Men Have a Harder Time Seeking Treatment for Mental Illness
According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, men died by suicide at a rate of 3.54 percent higher than women in 2017
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Mental Health America reports 6 million men are affected by depression in the United States every single year
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The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and AlcoholismTrusted Source puts the annual number of men dying due to alcohol-related causes at 62,000, compared to 26,000 women.
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And men are also two to three times more likelyTrusted Source to misuse drugs than women
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Depression and suicide are ranked as a leading cause of death among men, and yet they’re still far less likely to seek mental health treatment than women.
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He was clear that this type of thinking is outdated, a relic of previous generations that doesn’t speak to the current medical understanding of mental illness.
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“We know so much more now, and we recognize the chemical changes that take place. In many ways, mental illness is just like diabetes, or any other physical condition
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But Hobbs points out a lot of people don’t look at it that way. Instead they still see mental health struggles as a personal issue and a lack of personal fortitude.
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Levin says a lot of men fall prey to the false idea that they should be “tough enough” to fix all their problems on their own. They worry that by showing vulnerability, even in the case of physical illness, they may lose their authority with others
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Addressing that, and helping men work past it, requires first ending the stigma of asking for help.