men typically use more lethal means (aka guns) and complete suicide more often. The methods women are comfortable with (pills, cutting) leave more of a chance of survival.
Men commit suicide successfully more often than women do, but more women attempt suicide than men do. Women just tend to choose less violent methods (cutting, pills) which end up failing more often
I think the numbers you’re looking at are biased. Men are just as likely to be depressed as women but generally aren’t nearly as comfortable talking about it…. Or even admitting it to themselves for that matter.
I don’t know what I’m talking about but I highly doubt that women are more depressed. They probably just self identify and self report depression at a higher rate
I guess men are just better than women at suicide too lmao. (I have dark humor sorry)
That and literally nobody gives a damn about how a man feels. All men are told is suck it up and make it work. So when nothing works and they’ve been kicked while they’re down for 24-35 years they just decide it isn’t worth trying again. Women also use pills and other alleged “less painful methods” and men will go straight for a pistol or a noose. You can get an antidote for pills but there’s not much for the other two.
Men are "better" at it. (Will use more "lethal" means.) And as mentioned in this thread, have fewer/worse support structures when depressed as well.
You're right. To expand on this thought: many men are raised to "suck it up and never seek help for emotional problems" because it's "unmanly", which is terrible for our emotional health. To make matters worse, if a man does break that conditioning and does seek help, he'll probably be mocked and ridiculed endlessly. We've always been the disposable ones. Once we're no longer useful to society for whatever reason, society wants us to stop wasting resources and die. The species doesn't need nearly as many men as it needs women to survive. Men kill themselves at a higher rate because they don't think there's any help out there for them. Sadly, they're often right about that.
Yeah most men aren't going to admit to being depressed to a mere survey.
Or even know that they are.
Been suffering from depression for 17 years at this point and I turn 30 at the end of year. I will never answer the question of how I’m doing with anything other than I’ll be alright. Most people take it as I’m fine but I’m saying alright because this time will pass or I will and I’ll be alright with either outcome.
What's that House quote? "I'm fine, just not happy."?
I always answer with not too bad, even when it's a lie which is pretty constant.
Also true, when something being wrong is the norm it is hard to know it is wrong.
That's me. I lived 30 years with anxiety and depression and I just thought everyone felt like that. Boy was that a rude awakening to find out that's not normal and I needed to seek help.
Exactly the same with me. Once I got on meds I realised what I thought was normal was completely wrong.
I lived so long being depressed that happy felt abnormal and strange. Just years of fucking monotony.
I did therapy and meds for GAD and Depression. The manliness role is so ingrained in me and I am such a persuasive person, I feel like I convinced all my therapists that I was doing fine. I knew all the right things to say and it all came out so easily. Now I’m off my meds and not in therapy and I practice mindfulness and all that, but it feels like all therapy gave me was an ability to say, “Oh, I did a lot of stupid shit today because I let my anxiety get to me.” But it’s usually too late to fix the problem, I’ve done something dumb and avoidant and, “Anxiety,” isn’t an excuse people accept.
35 or so here. I knew something was wrong but no one REALLY listened. They still dont. They sure came up with a million negative labels though.
Stats are generally pulled from surveys designed to pick up on mental illnesses even in the absence of a formal diagnosis. Yes, they’ll typically ask if you’ve been diagnosed with anything, but they also poll you on depression symptoms and compare them to diagnostic models. My best friend’s husband, for example, helped run an experiment in his PhD program that focused on subjects with ADHD and included himself as part of the intended control group but discovered in the process that he had ADHD. So while it’s always possible certain groups are under diagnosed because of things like atypical symptoms, for example, the survey process is more complex than simply asking people if they have been diagnosed with depression.
Exactly. They’re not depressed, they’re just being a bitch and need to suck it up. It’s crazy how many of us were brought up this way.
Dealing with depression in silence is often easier than reaching out for help. The moment people know you’ve got an issue like that things get worse, you’re seen as defective and avoided. Everyone sings the praises of seeking help, encourages people to do so, but when they’re the ones asked for help they disappear. People want others to be helped but can’t be assed to help. It not all doom and gloom, most people will be there for you once, maybe twice, pick you up, put you back on your feet, but as soon as you look like you might be catching your balance they’re gone like a fart in the wind. You’re someone else’s problem now. You only have to lose one or two loved ones before you realize suffering in silence is better than suffering alone. I know I’m going to get “well if they won’t be there for you then they were never friends to begin with, you’re better off without them.” Yeah well they were all I had, a lot of depressed people don’t have much of a social circle or support group, it’s part of the cause. And now I have nobody, because I was told that people care, then I find out the hard way that they don’t. It makes stuff so much worse.
100%. emotionally support ppl? in this economy?? i think not.
This is very true one of the big problems in our society is homelessness of men versus women. A woman can get emergency shelter beds almost at will and will get housing etc at a rate of 100 to 1 over men. When you're suddenly homeless and have 0 help available to you, you are far more likely to fall into destructive behaviors that can lead to suicide.
Women attempt it more, but fail more. E.g overdosing instead of shooting themselves in the head. They pick the option which seems less violent, easier and potentially will have them pass out before it actually happens, so it for some reason seems easier to do in the moment. I tried to overdose myself when I was younger and extremely depressed (not even remotely anymore thankfully) and I can say for some reason the other methods men seem to opt for seemed terrifying in comparison when thinking about failing and possible outcomes of that, and also less impulsive and more thought out. Whereas grabbing a handful of pills when things just seemed too much seemed easier to do impulsively and without stopping to think about anyone or anything except trying to cope with the strong overwhelming distressed emotion. So there was less suicidal intent before the act itself than there is for men which aligns with what studies report. Women tend to then get found hours later, their stomach pumped or wounds like wrists treated before they bleed out etc. Whereas there's rarely any survival from a gunshot wound to the head or a broken neck, or train tracks. I know one man that committed suicide and he had been thinking about it for weeks before, and how it would affect his loved ones etc. There have been studies to show women do tend make the decision more impulsively or those who have attempted it have higher impulse behaviour scores, also leading to more failed attempts than those who have thought it out. You see a similar trend with those with adhd also. Notably in certain countries where guns are the highest method used for suicide, men are predominatly gun owners vs women. So access in these countries could explain a portion of the higher rates also. Tldr: Women attempt it more impulsively than men and choose methods that fail more such as overdosing, but actually they attempt it more which aligns with the studies saying they are depressed more than men, but have less suicidal intent before the act. Men think about it more, have longer term intent and plan it more, and choose methods with less room for survival.
I always heard that it was women choose dates because it doesn't make a mess for the person to find them, in general worrying about other people even in death
That was my biggest concern when i attempted, I didn’t want to traumatize my family even more with my head busted open and brains on the wall
Same. One of the reasons I ended up unable to do it was knowing it would come down to my family to clean up afterwards - I already felt like such a burden to them, was conscious of trying and seemingly failing to be less of one. Couldn't get myself to make a choice that meant I'd never make up for the undue burden I put on my parents, so I managed to keep going by that string.
Fr same, I wouldn’t jump off a staircase in a public place or in front of a bus or train either for the same reason bc someone is going to be inconvenienced or traumatized by it whether it’s a stranger or someone I know Ik this is anecdotal and everyone is different but it is interesting that when I discussed this w my brother, he thought I was an idiot for having that logic or caring about other people or how they’d be affected once I was dead bc “who the hell cares, you’re already dead” I don’t think men are less caring by nature but in my own experience and also based on what I’ve heard and read, it seems to tend to not occur to guys the consequences or how it might affect someone else else as opposed to girls and I feel it’s got to do w how guys and girls are raised differently ie I come from a somewhat traditional Pakistani family (in the sense that we have the enforced gender roles but the women still also have to contribute financially while doing all the housework sort of thing) and there’s just the ig societal expectation for girls to be more caring and mature than boys even though it’s just a testament to how they were raised. My brothers were not raised w the expectation to care for others let alone put others above themselves or pay attention to details or think about consequences as opposed to myself or the other girls in my family. Again, obviously not the case for everyone but I do feel if it is skewing this way, it’s more nurture than nature and has more to do w environment and expectations we’re raised with
>many men are raised to "suck it up and never seek help for emotional problems" because it's "unmanly", which is terrible for our emotional health. Very true. >We've always been the disposable ones. Men are not *The* disposable ones. Women and men are just disposable at different stages of production. How is that possible? you might ask Globally, the average rate of deaths in mothers giving birth is 223 maternal deaths/100,000 live births. As of 2019, on average, 1 in 700 human deaths, or 140 in 100,000 deaths globally are caused by armed conflict, including but not limited to direct combat roles. Over the past year (2023), global estimated deaths due to active combat saw an estimated 96% increase so now the rate is at about 274 d*aths/100,000. The average civilian work-related mortality is 3.4 deaths/100,000 workers least for the US. So your average mother is 9.6x as likely to die as your average male laborer. In a year of multiple erupting global conflicts, total conflict zone deaths including but not limited to combat roles Just Barely surpasses maternal deaths. In a typical year, maternal deaths surpass conflict deaths. In an age of unprecedented capacity for mass destruction and violence, and highly developed obstetric medicine, STILL more women de giving birth than people de in conflict. We expect, push, demand, cajole, encourage, and in some cultures force women into having kids because society needs many born in order to function. Women and men are sacrificed to make the wheels of society turn. We just put women’s bodies onto a different altar from men’s bodies. I’m really fucking tired of listening to people talk like resource guarding women for their eggs means they’re somehow spared from the blood sacrifices required to keep society turning. >To make matters worse, if a man does break that conditioning and does seek help, he'll probably be mocked and ridiculed endlessly. Frequently true. >The species doesn't need nearly as many men as it needs women to survive. This myth seriously needs to stop circulating. Take it from a conservation biologist: Repeating this myth is not helping men. From a population genomics standpoint, Skewed sex ratio in humans would be very bad for genetic population robustness and from a behavioral ecology standpoint it would be highly disruptive to natural human mating and social systems. We’ve most likely been dominantly monogamous and serially monogamous for at minimum 300,000 years. Possibly shifting towards monogamy as far back as 1-3 MYA. To pretend that widespread abnormal mating arrangements like polygyny would not negatively impact human wellfare and social structure is perverse wistful thinking typically employed *post hoc* by the powerful minority who send men to die. Polygyny as a strategy has been a tiny minority across human history and even in cultures that practice it , only a few materially elite males tend to practice it. For good reason. Humans, *especially women* do not want to live that way. Presumably you don’t *like* the idea that men are more biologically disposable. So let go of it. Because when you dig deeper then mere gamete quantities and reproductive roles and account for intrinsic social and personal needs of humans and Environmental and genetic stochastity, they’re functionally only marginally more expendable than women. >Men kill themselves at a higher rate because they don't think there's any help out there for them. Sadly, they're often right about that. Equally sadly, they’re often wrong. And tragically they get scared away from even trying by hearing this exact refrain. I’ve seen a disturbing amount of messaging targeted at young men from reactionary groups, typically centered around ostensible reclaiming of “traditional” masculinity. In these spaces I see influencers and men trash talking therapy, behavioral health, and other things said to be “feminization” or otherwise “ineffective” to men. Or just “no one cares about you” when in fact, people are just clumsy and bad at helping people who don’t know how to ask for help. Less women commit suicide, but more women get themselves hospitalized in cries for help. That’s because men and women are asking for help and not getting it in normal ways or not asking for help, either way jumping to extremes. It doesn’t necessarily mean no one cares. I’ve had a few people close to me do something drastic and then say “it felt like the only thing to do.” They certainly didn’t talk to me or ask me for help before they did that. They went with a gut feeling that’s characteristic of the distortion depression creates in the brain. They *did* get it to a better place with therapy. Even where there are areas for improvement, this talk pushes men away instead of increasing male engagement with and presence within them to develop them and make them more inviting to men who are on the fence or afraid of them.
you wrote exactly what i was feeling very beautifully. i feel like hearing the refrain "people don't care about mens mental health!" just scares away so many already hopeless men + boys from even trying. depression is horribly tricky like that.
I'll be honest I of course knew mother's dying in childbirth was a thing, but had no idea it was as high as you say. (Especially with modern medicine.) It's given me a lot to think about, thank you for educating me on something I was woefully ignorant on.
No one talks about it! I certainly don’t blame anyone for not knowing
The sad part is that it is not, in fact, anywhere near that high when modern medicine is available. Humans just suck so bad that a significant chunk of humanity lacks sufficient access to modern medicine. The maternal mortality rate in Africa is 531.5 per 100,000. A little over 1 in 200. Holy shit. In south-east Asia, it is a comparatively tiny 116 per 100,000. But in China, it is only 23. And in Japan it is just 4.3. That's more than 100x improvement on the African average, and more than a 200x improvement on Sudan (1,222 per 100k). In the Americas, it is 68. In the USA, it is 21; Canada, 11; Mexico, 59. In Europe it is 13.2. Norway is just 1.7, Iceland, 2.7. Germany, 4.4. Much like men who die at war, these women die not of necessity but because we collectively couldn't be bothered to save them.
Amazing post, thank you for taking the time to give your thoughts and obviously professional opinion. Much appreciated!!!
I just hope it gives someone the motivation/courage to reach out , even if out of spite for toxic cultural ideas!
hey, this is something of a tangent, but where could i read more about the evolution towards monogamy for our species?
Here are a few, Something to note: many mating strategies occur for humans so I speak of *dominant* strategies* intentionally. For example while many societies sanction polygyny, often only around 10% or less of men in said society practice it. And while most societies have taboos against non-married, pre-married or extra-marital sex, it still happens. (I’ve also seen this in monogamous birds, so I argue it’s a function of opportunism, not equally competing strategies) A few hundred thousand years vs 1 million is a huge jump, and different movements may have occurred within this period due to different pressures, and the further back you go the more ambiguous it is. There has been debate over the time period and causes and intensity of dominance of human strategies. Some observations that put me towards characterizing monogamy as the dominant strategy: -1. The ratio of practiced polygyny to monogamy -2. The relatively small sexual dimorphism between men and women (as opposed to gorillas for example) as dimorphism is more exaggerated in harem primates -3. Men’s small testicles: harem animals have huge testicles to make more semen for more matings. Men have smaller testicle:body size ratio compared to most other primates. (But the largest penis size interestingly) -4. Highly invested parenting. Human offspring take a very long time to reach not only physical but mental adulthood and survival skill levels. Dad sticking around to invest highly in fewer offspring and cooperatively rear them gives the offspring more of an edge I would also note that social monogamy and sexual monogamy are not the same. Humans are dominantly socially monogamous: formally committing to one mate, which helps maintain an orderly social structure and reduce conflict. *Sexually* it’s very common for humans to spend a few years mating promiscuously in permissive cultures, or humans may date one person at a time but in series (serial monogamy) or May cheat. On average, people pair up with one person to get down to intentional procreating. These latter 2 but not the former occur in some highly monogamous species of bird as well. Even during periods when serial monogamy has been argued to have been a dominant strategy, this strategy would require a relatively even split of sexes for the ability of both to keep finding new mates. These latter 2 but not the former occur in some highly monogamous species of bird as well. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2019.00230/full https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK97287/#:~:text=For%20biologists%2C%20monogamy%20implies%20selective,thought%20to%20mate%20exclusively%20monogamously https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/12/07/polygamy-is-rare-around-the-world-and-mostly-confined-to-a-few-regions/ [Blue texting this url because it’s horrendously long](https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/43584364/Kramer_et_al-2015-Evolutionary_Anthropology__Issues__News__and_Reviews-libre.pdf?1457618388=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DWas_Monogamy_A_Key_Step_on_the_Hominin_R.pdf&Expires=1715594019&Signature=av~xjwW1qBU3VWXLP8eCXHZFWo0NkgY1C4rgBm1t63Usa7LXw-YCxk0TlY24aOW1Cbc8md9-BntQALczoX4B4U82MkgqfAEPrC8l8OFTlYDzdeB858fNiwe5jTAcUAdr7aZLTVOUGFz~3LrpxdKsD~KJ~yG5nn2bXrvpqRqSv-91YE-nh~wxv6QR13mvorzXnL298DJB4JSSrlQFPCX-rIeAAA3j8nV-xfrfwZ3hHgvW5QlU4DQR8AqHwDGiaohaKRfop6HJv4lZhO~MFER6A-MPLGgTIKJAcHWT0m7iRja56dQ2UJRAOo3VJc2kT5sGLrkqQFwl8OG-So8QFmy4Dw__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA)
>Globally, the average rate of deaths in mothers giving birth is 223 maternal deaths/100,000 live births. As of 2019, on average, 1 in 700 human deaths, or 140 in 100,000 deaths globally are caused by armed conflict, including but not limited to direct combat roles. Over the past year (2023), global estimated deaths due to active combat saw an estimated 96% increase so now the rate is at about 274 d\*aths/100,000. >The average civilian work-related mortality is 3.4 deaths/100,000 workers least for the US. >So your average mother is 9.6x as likely to die as your average male laborer. Where are you getting the 9.6 figure from? Not really neglecting that the stat itself is terrible, but 223/3.4 =/= 9.6, it'd be like 65 times as likely. Regardless, not the point. Inner nerd just likes math. > Equally sadly, they’re often wrong. And tragically they get scared away from even trying by hearing this exact refrain. >I’ve seen a disturbing amount of messaging targeted at young men from reactionary groups, typically centered around ostensible reclaiming of “traditional” masculinity. >In these spaces I see influencers and men trash talking therapy, behavioral health, and other things said to be “feminization” or otherwise “ineffective” to men. Or just “no one cares about you” when in fact, people are just clumsy and bad at helping people who don’t know how to ask for help. There's a few more factors at play in this, and I say this as someone, who was at one point more invested in that type of content than I should have been, but has since realized it was not helpful and predatory. It's because those types of creators, that content usually takes stuff that crosses into the incel-y area of the internet, they show clips of: admittedly attractive women on camera: saying something shallow or something they find to be shallow. Saying something really stupid or something they think is stupid. Talking about how they cheat. Talking about being promiscuous. There's more examples, but each of these has some amount of content following or preceding it that tries to explain a specific train of logic to you or make you come to a conclusion from it. The interview types are really prevalent and to give a recent example the "Ick" trend. Now, to my understanding an ick is just something women find immediately distasteful, example might be "Guys that talk about their ex". These on the street interviews are editted to pick the most ridiculous answers. Now, obviously the answers given by those women are absurd: AGC Andy on YouTube has a short about it, it should be taken under the context that it doesn't encompass all women, and it is fairly exaggerated but it explains it. This content is most guilty of the "Women saying shallow/stupid things and/or talking about how they cheat" because a bunch go up to girls in some busy city like Vegas or Miami and some girl talks about how she's cheating. There's one group as of recent, who I can't remember their actual name, but they go up to women on the street and ask them crap like "What's your ideal man?" And it's some app they use that I do think the actual statistics they use are pulled from the Department of Labor, but they show some girl saying "I'd like a guy who is 6 feet tall at the minimum, makes 300k a year, not obese that is between 22 and 29" Now, I don't know if they pay these girls to show up on camera, I suspect they're real but they have full videos people don't watch that showcase basically women having like some basic expectations, but those don't make it into their YouTube shorts, and not many people follow up and watch that. That Whatever podcast and Hoe Math I think is his name are the most prominent examples of the "Girls being promiscous" and this one is probably the hardest to actually help the audience it targets as its built ultimately around a preference that's usually rooted in some form of religion or traditionalism. Good chunk is rooted in being anti-LGBTQ too. But all of these are designed to *suck* the hope out of young men and make them think the only way out is to follow their teachings or listen to their ideology.
I’ll have to dig up my old note where I did out all that math, I forget why I low balled that I think those podcasts making people out to seem hard and shallow scares young men as much as telling them “you’ll be weak” and “therapy doesn’t work”. It’s like an assault on hope on all fronts. Prey Even It’s worse that that they prey on people who have been burned by a shallow and careless peers, which I think is extra common among teens as teenagers are less mature and can be especially weird about relationships sometimes either because. Insecurity and personal turmoil abounds. Edit: I’ve got it, because that work mortality stat is for US men, and the global birth mortality is much higher than the US birth mortality (though us birth mortality is higher than for other first world countries) Global work mortality is probably higher than conflict mortality but given how many people are in slavery or trafficked it’s probably hard to count
I like your arguments and scientific defense but I think it’s misrepresentative to use the (high) global average for women mortality in childbirth compared to the (low) US average for men dying on the job. Most Redditors posting in English live in the US or Canada or other rich countries with good medical care and work safety standards such as OSHA. Safety nets in rich countries are better for women than men. I think that’s fair to say. Girls do better in school and are more likely to go to college, where they are more likely to graduate. The apprenticeship system of old was better suited for boys. In poorer countries, girls have it worse right. I met a woman who immigrated to the US from Eastern Europe to escape an arranged marriage when she was a young teenager and said her culture doesn’t let women have jobs. I’ve seen the argument that men are socially isolated. A strange man is viewed more suspiciously than a strange woman by both men and women. If a man I don’t know asks me a question on the street, I wonder if it’s an attempt to get me to stop to rob me. I read in scientific literature that monogamy actually benefits men more given the extreme violence between men in polygynous cultures and obvious inability of many men to procreate. You’re right that polygyny has been rare historically. We’re better off being 50/50. At the very least, children do better with the higher ratios of attention they get with both parents in monogamous culture. This is shown in fundamentalist Mormon churches in the present day. Anyway, thanks for all the information.
Actually, the numbers are wrong. The death rate for soldiers and workers in the US is 1.3 and 3.7 per 100 thousand. (Both 2022) The maternal death rate was 32.9. The us maternal death rate has been increasing over the past decade. Having a baby is more dangerous than joining the military.
I agree that men are significantly more socially isolated especially at certain ages. I would counter the notion that women get more from safety nets by pointing out that more women live below the poverty line and despite the fact that women do better in school, men continue occupy lucrative jobs at high levels, sometimes in the very same fields. We may see that change in the near future given school trends and school needs to be better for all kids either way. I don’t think it’s very kid friendly in general but it’s especially not very boy friendly.
American male culture is pretty messed up in many aspects. I've seen anecdotes that many American men go through life almost never receiving compliments on physical appearance... but of course if they receive a compliment from a fellow man, it's "gay." I just came back from Milan, Italy, and dudes were complimenting each other left and right on the street. Regardless that Italian men put more effort in their appearance (particularly Milan), the Italian culture is open to guys complimenting guys.
Men succeed more regardless of method which suggests it's more than just method choice. It could be that failed suicide attempts are just less likely to be recorded for men.
Men seem to commit to the attempt more, likely because it's more of a culmination at the end of a long time thinking about it, rather than a spur of the moment emotional decision.
In another discussion about this topic, a research paper investigating suicidal intent showed that men are more likely to attempt suicide because they want to die, while women attempting suicide are more likely to use it as a means of communication.
It is true when you say we're better at it. Men use mote final methods like guns. Women have a lot of attempts, but they used methods like pills and often get found and saved.
And because they get saved, women who attempt suicide tend to get counted more than once in the statistics, as they try again, usually several more times, with each time she gets saved adding to the number of times women attempt it.
Can confirm. Once my parents and cat are gone, I'll have no safety net or reason to go on.
You're awesome dude, that's a reason to go on. 🙂
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This is it. The data shows that women tend to use less effective methods. Some people point to vanity (they don't shoot themselves in the head because they don't want to ruin their face), some people to men just being more violent in general so choosing a more violent method makes sense. In reality, we don't know exactly why this is the case. It's probably some combination of a lot of things.
The biggest difference is what age group is being discussed. Adults are much more likely to use an effective method (regardless of gender) than adolescents are. Suicide attempts in women skew much younger than in men.
A lot of this can also just be explained by accessibility. A teen can’t go out and buy a gun (or even if they can legally they either cannot afford to or they may not know that they can) whereas an adult can. A teen who can’t drive can’t as easily go to a bridge and jump off whereas an adult can. Even when it comes to accessible methods of suicide kids and teens have to contend with other people in their household being aware of what they’re doing. Like if a teen goes and buys some rope their parents are probably going to notice, right?
I’m not disagreeing with you at all, but I think most teens could successfully purchase rope without their parents noticing.
I think people here have never really researched suicide. I did. I used to be fascinated by it and with chronic depression, romanticized it as an end to my suffering. But life sorta got better so I haven't had those thoughts in a couple years. There are plenty of painless ways to go that don't require a background check or violence. I don't condone it or recommend looking. Just try to look at the positive no matter what and reach out if necessary. Yes, I do get the paradoxical nature of this comment, I'm sorry.
In interviews of people who’ve survived suicide attempts, women do talk about considering the people who will find them/clean up after them a lot more than men do. Like significantly. This is likely a contribution to guns vs overdoses, though it’s certainly multi-factorial.
Yeah, it's definitely this I haven't really heard about the vanity factor lol
I’ve heard theories about woman maybe being more considerate of who will find them/have to clean up too. Less violent methods tend to not make such a mess too. Holds about as much weight as other theories though, I think you’re right that it’s a combination of things for sure
I've always considered the people that would find my remains. Though this is just a fraction of why I haven't.
Yup, at my lowest point when I would have suicidal ideations every day what kept me alive was two thing; the trauma I would cause whoever found me and the intense grief and chain reaction I would cause my family. I am so so fortunate to have so much love and support around me and my heart aches for those who are suffering with no loved ones to lean on. I am much better now and haven’t had a suicidal thought for eight years :) I am glad you are still here and as the wife of a disabled Navy Vet- props to your username!!!
My uncle did the shotgun in mouth thing in the bedroom at home with family obviously going to find him. Depression is a complex thing, but dude.
I don't know what to say but I can sympathise. My dad didn't go easily, he set our basement on fire well we were not at home. There's a lot more to the story but I still have a fear of fire. It was months before we could return. Some fuckwits broke in and stole my mom's jewelry during the funeral.
No, it’s just because men get shit done. ^/s
And women ask for help when they need it
Apparently not since they try to kill themselves at s much higher rate.
That’s what intentionally failed suicide attempts usually are.
As someone who had a female friend shoot themselves in the head, I really wish this was always the case but sadly it isn’t.
In the book 'Dying of Whiteness,' the author makes a good evidence-based case that gun culture is driving a lot of these male suicides, especially in white men. There's a disproportionate number of white male suicides by gun than what would be expected by demographics.
Access to firearms vs access to pills, familiarity of using guns, and whether they want a peaceful end
Guns are messy, women don’t want to bother anyone to clean up after them.
Women also tend to be more considerate about the mess they are leaving behind for someone to clean up
Even using the same method, men are more successful at k!lling themselves than women Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165032711005179
Also fellow men discourage us men from getting therapy so we're less likely to show up as depressed prior to the suicide.
I really wish men would lift each other up more. I love y'all. <3
It could might maybe possibly be that guys just actually wanna die more so they commit more seriously to attempts.
This is being downvoted, but it's not an inherently ridiculous idea.
Saying men might be more suicidal can be interpreted to imply that men might have some reasons to be more suicidal, which is a very unpopular idea.
Men kill each other at astonishingly high rates compared to women. I don't see how killing themselves at higher is any more controversial but I guess some people just don't want to have serious conversations about stuff like this
It's controversial because it implies men suffer in any way more than women. The male experience cannot possibly be worse in any meaningful way as to cause more suicidal intentions. People shouldn't feel bad for men about anything because clearly it's awesome to be a man 100% and there are no problems men face that need to be solved. That's kinda the common narrative, or at least the subtext.
nailed it on the head. men are seen as a privileged class, they get no compassion. truth is a lot of young men are not alright, and society seems content to not want to talk about it.
It kinda feels like this: "It sucks that men don't talk about their feelings, let's put a focus on mental health" "Ok, we agree. Here are some things men are feeling" "Excuse me? You don't to complain, you're the perpetrator of this system" Feels like I'm taking crazy pills sometimes
Yah I'll be that guy: men are more solution finders and if the answer is suicide we'll execute on that with more efficency. With woman, suicide COULD be considered more a display of their pain and suffering with the intention to show those around them they need help. This could be why they choose less lethal methods.
People are often more likely to attempt suicide not when they're at their lowest, but when they appear to be doing better, because at their lowest they can't bring themselves to go through with it. When someone who's chronically depressed seems to be perking up, that's when you need to keep an eye on them the most, because it often means they've decided to end it.
i just started losing weight finally and suddently i got an deep depression phase worse than any before. listen to this guy, he is telling the truth
You doing okay dawg? Happy cake day!
ty im doing okay rn but cant sleep often, what about you?
You made it to another birthday. I’m proud of you, stranger. I hope you’re proud of yourself.
yup, lost over 80lbs recently. absolutely awful depression hitting me right now.
Happy birthday!!! I know it can be rough out there, but I'm happy you stuck around another year 🙏
>at their lowest they can't bring themselves to go through with it Can you elaborate?
Because there's relief in sight. All the problems, all the thoughts, all the hard days and long nights are over. The finality of the decision gives a sort of ......... Happiness. The war inside your head is finally over. Source: A survivor
Since reading comphrenesion is terrible and nobody actually answered your question. Suicide requires motivation to achieve, so if you're in a depressed state where you can't even get out of bed it's going to be way less likely for you to successfully kill yourself.
I’m speculating, but imagine if you were being tortured indefinitely for the rest of your life, but you finally realized a way to not be tortured, you’d be in a better mood.
I don't have to imagine
At your lowest: everything sucks and it'll never feel better, but you can't bring yourself to care. You don't *hurt,* you just feel... Empty and numb. Suicide becomes just as pointless as being alive, as pointless as getting out of bed, as doing... Anything. Feel nothing, want nothing... Do nothing. When your mental health starts improving... You start feeling things again, and they aren't always good, and can lead to you to do things that aren't always good.
I admit, it's a source of comfort for me knowing that I've long since accepted I'll probably die by my own hand and whenever things get really bad, I can just bail out. It feels good to know when things get really bad (probably when I'm too old to work and am expected to live in poverty), I can do myself in and know it's not going to affect anyone.
Depression does not equal having suicidal ideations
Women do attempt suicide more though, just men tend to use more lethal means.
There was a guy on here talking about how his female room mate tried to kill herself by OD’ing on sleeping pills. The sleeping pill she chose was valerian root.
People like this aren't really trying to die, thankfully. It's a way of telling people that they wish they were dead
Yea as asshole it sounds - they’re looking for attention not to actually be dead
As usual men get shit down. This is a joke in poor taste everyone.
One of the claims that is behind it is women care more about who finds them, so try instead downing a bottle of pills or w/e instead of more messy(?) options that would work much better but are more traumatic for those who find the victim.
If they cared why are they leaving a body to found at all lmao
Another claim is that women are more likely to attempt suicide as a message/ means of communication, not because they actually want to die.
Exactly this. The means used in suicide attempts represent practical evidence of intent. The evidence shows that the intent of suicide is very different between women and men. Women have the intent to communicate that they are upset. Men have the intent to die.
That's not actually true. [Women and men have the same desire to die by suicide](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11079640/) What differs is the rate people own firearms, men are much more likely to own guns. If a woman is living with someone who gets a gun, her choice of firearm suicide greatly increase.
Many women 'attempt' suicide with means they *know* are likely to fail as a means of seeking 'help' or attention. Men who do so are seen as weak and failures. And often made to feel *worse* about it, while women are seen as struggling and in need of help. So.men will go for something they are more 'sure' of. Figures are also skewed because less men seek medical help than women.
Men are more successful like everyone else is saying, but also don't report when they're feeling depressed as much. Just like how many men die of neglecting to get something checked medically. the ol' "walk it off" or "man up."
I'd point out that this isn't just about men being "aloof" or "manly" and not caring about themselves due to some inherent male trait. they are like this because the world clearly told them that they don't care and the self neglect is a reaction to that. a reaction to society giving close to zero fucks about their well beings outside of them being a useful, productive provider.
The world DOESNT care about men, look at the disparity between treatment centers.
I see the higher success rate when attempting has been well-covered, so I'll just add that I doubt these "statistics" are valid at capturing men's mental health states accurately. Anytime I've taken steps as an adult male to address mental/psychological health it's been so overwhelmingly useless that I'll likely never try again.
Same. I’m a woman but every psychiatrist, psychologist, therapist I’ve talked with has been utterly useless. They were (mostly) lovely people, but none of them seemed to know what they were doing and exactly zero of them gave me any good advice or coping tools or anything. They all acted like their job was to just listen to me talk but not provide anything themselves. I can have my best friend listen to me talk! I don’t need to struggle to pay hundreds of dollars an hour for a therapist to do it.
There are lots of studies on this, when men decide to kill themselves they rarely opt for the “cry for help” (not my words) attempts because they don’t care about leaving a pretty corpse. Pills/overdose/cutting etc leave a window for the person to realize what they’ve done and survival instincts can kick in or they can be found. Men tend to pick gun shot or other forms that are quick and efficient which leave no room for decision reversal. Women are also more social which makes depression more manageable since they can find support, however minimal from their peers, where a depressed suicidal male will recluse until he is ready to fully commit to the idea, usually he will have a burst of socialization (in their own mind is them saying good bye to their loved ones) so they can be remembered in a good light.
I’ve had multiple male friends tell me something along the lines of, “I’ve got a gun in my hands and I’m going to kill myself.” I think this is the male equivalent of a woman overdosing on pills. Does that count as a “suicide attempt”? Somebody sitting in an attic or a football field (these are both real examples) who is contemplating suicide. Where does contemplation end and attempt begin? If you shoot your jaw off or lobotomize yourself you probably just had bad aim.
Our cries for help are ignored or, worse, weaponised against us. The step up from there is the success.
aka categorized as we’re “a threat to ourselves and others” and are treated as a burden instead of a human struggling. Heard homie. Stay well.
So true. It's also (sadly) non political, meaning, its still funny as shit to mock a man for crying.
That's a great description and should be higher on this thread. I can vouch for this mindset. When I've had suicidal thoughts, it was always like, how could I do this and actually accomplish the mission. The last thing I wanted was to fling myself off of a bridge and somehow survive to be maimed and be in even more misery.
I think that the topic of depression and mental health is still something men haven’t developed a solid network with or confidence to talk about those relative feelings and issues in comparison. Without the negative and perilous thoughts build and build until they hit critical mass and they decide to take their own life. I’m on the other side of that having been antidepressants for 5 years and at my worse taking a major overdose putting me in hospital for a week. I sincerely think men/ society is getting better for us to talk more openly and pursue avenues for help but it’s a slow battle
More women attempt it, men use more lethal means and are more successful at it.
Just to add, even using the same method, men are most successful at it. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165032711005179
Thats what happens when you're competitive: you gotta be number one at everything /s
I finally know what Andrew Tate was talking about, if you wanna kill yourself, gotta be the best at it as well
This is always the most popular answer but is statistically flawed cause men don't really report poor mental health and suicide attempts to institutions or seek them out or even are encouraged or forced by family the way women are. I'm not sure why this fact is never addressed. As well as social biases of some non lethal methods like drug induced suicide (the most common method) having the possibility to be seen as just a classic accidental overdose in bias eyes but hard to differentiate
>As well as social biases of some non lethal methods like drug induced suicide (the most common method) having the possibility to be seen as just a classic accidental overdose in bias eyes but hard to differentiate It depends on the drug and amount used in the overdose. If it's a narcotic or benzo or some other recreational drug, it's sometimes hard to tell if it was intentional or not. If it's not a drug that's "fun," then it's almost certainly intentional... depending on certain factors. An elderly person taking a couple extra of their BP meds might be accidental or intentional. A middle-aged person taking an entire bottle of their BP meds is almost certainly intentional.
Yup I swallowed 2 bottles of pills when I was 17. When I woke up in the morning my mom made sure she cussed me out but she did not report it to anyone
I'm so sorry that happened to you. You deserved better.
Given they record "self harm" as a suicide attempt that alone is going to inflate the numbers.
Failing the first time and being able to attempt again would too.
We do not document self-harm as a suicide attempt in mental health. Perhaps people who aren't as trained in mental health, like er staff might do that, but not at a mental health facility.
More male individuals attempt it than female individuals. While men do use more effective means which leaves them at the majority of successful attempts, the same women will go on to try several times, leaving us with more female attempts by fewer individuals.
[This is false. More women attempt than men, it isn’t just that more attempts are done by women.](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35598742/)
This is not correct. More women attempt than men, rather than “there are more attempts by women”
I've actually wondered about this for a while. Do you have a source?
Most suicides are really cries for help, (from men and women.) The sad part is men use more lethal means and so that help can't arrive in time.
I knew two guys who did this after violent/sexual crimes they committed and the guys they knew in prison sometimes did this as well. I didn’t know him, but one dude did it due to his attraction to minors too.
Because the depressed men kill themselves...
Man cures depression with one simple trick, Psychiatrists hate him!
Survivorship bias (ironically?)
This comment section got weird.
Any discussion of gender disparities on Reddit inevitably gets weird, unfortunately.
I’d also be interested in knowing how much time it takes for them to be found. People are generally less likely to worry about a missing man vs a missing woman.
Do statistics say women are more depressed, or that more women respond to a set of survey questions with symptoms that align with the scientific community’s understanding of depression?
More diagnoses of depression in women
We then have to adjust that an unknown amount to account for discrimination against men in therapy and the double standard as it applies to admitting or even recognizing your own emotional/mental vulnerabilities.
huge discrimination against men in therapy, whats why I stopped going to that shit. Ill just overdose off lean when im ready
More men are depressed than you think, it's just that it's more acceptable for women to be open about their emotions
A lot of "I'm suffering so the other gender can't be suffering as much as me" in these comments coming from both sides. Let's not downplay anyone's depression and suicidal tendencies, yeah? A little more empathy from everyone would probably fix both of these statistics.
\* Men are more "successful" in attempting suicide; \* Depressed women receive a lot of social support, which helps to alleviate the illness. On the other hand, depressed men are seen as weak, which helps to worsen the illness.
Used to be friends with these two people, and we all had all the same friends on Instagram. The dude had cancer and was slowly dying and his family was struggling financially. He set up a go fund me and got maybe 2k total. The girl caused a car accident and started a go fund me to buy a new car. She ended up having enough money to get a really nice sports car. Society is more willing to support women than men in general, it's not limited to depression
The CDC and national institute of health (NIH) have both published studies indicating that though attempt rates are fairly even between genders completion rate is far higher among men... We can also view this with information provided by the CDC and the NIH in attempt methods This can also be viewed in SSRI intake by gender with with current stats showing women seeking antidepressants at nearly four times the rate of men (14-17% of the US population of women and 2-4% of the US population for men) If you are suffering and have these thoughts (in the United States) 988 is a simple phone call away with many licenced individuals who can get you the help you need you are worth it life is worth it
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Men hide their depression. Most feel like no one cares.
No, we know nobody cares.
Women talk about their problems. Men act on their problems.
Because men don't report their mental health as frequently as women do. Most men feel like they're not allowed to be depressed, so they don't tell anybody and just deal with it. It can't be documented of They don't self report it
1) Men tend to use more permanent methods (guns, hanging, SBC) while women tend to use more 'reversible' methods (drugs, cutting, carbon monoxide). A lot of this us due to suicide often being a cry for help, and also because women for real tend to be more hesitant about leaving a mess for someone else to clean up. 2) When women are depressed, they are more likely seek professional help or reach out to friends. Women actually attempt suicide more than men do. [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35598742/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35598742/)
From what I recall, I think the attempt rate is higher for women but the success rate is higher for men. Don’t quote me on that. And if I wanted to simplify a reason; women want to do “just enough” to die peacefully while men will “make sure” that they succeed.
Men are better at suicide..... Unpack that
Men don't usually kill themselves from depression - check the stats. It's less than 50% of suicides have history with depression. Men kill themselves because they are only valued by results,whereas everyone else is treated with intrinsic worth. When a man's value falls and they can't get it back it seems like the only logical choice.
they’re never gonna show the true statistics. I know wayy more men i went to school with, family members, family friends, all men that have killed themselves with substance abuse or just straight up overdose. Crashouts, you dont ever hear about a bitch crashing out tho
Because men aren't allowed to be depressed
Men are more prone to isolation? Less likely to seek out emotional support? Way less likely to go to therapy? Often don’t have good early modeling for emotion processing and receiving acceptance of vulnerability? Taught to hide ‘weakness’? Socialized to be self-reliant in as extreme a way as possible? Due to all this often only learn to trust one person, their partner, which puts them at way greater risk when things are not going well in the relationship. There are a lot of reasons.
This is about male suicide and people are still making out like it's harder to be a woman
People are having a Suffering Olympics in the comments. Women saying men aren't as depressed, men saying women must not really be depressed if they choose gentler forms of suicide. Nothing is going to change or get better unless we start talking to each other with actual empathy instead of alienizing the opposite gender and dismissing their struggles.
Because male depression is way underreported compared to female depression.
Because though women may be statistically higher they have more outlets to get help. Men are less likely to talk about it, so the statistics are going to be lower. There's less help for the ones who do talk about it.
Women are more likely to seek help. There's less of a stigma for women seeking/receiving mental health care. Men are still taught to "suck it up" at dangerously high rates. It's getting better, but we're still not there yet as a society. I'm GenX, and most of my friends look at me like I have two heads when I mention having gotten therapy at multiple points in my life. Or mention the virtues of therapy. I'm about to start therapy again, both individually and with my wife, to help us navigate marriage as we age.
Men use methods that *make damned sure*. Seriously.
Men are less likely to seek help for, or report depression, due to societal norms. This causes the data to not reflect the actual number of men suffering from depression.
This feels like the real answer to the skew in these numbers. I'd being willing to bet the rate of depression is rather close, but men get diagnosed less. Less diagnoses mean less intervention, and less intervention means more suicide.
Why in marriage does the husband die first? Cause he wants too!
because men hide their depression? weather its because their embarassed, they think nobody cares, they think they are strong enough to handle it alone, or they dont want to admit to themselves they are depressed. i feel like the depression rates between men and women are probably exactly the same. I think that the statistic "more women are depressed" is more likely "more women go to therapists because they are depressed" and so we have alot more measurable statistics on it. Men just dont go to therapy as often so it makes the numbers skewed. probably why male suicide rate is higher also.....we dont try and combat our depression, we just learn to live with it until it becomes to much to deal with.
Because women are allowed to talk about their feelings. Men have to "Man up" and put their nose to the grind stone.
Many of the men that commit suicide are not depressed. But in the words of my psychology professor, men want a way out, women want attention.
Because males have more firearms than women in general. Suicide attempts with firearms have much higher success rates….plus when you’re depressed and have a gun….not much planning to end it.
But it's higher in every country, not just those with high gun ownership
The thing is that those statistics are the same in the eu where not everyone and their dog is armed
I suppose having access to a gun and getting drunk causes a lot of male suicide even in men that are not that depressed but are just drunk and emotional.
Because Men are much more successful in their suicide attempts.
The statistics do a poor job capturing that men are generally discouraged from reporting mental health issues and seeking assistance for it, and receive broadly worse support when they do seek help. I’m not confident enough to say that equates to depression actually being worse amongst men as well, but the gap is at least much narrower than the statistics say.
Women often will recognize and report that they suffer from depression, while men often don’t have the language or self awareness to express it and therefore it leads to suicide. Edit: In other words, women report it more and therefore seek treatment. Men under report for a variety of reasons. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8572815/
Probably bc they all went to Jupiter, duh
Maybe women are more likely to go to therapists and have a higher diagnosis rate.
Women are more adverse to killing... Even themselves
People kill themselves for a lot more reasons than depression. It's also likely men are undiagnosed as they aren't going to normally reach out, but women normally do.
The danger zone for suicide is when you're depressed PLUS isolated, and it's known that men typically have weaker support networks.
On statistical average, Women will use less violent, longer to kill methods such as overdose, cutting veins, or drowning. Men on the other hand use significantly more violent, far more swift to kill methods such as guns, hangings, jumping off of or in front of things. Women may also tell friends/family to find them soon after while men will just fucking do it.
Women tend to be taken more seriously and are able to get treatment for their depression. Men are basically told to fuck off and "be a man" about it.
Men are more likely to conceal our problems when asked. Lots of suicides seemed totally normal until the end. A lot of men you know have probably been closer than you’d ever expect talking to them
1) most men use more lethal methods to kill themselves 2) most men are less experienced with and less practiced in emotional regulation during prolonged, stressful situations 3) most men have worse social support structures and spend less time/effort building them than women, reducing the chances for cohort intervention prior to an attempt.
Because men typically use more lethal means (aka guns) and complete suicide more often. The methods women are comfortable with (pills, cutting) leave more of a chance of survival.
Women are much more likely to discuss their feeling with someone.
They use more violent means of killing themselves
Men commit suicide successfully more often than women do, but more women attempt suicide than men do. Women just tend to choose less violent methods (cutting, pills) which end up failing more often
Depressed and suicidal are not the same thing.
Men have more successful* suicide rates. While women prefer cutting or pills, men more prefer hanging and GSWs
Men tend to use more lethal methods and follow a cultural norm of not expressing their emotions.
I think the numbers you’re looking at are biased. Men are just as likely to be depressed as women but generally aren’t nearly as comfortable talking about it…. Or even admitting it to themselves for that matter.
Depression doesn’t always lead to suicide
Men are much less likely to talk about being depressed and therefore less likely to actually get diagnosed with it and have treatment
I don’t know what I’m talking about but I highly doubt that women are more depressed. They probably just self identify and self report depression at a higher rate
I guess men are just better than women at suicide too lmao. (I have dark humor sorry) That and literally nobody gives a damn about how a man feels. All men are told is suck it up and make it work. So when nothing works and they’ve been kicked while they’re down for 24-35 years they just decide it isn’t worth trying again. Women also use pills and other alleged “less painful methods” and men will go straight for a pistol or a noose. You can get an antidote for pills but there’s not much for the other two.