What is it with you men?
I know, I know. We chicks don't understand you, and you don't understand us. That's life. Hell, it's more than life. That's what makes the world go round.
But... this. What I've experienced, what I've lived through, over the last few weeks. No one should have to go through this.
We need to speak. Men, and women.
We need to talk about this. About suicide.
In Australia, it's a huge problem- men and mental health, men and suicide. I'm going to assume that a lot of the rest of the world is the same. Men, especially older men, say, between thirty and fifty years old, taking their own lives.
And you men, you do it so... violently.
That's the main difference, right there, between men and women, when it comes to attempting suicide. We both attempt suicide in equal proportions.
It's just that you men are so much more violent than women. Men hang, shoot, gas. Women swallow, cut, drink.
Men, their options for suicide are so final. There are no second chances. There is no time for someone to find you, someone to save you.
You can't pump the stomach of someone who's shot themselves in the head.
So. And then. With all that considered, we have this other problem.
I know men, enough, I think, to be able to say that amongst them, amongst the men I know who are tradies, truck drivers and big, tough blokes; there is that constant litany that suicide is a 'dog's way out'. A coward's option. That you just wouldn't do that to the people you love.
But, if you did do it, make it look like an accident... where someone you know won't find you.
Hold on- what the fuck?
I got a comment on my blog, from a very articulate man who's name, I believe, was William. (Edit- Erm... not William, but Hamlet. Hey, it's all Shakespeare to me. His blog is here. And it's good. Have a read.) If you are reading, William, or whatever your name is, please leave me a link so I can include it.
William wrote a post, talking, honestly about men and suicide.
Someone he knew had done it, taken their own life. And William's wife asked him "Do you understand, how he could that?".
And William said "No, of course not."
But what he meant was "Sure, every guy does."
And that's stuck with me. As I've talked, as I've processed, as I remember more.
Be honest with me here, guys, all you men- is there some kind of honour in it?
There's an undertone, I think. That suicide is wrong, and a dickhead way to go.
But....
But.
Perhaps, if you feel you're the problem, if removing yourself from the equation, you feel, will take a lot of the problem with you? If you know you'll leave your family with money in the bank, to provide for them a little...?
And violently. Not like a hysterical women, popping pills and crying and asking people to find her, to help her.
But like a man.
Violently.
Quickly.
Taking your mess with you. And not messing things up, as you go.
Am I right? I think I am, just a little bit. Just a glimmer.
It chills me to the very core.
There is no honour in this. Read this, all you men. Read what I've written over the last few weeks.
It's not a fix to the problem. It creates a whole fathom of new problems, that start with your death and tendril out into the rest of the lives of those left behind.
There's no honour in that.
Talk to us.
Women, we're so different from you. No better, no worse, just different. Perhaps we do get hysterical, sometimes.
But women, picking up the pieces, it's what we do.
We stitch loose threads. We tidy things. We know what to do with things that don't seem to have any other place where they fit.
We nurture. We talk. We listen.
We can be the balm to the hard pain of providing, of the pressure of taking care of a family.
It can't be easy, to be a man sometimes. To have all that pressure. I know Tony felt it. The pressure to provide, to be perfect, to take care of his family.
What he didn't seem to get, what I want the rest of you to know- we can take some of the pressure. That, as women, is almost what we are designed to do.
Like I said, we stitch up the threads of little things.
You men- that's what other people, the women in your lives, are there for. Have them read this post, and they'll testify that you you. That's why people live in couples. It's so, sometimes, there is someone to share the load with.
So, you men- share the load. Use the people around you to take some of your burden. I promise you, your wife will think no less of you if you tell her that you've had a hard day, or you're worried about money, or you just feel a bit down.
That's what wives are there for. Don't hesitate to share the load. There might not be too much another person can do for you- make you a cup of coffee, talk to you for a bit, put their arms around you and tell you they love you.
But you'll feel better for it.
Talk, all of you. You men. Go, talk, now, if you need to. To someone you love, someone you trust.
Don't try and do this it all by yourself.
It's not that you can't. You could, if you wanted to. But you don't have to.
And it's easier not to.
There is no honour in this.
Speak.
Edit- "Too many women, commenting about men committing suicide". Damn straight. Ain't that the sad truth of it...?