The male suicides: how social perfectionism kills

What is vaguely frustrating about that? The thesis of many commentators seems to be, "Of course men are going to commit suicide. Society often acts in ways strongly unfavorable towards them.", which may possibly not align with your views. I see no reason for bundling them with the "MRA" label/slur.

I think it is already acceptable for men to seek help when already suicidal. If I told one of my co-workers "I'm feeling suicidal", your statement of "is it the kind of thing you want to talk to me about? Or is it the kind of thing you might want to talk to a doctor about?" is exactly the kind of answer I would get, and this is true about most decent-thinking people. (In fact, your specific statement sounded pretty insincere to me, and would almost suggest "Please don't talk to me about this," in real life.)

The real problem is why so many men are seeking to seriously commit suicide in the first place, which is why those "frustrating MRAs" are probably talking about it.

> Penal code begs to differ.

It's well known on the Internet (at least) that legal and illegal aren't the definitions of good and bad.

> Shattered self evaluation, acute stress disorder, PTSD etc.

Of course if you only ask people who found it bad enough that they had to talk to someone about it...

> That's not how child abuse works.

I thought we were talking about a horny male 14 year old.

> The law doesn't care what you think.

> Calling it rape when a male student does it, but not when a female teacher does it is definitely evidence of bias in reporting.

Yes, for the reason that I said:

> Everybody knows this on an instinctive level, which is why we let [women] away with it.

There's a difference between saying "here's a bunch of stuff that makes it harder for men" (not MRAs) and saying "women did it" (MRAs). There are a weird number of posts here unequivocally saying "the women did it". That view isn't supported by the statistics which show higher rates of completed suicide by men for many many years, since before feminist movements became active.

> I think it is already acceptable for men to seek help when suicidal.

Notice that I'm talking about mental health before the person is suicidal. We know that most people with a mental health problem experience stigma. Also note that previous threads about suicide have had fucking awful examples of wha people think is the right thing to say when someone is suicidal. ("Why don't you go whitewater rafting instead?" Etc)

Why did so many men die from testicular cancer? They do not seek help when they find a lump on a testicle. We had extensive campaigns to get men to see a doctor when they find a lump to help reduce the death rate from testicular cancer.

Why do so many men attempt suicide? Because they do not seek help when depressed nor when suicidal. We know that men do mot seek help from anyone for their mental health. We think that getting men having simple conversations about their mental health will make it easier for them to seek help when they need it.

An example of the type of conversation (see the Matt and Tim video): http://www.time-to-change.org.uk/talking-about-mental-health

If you had a broken arm, in a cast, would you talk about it with your family? Your neighbour? On a first date? At a job interview? Now (obviously) swap "broken arm" with "mental health problem" and see if your answers change. Most people's answers do change, and this is what is being targetted when campaigners are asking people to talk about their mental health.

Your son probably shouldn't be like any character on television, whether that's the antihero or bumbling means-well-but-worth-nothing comedy father. But

Interesting doesn't require character flaws. Those exist in characters in stories to provide space for developmental arcs -- space for us to see them grow and change, something we all want to do. They exist to make a point out of a story.

And these folks are so identifiable because we all sometimes feel like a not-put-together person. Heck, look how popular Breaking Bad, or House, M.D. were -- Laurie and Cranston were insanely popular in those roles because in their ridiculousness they reflected traits many people understand. Though I doubt their performances encouraged any meaningful percentage of the nation's fathers to start cooking meth, or medical professionals to treat people for lupus.

The story for a lot of these characters is that you can look like you have your shit together and still have space to learn, grow, evolve. Sure, it's in the context of murders and whatever because there's more drama there than "guy that goes to the office and has an ongoing feud with his HOA". But that doesn't invalidate the story, or directly encourage the audience to adopt the superficial story components.