Dr Safeeya Mo­hammed

guardian.wemagazine@gmail.com

In the in­tri­cate mo­sa­ic of our shared ex­is­tence, In­ter­na­tion­al Men’s Day as­sumes a nu­anced sig­nif­i­cance, cast­ing light on the un­spo­ken hur­dles that men grap­ple with on their life’s jour­ney. Be­yond the strife of so­ci­etal ex­pec­ta­tions, this day beck­ons us to ex­plore the kalei­do­scope of the male psy­che with em­pa­thy and un­der­stand­ing.

This day serves as a re­flec­tive can­vas, apt­ly themed for 2023, “Ze­ro Male Sui­cide,” be­com­ing a com­pul­so­ry call to ac­tion! We must delve in­to the in­tri­cate fab­ric of well-be­ing that men weave in­to their lives or rather de­pri­ori­tise in tak­ing care of so­ci­etal de­mands.

The da­ta is ir­refutable

Sui­cide is a ma­jor health prob­lem here in our twin is­land home, where we have the third high­est sui­cide rate in the Caribbean, with one per­son dy­ing by sui­cide every 3.5 days, or two per­sons per week in 2020, ac­cord­ing to sta­tis­tics pro­vid­ed by T&T Po­lice Ser­vice. (See im­age on the next page).

“As we look at the num­bers com­ing out of the pan­dem­ic in 2021, we must sound the alarm for young boys and men, with the youngest life lost to sui­cide this year be­ing a nine-year-old boy. 89 per cent of the sui­ci­dal deaths as of Sep­tem­ber this year were boys and men, with 77 male lives lost,” said Maria O’Brien, Di­rec­tor, Mind­wise Project

“Let’s keep in mind, sui­cides in Trinidad and To­ba­go might al­so be un­der­re­port­ed, lend­ing to the pos­si­bil­i­ty that these num­bers might be even high­er, an­oth­er rea­son for us to sound the alarm.”

The glob­al dis­par­i­ty in sui­cide rates be­tween men and women is a well-doc­u­ment­ed phe­nom­e­non, with men con­sis­tent­ly ex­hibit­ing high­er rates. This dis­par­i­ty is at­trib­uted to a com­plex in­ter­play of many fac­tors. By not ad­dress­ing the core rea­sons for this, we are fail­ing our broth­ers and our fa­thers.

Men ac­count for 75-80 per cent of deaths by sui­cide.

(Da­ta ac­cord­ing to World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion pub­lished in 2021).

* Cana­da: men ac­count for three out of every four sui­cides. Rough­ly eight men take their lives every day, amount­ing to 3,000 deaths per year.

* UK: where near­ly 12 men lose their lives to sui­cide every day, men die by sui­cide at a rate three times more of­ten than women.

* USA: the sui­cide rate among males is four times high­er than among fe­males. Male deaths rep­re­sent 79 per cent of sui­cides, amount­ing to rough­ly 105 men who die by sui­cide every day.

Dis­man­tling the stig­ma

The theme “Ze­ro Male Sui­cide” serves as a re­minder to dis­man­tle the stig­ma sur­round­ing men’s men­tal health in this twin-is­land na­tion. From the tow­ers of Port-of-Spain to the hills of San Fer­nan­do to the beach­es of To­ba­go, Trin­bag­on­ian men face dis­tinct chal­lenges, and this In­ter­na­tion­al Men’s Day en­cour­ages a col­lec­tive ex­plo­ration of those chal­lenges with com­pas­sion and un­der­stand­ing.

We must pause, we must cre­ate those spaces for non-judg­men­tal shar­ing and do so with an ap­pre­ci­a­tion of the silent bat­tles that Trin­bag­on­ian men wage.

Dr Mar­garet Nakhid-Cha­toor, past Pres­i­dent of the T&T As­so­ci­a­tion of Psy­chol­o­gists, had this to share with us: “The most com­mon anx­i­eties that are cause for con­cern in­clude stress­ful life events such as school stress, fam­i­ly prob­lems, re­la­tion­ship is­sues and fi­nan­cial debts.”

She states: “We must shift the cul­tur­al par­a­digm of si­lence and make it eas­i­er for boys and men to talk about how they are feel­ing.

“In many so­ci­eties, men are taught that they need to be strong, self-suf­fi­cient, not show their emo­tions and worse yet, not talk about any of these things. Be­ing fear­ful, de­pressed or anx­ious are signs of ‘weak­ness’ that isn’t com­pat­i­ble with be­ing a ‘re­al man’. We are sold these stereo­types by the male role mod­els in Hol­ly­wood, in sports and our lo­cal TV com­mer­cials. But many stud­ies have linked this pat­tern of ‘tox­ic mas­culin­i­ty’ to many ad­verse ef­fects for men,” Dr Nicholas Maraj, Con­sul­tant Neu­rol­o­gist, said.

How to talk about it?

Dr Maraj ex­plained: “This is a nec­es­sary top­ic of dis­cus­sion. Men gen­er­al­ly do not like to ap­pear in­fe­ri­or to oth­er men. So, talk­ing about these kinds of top­ics is typ­i­cal­ly taboo. Men need to be com­fort­able with some­one to be able to talk about their men­tal health is­sues. We need to give men ac­cess to safe spaces to be able to vent their thoughts and emo­tions, to pro­vide bet­ter adapt­ed cop­ing mech­a­nisms and to en­able bet­ter sup­port sys­tems.

“They need to be able to de­com­press with­out feel­ing judged, with­out feel­ing like less of a man, in the eyes of both men and women. We need to have more male role mod­els (sports­men, mu­si­cians) val­i­dat­ing that it is ok, to NOT BE ok, that talk­ing about it is OK and that get­ting sup­port for it is OK.”

There is hope. Sui­cide is pre­ventable

Ac­cord­ing to the WHO: “The foun­da­tion of pre­ven­tion is to un­der­stand what puts a per­son at risk. Some risk fac­tors worth not­ing for pre­ven­tion are pri­or sui­cide at­tempts; sub­stance or al­co­hol abuse; de­pres­sion and mood dis­or­ders; so­cial iso­la­tion; chron­ic dis­ease or dis­abil­i­ty; and lack of ac­cess to be­hav­iour­al health care.

In­her­it­ed trau­ma, stress from vi­o­lence or bul­ly­ing, and oth­er fac­tors such as the end of a re­la­tion­ship, death of a loved one or par­ent, an ar­rest or fi­nan­cial prob­lems can in­crease that risk.”

Fos­ter a com­pas­sion­ate cul­ture

As we ex­tend our hands in sol­i­dar­i­ty on In­ter­na­tion­al Men’s Day, let us craft a com­pas­sion­ate sanc­tu­ary where men can un­fold their nar­ra­tives with­out the loom­ing spec­tre of judg­ment. Through gen­uine un­der­stand­ing and sup­port, we col­lec­tive­ly con­tribute to a world where the di­verse facets of mas­culin­i­ty are not on­ly ac­knowl­edged but cel­e­brat­ed.

May In­ter­na­tion­al Men’s Day 2023 serve as a trib­ute to their unique jour­ney, fos­ter­ing a cul­ture where every Trin­bag­on­ian man feels seen, heard, and sup­port­ed on the path to health and holis­tic well-be­ing.

Things you can do to sup­port some­one who may be con­tem­plat­ing sui­cide:

● Ask– Don’t be afraid to ask if some­one may be think­ing about sui­cide. Check-in with friends, fam­i­ly and co-work­ers. Ask if you may be wor­ried.

● Lis­ten– Be pa­tient and non-judg­men­tal when per­sons share thoughts and feel­ings about their pain.

● Sup­port–En­cour­age per­sons to seek help be­fore they ex­pe­ri­ence cri­sis. Ask how you can sup­port them dur­ing their dif­fi­cult time.

Things you can do if you may be con­tem­plat­ing sui­cide:

● Share– Talk with some­one you trust.

● Sur­vive– Seek the ap­pro­pri­ate help soon­er than lat­er. De­vel­op a safe­ty plan

● Thrive– Prac­tice new cop­ing tech­niques to main­tain a pos­i­tive healthy lifestyle.

For lo­cal emer­gency and cri­sis sup­port:

Life­line: 800-5588/ 866-5433 TOLL FREE, 220-3636

In case of an emer­gency (sui­cide at­tempt) : Call: 990, 811, 999

St. Ann’s Psy­chi­atric Hos­pi­tal, St. Ann’s Road, St. Ann’s: 624-1151-5

Source: www.Find­carett.com