[mapesdhs]

... so come on guys, let's push 'em to that 10K line.



https://uk.movember.com/mospace/14729105



Mens' health, especially mental health, is barely discussed in modern culture, indeed in some media quarters the idea is dismissed or ridiculed, especially in Hollywood and commercial advertising. If our lot is to improve, we have to help ourselves.



Movember isn't a huge campaign on the grand scheme of things, but it's better than nothing in a world where womenshealth.gov and girlshealth.gov both exist (good resources for those groups btw), but equivalent sites for men and boys do not; quite the contradiction given the suicide rate for males in the US is 3.5x higher than that for females, inparticular among middle aged white men.



Cancer, career, marriage, depression, spousal loss, etc. The user base of IRIXNet is probably fairly young, but we'll all be old some day, and even the young are often affected by relevant issues (especially adolescence, bullying at school, educational pressures, parental issues, etc.), perhaps silencing themselves to a greater degree due to perceived social pressures, not wanting to appear weak. It's in our nature to shun weakness in other males, a hard wired trait which made sense for raw survival millenia ago, but a terrible mismatch for modern urban living, though those in rural areas can be equally affected, especially farmers, isolated as they often are from the support of others.



So instead of wasting some moolah on a beer today, consider doing something more productive with those pennies, and perhaps next year Movember can aim for 20K.



Ian.

[Shiunbird]

Society operates in this crazy pendulum-like mode where we start focusing on what lacks attention, then the spotlight is there and we end up neglecting all the rest. It's just sad how we seem to be hard-wired to be unable to reach balance.

What has helped me, and I think it's a problem for many men, is to join a community.
Here we have people who share a hobby where we can actually get our hands dirty, see things happen, fix, understand, and share.

My psychiatrist was telling me that one of the biggest problem for men and boys alike (he also works a lot with kids, and he is quite famous for all the best reasons here in Czech Republic and Slovakia), is that we lose a reason for look after our fathers.

Before they could teach us something (as many of ours did), build something, fix something, but now we are all working in front of our computers. The computer is off, the work doesn't exist. We don't get anymore to learn how to fix a car, as they are now computers on wheels. New computers are super boring. Many kids don't get to play outside too much as we are all too worried about security and the majority of population live in cities.

Now our fathers don't have too much to teach us. The bond is with the mother is biological, but with the father is social. Without it, we don't go through the rites of passage that can grow boys into men and allow us to be more in touch with ourselves.

And it's horrible... adult men are not able to look for themselves. We live in a conflict-avoidant society. Conflict is essential - and it doesn't mean that we must be violent. Now we are all too afraid of saying the truth not to offend the other, and listen to every single opinion and give them the weight a urgency of facts.

We derive so much value from external validation, from how things look and not what they are, that, yes, we are too afraid of raising the hand to say we are not feeling well, come to the doctor, watch our health when we need it the most: we live more insecure, emptier lives. Time pressures and urban living make us eat worse, move less, be less healthy.

We did a fund-raising for movember at work, and it was very successful.

[Raion]

I literally cannot grow facial hair that's passable, so I keep clean shaven.

But it's a shame that men aren't able to seek mental health treatment out, and moreover that fathers are not helping their sons learn to cope with the pain of living.

See I'm not the most mentally healthy person ever, but I was taught to be tough by my father. I can be shattered into a million pieces, but I've come back together a hundred and some times. Having an upbringing like mine will do that. I spent my 20s fucking up, and now I'm 28 as of next week, and I'll be spending my last 2 years of my 20s trying to get my life set up for a much better 30s. I hope at least.

[Shiunbird]

This is very important. Real strength is not to never collapse, but to be able to recover.
If you never collapse, you will never know your real strength, and how you would react the inevitable day that you eventually do.

I studied at a military school from ages 10 to 17. We had to clean our classrooms at the end of each day, taking turns. Of course we kept it clean, because one day we would be the ones cleaning it up, and you wouldn't want to miss your bus. We had to keep our shoes clean.

Then I see kids throwing tantrums when their parents ask them to do the dishes, like adults are here to serve them. It would not cross my mind to say no to my parents - and, of course, they would never ask me to do something unreasonable, even though they were far from being the best parents ever - 10+ years of therapy are a testament of this.
Our parents are not our servants, but should be our educators and our partners in growing up.

But I keep myself clean, my home in order, I was taught to cherish and respect the value of my word and to hold my ground when necessary - but to accept that other people may want to hold theirs - and that this doesn't mean you've just made an enemy.

My youngest sister, now 26 years old, is barely literate, and sees society as a group of people meant to serve her, and she is always too worried about having the latest and greatest so her friends won't see her as a failure.
And she can't understand, by any means, why I like old computers and buy plain clothes that last longer, and why I don't have a car or change my phone every 6 months. Or, in short, why don't just just do and buy everything you can.

Coincidentally, she was born when my parents were at their worst and my dad had left, and my mom has been trying to make us dislike my father by all means.

This is part of the reason why I admire communities like ours.
Understanding how things work is power. So much of our lives depend on our computers and technology and sometimes taking the rough way, repairing, being able to be self-reliable, is liberating.