Boys Need More Help With Mental Health. Why Aren’t They Getting It?

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From NBC News: “Mental health has become a crisis among America’s youth, and experts say the unique challenges and needs of young men are not receiving enough attention. Doctors, teachers and family members may not recognize the symptoms of depression, which in men can include anger, irritability and aggressiveness, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Men are also less likely than women to ‘recognize, talk about and seek treatment’ for depression, which is sometimes stereotyped as a women’s problem, the agency said.

While teenage girls attempt suicide more often than teenage boys, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, boys are more likely to die by suicide. Suicide rates for teenage boys and girls rose steadily from 2007 to 2015. In 2015, there were 1,537 suicides documented for boys ages 15 to 19 and 524 for girls, according for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. […]

A recent national survey commissioned by Plan International USA, part of a global network of organizations focused on ending poverty, polled over 1,000 youth ages 10 to 19 and found that a third of boys thought society expects them to ‘be a man’ and ‘suck it up’ when they feel sad or scared. Another third said they believed they should ‘hide or suppress their feelings when they feel sad or scared.’ About half of boys polled said ‘they want to learn more about having the “right to feel any way you want.”‘ […]

Adam Neville’s mother brought him to Mount Sinai’s Adolescent Health Center in New York when he was 14 because he had difficulty communicating his emotions, with ‘unexplained outbursts of crying,’ he recalled.

Neville, now 16, said he didn’t feel ‘at all’ comfortable talking about his feelings with others, particularly his friends.

‘With my counselor it’s different because it’s literally what that relationship is for,’ Neville said. ‘That’s a little bit different, but in all of my personal life relationships, it’s very difficult to ask for help, and the idea that I have to be or should be independent weighs on me constantly.’

‘If you can’t turn to someone in your life and say how you are really feeling,’ the high schooler added, ‘then you’re only going to end up hurting yourself somehow down the road.'”

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25 COMMENTS

  1. Evidence That More Psychiatry Means More Suicide https://www.madinamerica.com/2014/01/evidence-that-more-psychiatry-means-more-suicide/

    There has emerged a war on masculinity. Why? Because masculine men are harder to control under socialism. The modern beta male, on the other hand, craves socialism. This is why the left has branded masculinity as toxic: it stands as a roadblock to their endgame.

    If anything these boys are depressed because they are growing up into a world doesn’t value them.

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      • I read alot of it including this.
        “Millennial socialists are empathetic people who are sickened by systemic unfairness. We get angry about the fact that after the deaths of Eric Garner and his amazing daughter Erica Garner, the right has nothing to say except “Why won’t you talk about black-on-black crime?” ”

        I always responded to the black on black crime thing in comment sections with STFU black on black crime has nothing to do with the government killing people at traffic stops wile using motorists for revenue.

        Problem with me is I don’t buy the conservative crap either. They can take their mass incarceration failed drug war and go to hell. Both sides have crap. The left are the ones that killed Eric Garner enforcing their nanny state cigarette tax by the way.

        This would be so easy for me if I could just be red team or blue team like most people. Team liberty is rough !

        Back to boys in this article.
        As psychologist Michael Thompson has aptly observed: “Girls behavior is the gold standard in schools. Boys are treated like defective girls.”

        The war on masculinity is a war on men !

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    • Because masculine men are harder to control under socialism.

      That’s a bizarre statement, even accepting whatever your definition of “masculine” may be, which is a social definition anyway, not something ingrained in one sex or the other. I doubt that your definition of “socialism” holds water either, but that’s a common problem, not just yours.

      I would still be interested in what you’re saying, if you could elaborate a little better.

      P.S. There are a lot of phony “leftists” out there.

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      • The idea that psychiatry is trying to implement or support socialism is lacking in any kind of empirical support. Psychiatry works closely with large, multinational pharmaceutical corporations to maximize profits. In classic socialism, such corporations aren’t even allowable. It is basic to socialism that corporate control of the means of production is the central problem to be resolved.

        As an aside, are you suggesting that only MEN are being controlled by this approach? Or that “masculine” behavior, whether undertaken by men or women, is the target? And if “masculine” behavior is the target, why is so much of the DSM focused on not engaging in any kind of emotional interaction?

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        • When the government really starts taking everything thing from you, try’s to control everything in your life, real men get pissed off and fight back. Those ‘toxic’ traits like violence. Give those SOBs half your paycheck, then 15K a year on a crappy 3 bedroom in property tax, then more to mandatory insurance… Fees and permits… They won’t stop till they get everything.

          “The idea that psychiatry is trying to implement or support socialism is lacking in any kind of empirical support.”

          And when dissent cannot be sufficiently stigmatized or criminalized, it can be pathologized > http://www.dansanchez.me/feed/the-virtue-of-defiance

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          • Now you’re talking about dissent, and I agree with that sentiment. Why do you try to make it into a gender/sex thing? Don’t you believe women are capable of effective dissent? Or perhaps you should also be critiquing the feminization of WOMEN, who are driven into a far more disempowered role in society than the men you are complaining of. Are you not complaining of men being forced into behavior that women are expected to accept and deal with every single day? And which gender, I may ask, is the one engaging in this ostensible “war on men?” Are not the Captains of Industry and the rich elite primarily comprised of white MEN?

            I think it’s time to broaden your analysis. The war is not on men. It is on anyone who is willing to stand up to the authorities, and women and children get hit far worse than what men are exposed to, often quite literally.

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          • “Don’t you believe women are capable of effective dissent?”
            Sure they are capable but I know the world I live in and men are usually more resistant to authority.

            Men are more violent. Peaceful protests that great but things usually don’t change until things get busted up. Just my observations. If I was trying to control a population I to would get rid of masculinity.

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          • My point would be that at least in part, women are less resistant to authority because they have been “feminized.” So the war is not on men. It is on men AND women AND children, and has been going on for a long, long time against the women and children. It feels like women are being blamed for “emasculating” men when in fact it is for the most part OTHER MEN who are trying to create a more docile population so that they can continue to dominate. To suggest that there is a “war on men” denies the fact that there has been a “war on women” since at least the appearance of Cro Magnionoid culture tens of thousands of years ago.

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        • Psychiatry was a strong right arm of the Soviet Union.

          Smaller government is the answer. Not a bigger totalitarian state which would only appropriate psychiatry for the new regime.

          If we got rid of the FDA and abolished cronyism and bribery (lobbying) Big Pharma would lose its legal clout and the government would lose the incentive to push travesties like the “Cures Act” through.

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          • I don’t believe that would work. Big Pharma has plenty of money to buy ads and sell their false ideas on TV without any help from the government. In fact, they could lie even more effectively with even less accountability – at least the FDA puts some limits on what they can claim is true. They have tremendous power through their billions of income, and smaller government won’t do anything to change that. Or am I missing something? Can you explain how having less government will lead to less control by big corporations over our lives?

            Less CORRUPTION would definitely help. Less restrictions on pharmaceutical company crimes? Not what I would recommend.

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          • I’m in favor of restrictions on pharmaceutical crimes. But as long as government officials stand to benefit there will be none. The FDA has proven worse than useless in the recent ECT hearings.

            Get rid of Big Pharma lobbyists AND lying commercials. Not an either/or proposition. Though ending legal bribes will probably lead to the latter. Crooks aren’t into evil for evil’s sake the way altruists are into goodness for goodness’s sake.

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  3. January 09, 2019 ! https://www.dailysignal.com/2019/01/09/scientists-making-war-on-traditional-masculinity-are-political-hacks/

    This all came out today. The American Psychological Association explains that “traditional masculinity—marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance, and aggression—is, on the whole, harmful. Men socialized in this way are less likely to engage in healthy behaviors.”

    “Healthy behaviors ” Whats that about , obeying the shitty government ?
    http://www.google.com/search?q=american+psychological+association+masculinity

    https://www.infowars.com/watch/?video=5c3691a82d13144150aef902

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  4. “Boys need more help with mental health”, unless, of course, they’re f**ked up girls.

    I would expect as women gain more power and status in society, it only stands to reason that they will also be “marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance, and aggression”.

    The issue is probably arising, among males, in part because of the shift in power dynamics that has occurred in recent years. “Stoic, competitive, dominant, and aggressive” women spelling more and more f**ked up boys.

    I don’t see “mental ill health” in the matter so much. If somebody new is going to succeed, somebody else is going to have to endure sacrifices, and/or take a fall.

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    • FWIW, we need fewer girls in the MI System. Not more boys.

      This is an obvious ploy by the APA to drum up more “consumers” for the crap they aggressively hawk in a way that would make a used car salesman cringe.

      Neurotoxins, adult kindergarten, and never-ending angst sessions they call “therapy.” NO ONE needs this stuff.

      And they’re kids too. Convince the gullible mama that her son squirms in class, likes sports, and dislikes her smothering ways because he’s SMI and needs “treatment” before puberty and cha ching! Another cash cow for life.

      Man am I angry!

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      • Great point, Rachel. If the sexes are more or less evenly divided in the mental hospital, why do you need more males? Oh, because theory has it that “mental illness” is the root cause of some violence in the country, and men are more prone to become violent than women. If the “mental health” system is basically a form of pre-criminal pre-punishment, the public safety (“mental hygiene”) issue, there you go. Boys are more of a threat to the public than girls, in theory. We need fewer people in the “mental illness” system irrespective of gender. The idea that you need more dudes than chicks in the “mental illness” system is sexist from the beginning. Wowee! What do you think of those women? Unfit for life outside of the kitchen and pregnant. They don’t even make good “mental patients”, do they?

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  6. Surprised this was published on MIA. It reads like an article from NAMI or Psychology Today.

    Who says “boys need more help because they won’t accept passive roles and ask for quarts of happy pills to smile ALL the time?”

    More like “Why do girls accept passive roles for mental illness promoters and ask for/take quarts of happy pills to smile 100% of the time?” That’s the real problem

    Saw an article on Xojane explaining how happy the writer was for her “depression diagnosis.” Somehow she felt guilty for not being HAPPY 100% of the time and not grinning like the Cheshire cat 24/7. Why was she ashamed of a simple feeling? Like being unhappy was a crime or something?

    She admitted the SSRI’s didn’t help all the time. But she seemed to see the “diagnosis” as a note from her doctor. “Please excuse Jane from smiling all day today. She has depression–a real honest-to-gosh BRAIN DISEASE. She has the right to look unhappy now and then.”

    Why is this a thing? Why this sadness shaming?

    If Jane is sad all the time and wants to feel better that’s one thing. But why does she have to fake exuberance and joy? That may be causing her depression. Partly caused mine.

    I was thoughtful, pensive, and occasionally melancholy as a young girl. Not only was this seen as NOT GOOD, but this led to bullying in high school/social phobia/then full blown depression.

    The teachers/counselors didn’t do much to teach me social self defense or emotional resilience. Just “self esteem affirmations” I couldn’t believe. Then drugs. Always my “problem” for not fitting in. Like they want us all to be vapid, shallow morons.

    Be yourself. As long as you’re “mentally healthy” like everyone else. 😛

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