In the UK, suicide is the biggest killer of men under 50. That statistic alone should stop us in our tracks, not because it is shocking in a sensational sense, but because it points to one of the clearest and most devastating patterns in public health. Men make up roughly half the population, yet they account for the overwhelming majority of suicide deaths. In England and Wales, the Office for National Statistics recorded 6,190 suicides registered in 2024. The male suicide rate was 17.6 deaths per 100,000 people, compared with 5.7 per 100,000 for females, and the highest age-specific suicide rate was among men aged 50 to 54.
| The Predictable Crisis Behind Male Suicide Rates |
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| In England and Wales, 6,190 suicides were registered in 2024. The male suicide rate was 17.6 per 100,000, compared with 5.7 per 100,000 for females, and the highest age-specific suicide rate was among men aged 50 to 54. Samaritans identifies middle-aged men from disadvantaged backgrounds as the group most at risk when age, gender and socioeconomic status are considered together, with key risk factors including masculinity, relationship breakdown, emotional illiteracy, loneliness and socioeconomic pressure. This article argues that male suicide is not simply a crisis of silence. It is a predictable crisis shaped by shame, identity rupture, economic pressure, relationship breakdown, social isolation, substance use, access to lethal means and delayed help seeking. If the risk factors are recognisable, prevention has to begin before crisis point. |
This is not a marginal issue or a niche mental health concern. It is a repeated, measurable and deeply gendered pattern of death. Yet the public explanation for it is often painfully thin. Again and again, the crisis is reduced to the familiar phrase that “men do not talk.” There is truth in that, of course. Many men do not speak about distress early enough. Many do not reach for support until the crisis has already become dangerous. Many have been trained from boyhood to swallow pain, disguise need and turn suffering into silence. But “men do not talk” is not the whole story, and if we stop there, we miss the much larger structure underneath.
Male suicide is not simply a communication problem. It is a collision between mental health, social expectations, economic pressure, relationship breakdown, substance use, isolation, access to lethal means, shame and a lack of gender-aware support. It is about what happens when a man’s sense of self has been built around being strong, useful, employed, sexually wanted, financially stable, emotionally controlled, needed by others and in control of his life, and then several of those pillars collapse at once. For some men, the crisis is not only “I have lost my job,” “my marriage has ended,” “I am in debt,” “I am lonely,” or “I am not coping.” It becomes something deeper and more dangerous: “I have failed as a man.” That is where the risk begins to change.
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Why Do Men Die by Suicide? Male Suicide Rates Explained
Male Suicide Is More Than a Mental Health Crisis
Suicide is often discussed as if it belongs only to the private interior world of the individual: depression, despair, hopelessness, trauma or mental illness. All of those things matter. They matter profoundly. But suicide is also social. It is shaped by poverty, housing, unemployment, family breakdown, loneliness, addiction, shame, community disconnection, access to healthcare and the stories people are given about what their life is supposed to mean.
For men, those stories are often brutally narrow. Boys and men are still taught, directly and indirectly, that they should be strong, useful, capable, controlled, economically productive and emotionally contained. They are often taught that their value lies in what they can provide, what they can endure and how little they need from others. This does not mean every man believes those things consciously, and it does not mean every man lives by them in the same way. But those expectations form part of the social weather men grow up inside. They shape how distress is interpreted, how failure is experienced and how help is approached or avoided.
This is why male suicide cannot be reduced to the individual act alone. It has to be understood inside the social conditions that make certain men more vulnerable to collapse. Samaritans has long identified middle-aged men from disadvantaged backgrounds as one of the groups most at risk of suicide. Their research highlights a cluster of factors that includes masculinity, midlife pressures, relationship breakdown, emotional illiteracy, socioeconomic stress, loneliness and deprivation. That cluster matters because most suicide risk is not created by one isolated event. It is cumulative.
A man may survive unemployment if he has strong friendships, stable housing and a sense that his worth does not disappear with his wage. He may survive divorce if he has emotional support, secure access to his children and a trusted route into professional help. He may survive debt if he still feels connected, useful and wanted. He may survive depression if he seeks help early and has people around him who know how to notice the warning signs. But when several systems collapse together, the danger deepens. Job loss, debt, separation, custody conflict, loneliness, alcohol, shame, emotional silence, no trusted service and immediate access to a lethal means do not form one problem. They form a structure of risk. And structures of risk are predictable, which means they are also, at least partly, preventable.
What Does “Defeat as a Man” Mean?
One of the most important ideas in Samaritans’ research is the concept of men experiencing joblessness or economic failure as a kind of masculine defeat. This is not simply the pain of having no work. It is the deeper feeling of being exposed as inadequate, unsuccessful or no longer up to the standard of manhood a person has internalised. The issue is not only “I do not have work.” It is “I am not good enough,” “I am not what I was supposed to be,” or “I have failed at the role I was meant to fulfil.”
This is what I would call masculine identity rupture. Masculine identity rupture happens when a man’s sense of worth has been built around roles that can disappear: worker, provider, husband, father, protector, soldier, strong one, useful one, desired one, reliable one, man in control. When those roles collapse, the man may not only experience loss. He may experience humiliation. That distinction matters because loss can often be grieved, but humiliation is frequently hidden. Loss can lead someone to seek comfort. Humiliation can make comfort feel unbearable.
For men raised inside rigid expectations of masculinity, this can be catastrophic. It is not just that life has gone wrong. It is that life going wrong is interpreted as evidence of personal failure, masculine failure, social failure, sexual failure, economic failure and moral failure all at once. This is why telling men simply to “open up” is not enough. For some men, opening up does not feel like the beginning of survival. It feels like the final proof of defeat.
Economic Identity: When Work, Money and Provider Status Collapse
Work is never just work. For many men, work is identity, status, rhythm, purpose, social contact, usefulness and proof of adulthood. This is especially true when a man has been raised to believe that his value lies in providing. A job is not only income. It is evidence that he is functioning as a man.
When unemployment, insecure work, debt, poverty, redundancy, retirement, injury or economic decline enters the picture, the impact is not only financial. It can be existential. A man may begin to ask who he is if he cannot provide, cannot pay, cannot protect his family from hardship or cannot maintain the role he once believed made him respectable. For men whose identities were built around being useful rather than being known, this is particularly dangerous because usefulness can disappear overnight.
A workplace closes. A contract ends. A body breaks. A business fails. A pension is not enough. A bill cannot be paid. A man who once felt competent can suddenly feel disposable. This is why male suicide has to be discussed as a class issue as well as a mental health issue. Poverty does not only restrict choices. It attacks dignity. Debt does not only create stress. It creates shame. Unemployment does not only remove income. It can remove the role that made a man feel he had a secure place in the world.
If suicide prevention does not take economic identity seriously, it will continue to miss one of the central routes into male despair. The issue is not simply that men need jobs in a material sense, although they do. It is that men need forms of identity, dignity and belonging that do not completely collapse when work, income or provider status is threatened.
Masculinity and Shame: The Pressure to Be Strong, Useful and Silent
Shame is one of the most dangerous emotions in male suicide. Sadness, fear, grief and despair all matter, but shame has a particular power because it drives people inward. It makes suffering feel like exposure. It tells a person not only that something is wrong, but that they themselves are wrong. In the context of male suicide, shame can attach itself to almost anything: needing help, not earning enough, being left, being sexually rejected, becoming addicted, growing older, crying, feeling lonely, losing confidence or no longer being the man other people thought you were.
A rigid model of masculinity gives men very little room to fail safely. It teaches boys that to be male is to be strong, resilient, self-contained, unemotional, sexually competent, financially capable and in control. Then adulthood arrives, and real life does what real life does. Bodies get tired. Marriages end. Work disappears. Children become distant. Money becomes difficult. Mental health collapses. Parents die. Friends drift away. Sex becomes complicated. Confidence fades.
The problem is not that men experience these losses. Everyone does. The problem is that many men are given an identity that cannot metabolise them. They are told to be strong, but not taught how to be supported. They are told to protect, but not taught how to be vulnerable. They are told to provide, but not taught that their worth survives poverty. They are told to control themselves, but not taught how to understand themselves. So when distress arrives, it often arrives without language.
This is why male suicide prevention must go deeper than awareness slogans. Men do not simply need permission to talk. They need a culture in which need itself is not treated as humiliation. They need support systems that understand how shame works, how masculine distress often presents and how hard it can be for some men to admit they are frightened by their own thoughts.
Relationship Breakdown: When Love, Family and Identity Fall Apart
Relationship breakdown is one of the most important and under-discussed parts of male suicide risk. It is often treated as just another stressful life event: divorce, separation, custody conflict or loneliness after family rupture. But for many men, the end of a relationship is not only the loss of romantic love. It can be the collapse of an entire emotional infrastructure.
Women are often socialised into emotional intimacy with friends, family, sisters, mothers, colleagues and children. This does not mean women are immune to loneliness. Far from it. But many women are more practised at speaking pain into a network. Many men are not. For some men, the partner is the network. She is the confidante, the organiser, the emotional translator, the social bridge, the family manager, the person who notices, the person who asks, the person who remembers and the person who keeps the texture of life intact.
When that relationship ends, the man may not simply lose a partner. He may lose the person through whom he accessed emotional life. He may lose daily contact with children, the home, mutual friends, status, sexual reassurance and the future he thought proved he was succeeding. This can be devastating for any person, but where masculine identity is already brittle, relationship breakdown can become a total identity rupture.
Again, the danger is not only heartbreak. It is the meaning attached to heartbreak. “She left me” can become “I was not enough.” “My children are not with me” can become “I have failed as a father.” “I am alone” can become “No one needs me.” “I cannot cope” can become “I am weak.” This is why separation, divorce, custody loss and family rupture need to be taken seriously in male suicide prevention. They are not sentimental problems. They are structural risk points.
Social Isolation: Why Men Often Have Fewer Places to Put Their Pain
Loneliness is not just the absence of people. It is the absence of being known. A man can have colleagues, drinking friends, football friends, group chats and gym acquaintances, while still having nowhere to put despair. Many men have friendships based on activity rather than disclosure. They can do things together, laugh together, work together, drink together and watch sport together, while still never saying the sentence that matters: “I am not coping.”
This matters because crisis needs somewhere to go. If a man has no emotionally intimate friendships, no trusted family member, no therapist, no GP relationship, no community, no faith group, no peer support and no habit of expressing fear, then distress has nowhere to be metabolised. It sits privately and, over time, private pain can become distorted pain.
This is why “check on your mates” is useful but insufficient. Some men will not answer honestly when checked on. Some men do not know how. Some men will make a joke. Some will say they are fine. Some will disappear slowly while still appearing functional. The answer is not to abandon the message, but to deepen it. Yes, check on your mates, but also build the kind of friendships where truth has somewhere to land before the crisis. Not only banter, beer, football or a quick “you good, mate?” but actual emotional permission. The kind of male friendship where a man can say, without humiliation, that he is frightened by what he is thinking.
Substance Use: When Pain Becomes More Impulsive and Dangerous
Alcohol and drugs do not usually create the whole crisis, but they can turn a crisis into something more impulsive, more chaotic and more dangerous. Substance use can worsen depression, lower inhibition, intensify shame, damage relationships, increase financial pressure and make people less likely to seek help. It can turn temporary despair into immediate risk.
It also gives suffering a socially acceptable mask. A man may not say he is depressed, but he may say he needs a drink. He may not say he is lonely, but he may stay out all night. He may not say he is ashamed, but he may numb himself. Because some forms of male drinking and drug use are culturally normalised, people may miss the shift from social use to self-destruction.
The question is not only how much he is drinking or using. The question is what the substance use is doing for him. Is it soothing shame, replacing connection, masking panic, making him more impulsive or becoming the only place his pain goes? If so, it belongs in the risk picture.
Access to Lethal Means: Why Method Matters
One of the most important principles in suicide prevention is that access to lethal means matters. This can be uncomfortable to discuss, but it is central to prevention. A suicidal crisis can be temporary. The feeling can pass. The person can be interrupted, reached, supported, treated, held, protected or simply kept alive long enough for the intensity to change. But when someone has immediate access to a highly lethal means, the distance between crisis and death becomes much shorter.
This is why the World Health Organization places means restriction at the centre of suicide prevention. It is not because means are the only cause. It is because reducing access can create time, and time can save lives. This matters particularly for men because male suicide deaths are often linked to more lethal methods. The issue is not only that men suffer. It is that when many men act in crisis, the method is more likely to be fatal.
Prevention cannot only be emotional. It must also be practical. It must ask what can be made less immediately available during periods of acute risk, who knows this man is in crisis, and what can be removed, delayed, locked away, interrupted or made harder to access while support is put around him. This is not about blaming families. It is about recognising that suicide prevention often depends on creating friction between an unbearable moment and an irreversible act.
Why Men Often Do Not Seek Help Early Enough
The underuse of help is one of the most painful parts of this crisis because help often exists, but it does not always feel reachable. Some men do not seek help because they do not recognise their distress as a mental health problem. Some think they should be able to cope alone. Some fear being judged. Some have had bad experiences with services. Some do not trust talking therapies. Some cannot afford private support and face long waits for public services. Some present distress as anger, drinking, withdrawal, overwork, risk-taking, irritability or physical symptoms rather than sadness.
This is why suicide prevention has to become more gender-aware. Not in a simplistic way, and not in a way that suggests all men are the same, but in a way that recognises that many men have been trained to hide distress until it has already become dangerous. Services need to work with the grain of how men actually cope, rather than simply waiting for men to arrive fluent in the language of vulnerability.
A man may not say, “I am suicidal.” He may say, “I cannot see a way out,” “everyone would be better off without me,” “I am tired,” or “I have messed everything up.” He may say nothing at all. Prevention depends on learning how male distress often appears before it becomes a formal disclosure.
Veterans as a Case Study in Masculine Identity Rupture
Veterans are an important case study because they show how male suicide risk can intensify when identity, purpose, trauma, belonging and transition collide. It is important to be precise here. The available ONS data for England and Wales does not show that male veterans overall have a higher suicide rate than the male general population once age is accounted for. But it does show that male veterans aged 25 to 44 had higher suicide rates than men of the same age in the general population in the 2021 data.
That nuance matters. The point is not that all veterans are doomed, damaged or uniquely vulnerable. The point is that veterans can reveal the structure of masculine identity rupture with unusual clarity. Military life can give a man a powerful and socially honoured identity: purpose, discipline, rank, brotherhood, fitness, courage, skill, danger, belonging and a clear role inside a larger mission. Then service ends, and the transition into civilian life can be brutal.
A man may lose the uniform, the hierarchy, the brotherhood, the mission, the physical condition that made him feel capable, the daily structure, the respect attached to the role and the story that made the suffering feel meaningful. Then ordinary civilian life adds its own pressures: employment difficulty, debt, physical injury, trauma, relationship strain, alcohol, anger, isolation, housing problems or a sense that civilian services do not understand him. For younger veterans especially, this can become a concentrated form of identity rupture.
It is not just leaving a job. It is leaving a version of yourself. And if that version of yourself was the strongest, most respected or most purposeful version you ever knew, the loss can be devastating. This is why veteran suicide prevention has to go beyond crisis lines. It has to take seriously the transition from military identity to civilian identity. It has to help men rebuild purpose, connection, work, community, emotional language, family life and a sense of worth that does not depend on the uniform. No man should have to lose himself in order to leave a role.
The Predictable Crisis Behind Male Suicide Rates
The most important argument is this: male suicide is not random. It may feel sudden to the people left behind. It may come as a shock. It may be hidden behind jokes, competence, work, anger, silence or ordinary routine. But at a population level, the risk factors are not mysterious.
We know men are at higher risk. We know middle-aged men are especially vulnerable. We know disadvantage matters, relationship breakdown matters, isolation matters, substance use matters, access to lethal means matters and shame matters. We know many men do not seek help early enough. We know that services often miss men who do not present distress in expected ways. We know that a man can appear functional while being inwardly collapsed.
This does not mean every suicide is predictable at the individual level. It does not mean families should have known. It does not mean one missed conversation caused a death. It does not mean prevention is simple. But it does mean the broader pattern is visible. And if the pattern is visible, prevention should be built around it.
What Prevention Would Actually Look Like
Preventing male suicide means doing more than telling men to speak. It means building a society where men can survive failure without believing they have forfeited their worth. It means treating job loss, debt, divorce, custody conflict, retirement, addiction, isolation, trauma and post-service transition as serious risk points. It means creating support that feels usable to men who are ashamed, angry, numb, avoidant, suspicious or emotionally inarticulate.
It also means training GPs, employers, family courts, debt advisers, military transition services, addiction services and community groups to recognise cumulative male risk. It means strengthening male friendships before crisis, making help practical and non-humiliating, taking loneliness seriously and reducing access to lethal means during acute risk. It means not waiting until a man says the perfect sentence in the perfect clinical language before we believe he is in trouble.
Culturally, it means giving boys and men a version of masculinity that can survive ordinary human collapse. A masculinity that can survive unemployment, heartbreak, rejection, needing help, crying, ageing, poverty, being wrong, being left, being scared, being ill, being lonely or being less useful than before. Because if a man’s identity can only survive success, then failure becomes existential, and every human life contains failure.
Men Need a Masculinity That Survives Failure
Male suicide is not just a crisis of silence. It is a crisis of identity. It is what happens when men are taught to measure their worth through strength, work, money, control, usefulness, sexual validation and emotional containment, then are left without a map when those things collapse.
The tragedy is not only that men are dying. It is that so many of the conditions that precede their deaths are visible long before the final crisis: job loss, debt, shame, drinking, isolation, relationship breakdown, custody conflict, retirement, trauma, loss of purpose, refusal to seek help, sudden withdrawal, the sense of being a burden and the collapse of identity. These are not mysteries. They are warning signs. And if they are warning signs, then male suicide prevention has to begin earlier, deeper and more seriously than a slogan.
Men do not need to become less masculine to survive. They need a masculinity that does not collapse when life does. They need to know that losing a job is not losing manhood, that divorce is not annihilation, that poverty is not proof of worthlessness, that loneliness is not shameful, that needing help is not defeat and that being human is not failure.
If this article has brought anything up for you, please speak to someone now. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans are available free on 116 123, day or night. If you or someone else is in immediate danger, call emergency services.
FAQ: Why Do Men Die by Suicide?
Why do men die by suicide at higher rates than women?
Men die by suicide at higher rates than women because of a combination of mental health, social, economic and cultural factors. These can include depression, shame, relationship breakdown, job loss, debt, loneliness, substance use, access to lethal means and a lower likelihood of seeking help early. The issue is often reduced to the idea that “men do not talk,” but the deeper problem is that many men are taught to see vulnerability, failure and emotional need as weakness.
Why are male suicide rates so high in the UK?
Male suicide rates in the UK are high because many risk factors overlap. Men can face pressure to provide, remain emotionally controlled, appear strong and cope without support. When that pressure combines with unemployment, insecure work, financial stress, divorce, custody issues, isolation, alcohol use or mental illness, the risk can become serious. This is why male suicide should be understood as both a mental health issue and a social issue.
Is suicide the biggest killer of men under 50 in the UK?
Yes. In the UK, suicide is widely recognised as the biggest killer of men under 50. This makes male suicide one of the most urgent public health issues affecting men, particularly younger and middle aged men. The statistic is important because it shows that male suicide is not rare or random. It follows a clear demographic pattern that needs serious prevention work.
What does “defeat as a man” mean?
“Defeat as a man” describes the way some men experience life events such as job loss, debt, relationship breakdown, divorce, custody loss or retirement as more than ordinary hardship. These events can be interpreted as evidence that they have failed at being a man. This can create a deep sense of shame, humiliation and identity collapse, especially when a man’s self worth has been built around work, provision, strength, control and being needed by others.
What is masculine identity rupture?
Masculine identity rupture is the collapse of a man’s sense of self when the roles he has built his identity around begin to fall apart. These roles may include provider, husband, father, worker, protector, soldier, strong one or useful one. When several of these roles collapse at once, some men may not simply feel sad or stressed. They may feel that they have lost the very identity that made them feel valuable.
Is male suicide only caused by mental illness?
No. Mental illness can be a major factor in suicide, but male suicide is not only caused by mental illness. It is also shaped by social and economic conditions, including poverty, unemployment, debt, housing insecurity, loneliness, relationship breakdown, addiction, trauma and lack of support. A man may be mentally unwell, but the crisis is often intensified by the world around him.
Why does relationship breakdown increase suicide risk for some men?
Relationship breakdown can increase suicide risk because, for some men, a partner is not only a romantic attachment but also their main source of emotional support, family structure and social connection. After separation or divorce, a man may lose daily contact with his children, his home, his social identity and the person who helped him regulate emotionally. When this is combined with shame, loneliness or financial stress, the risk can become much higher.
How does unemployment affect male suicide risk?
Unemployment can affect male suicide risk because work is often tied to male identity, status and self worth. For men who have been taught that their value lies in providing, losing work can feel like losing dignity, purpose and social standing. The financial stress of unemployment is serious, but the emotional impact can be just as dangerous when job loss is experienced as personal or masculine failure.
Why are middle aged men at particular risk of suicide?
Middle aged men can be at particular risk because several pressures often converge during this stage of life. These may include work stress, redundancy, debt, divorce, custody conflict, ageing, health problems, loneliness, caring responsibilities, alcohol use and loss of purpose. When these pressures combine with emotional silence or reluctance to seek help, the risk can become more severe.
How does loneliness affect male suicide?
Loneliness affects male suicide because many men have fewer emotionally intimate relationships than they appear to. A man may have colleagues, acquaintances, drinking friends or group chats, but still have no one he can speak to honestly about despair. Loneliness is not only being physically alone. It is the absence of feeling known, supported and emotionally safe.
Why do men often struggle to ask for help?
Many men struggle to ask for help because they have been taught to value independence, control and emotional toughness. Asking for help may feel humiliating, especially if they believe they should be able to cope alone. Some men also distrust mental health services, do not recognise their distress as a mental health issue, or express pain through anger, withdrawal, drinking, overwork or risk taking rather than direct disclosure.
What role does alcohol or substance use play in male suicide?
Alcohol and substance use can increase suicide risk because they can worsen depression, increase impulsivity, lower inhibition, intensify shame and damage relationships. They may also become a way of masking distress. A man may not say he is depressed, lonely or frightened, but he may drink more, use drugs more often, withdraw socially or behave more recklessly.
Why does access to lethal means matter in suicide prevention?
Access to lethal means matters because a suicidal crisis can sometimes be temporary, but if a person has immediate access to a highly lethal method, the crisis can become irreversible very quickly. Suicide prevention often depends on creating time and distance between the person and the means of death. This is why practical safety measures are an important part of prevention, alongside emotional and clinical support.
Are veterans more likely to die by suicide?
The picture for veterans is complex. Not all veterans have a higher suicide risk than the general population, but some groups of veterans, particularly younger men after leaving service, may be more vulnerable. This can be linked to trauma, injury, relationship strain, alcohol use, difficulty finding work, loss of purpose, loss of brotherhood and the challenge of moving from military identity into civilian life.
Why might veterans experience masculine identity rupture?
Veterans may experience masculine identity rupture because military life can provide a strong sense of purpose, structure, respect, brotherhood and identity. When service ends, a man may lose the role that made him feel capable, useful and valued. If that loss is followed by trauma, unemployment, relationship breakdown or isolation, the transition can become deeply destabilising.
Is male suicide preventable?
Many suicide deaths may be preventable if risk is recognised earlier and support is made easier to access. This does not mean every individual death can be predicted or that families should blame themselves. It means the broader risk patterns are visible. Job loss, debt, relationship breakdown, isolation, addiction, trauma, shame and withdrawal are all warning signs that should be taken seriously.
What would better male suicide prevention look like?
Better male suicide prevention would go beyond telling men to talk. It would create support that understands male shame, masculine identity, economic pressure, relationship breakdown and emotional isolation. It would involve GPs, employers, family courts, debt advisers, veteran services, addiction services and community groups recognising cumulative risk earlier. It would also mean building male friendships and support networks before crisis point.
What are the warning signs that a man may be at risk of suicide?
Warning signs may include withdrawal, increased drinking or drug use, sudden hopelessness, talking about being a burden, giving things away, reckless behaviour, severe mood changes, loss of interest in life, recent job loss, relationship breakdown, financial crisis or saying that people would be better off without him. Sometimes the signs are obvious, but often they are subtle. Any major change in behaviour should be taken seriously.
Why is “men need to talk” not enough?
“Men need to talk” is not enough because it places too much responsibility on men at the very point when they may feel most ashamed, frightened or unable to explain themselves. Men do need safe spaces to talk, but society also needs to understand why talking may feel impossible. Prevention has to include better services, stronger communities, practical intervention, economic support, relationship support and a version of masculinity that does not treat vulnerability as failure.
How can we support men before they reach crisis point?
We can support men before crisis point by taking life changes seriously, especially job loss, divorce, debt, retirement, addiction, bereavement, health problems and isolation. Support should be practical, direct and non humiliating. It can include checking in consistently, helping with appointments, encouraging professional support, reducing isolation and creating relationships where men can speak honestly without feeling weak.
What should someone do if they are worried about a man in their life?
If you are worried about a man in your life, take the concern seriously. Ask directly how he is coping and whether he has had thoughts of harming himself. Stay calm, listen without judgement and do not dismiss his feelings. Encourage him to contact a crisis line, GP or mental health service. If there is immediate danger, call emergency services. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted free on 116 123 at any time.
Where can men get help if they are feeling suicidal?
In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans are available free on 116 123, day or night. If someone is in immediate danger, call emergency services. Men can also contact their GP, local crisis team, NHS 111, CALM, Mind or other mental health support services. The most important thing is not to sit alone with suicidal thoughts. Support is available, and the crisis does not have to be faced in silence.
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If you’re interested in diving deeper into topics like this, don’t forget to check out the Donc Voila Quoi Podcast, where I discuss these ideas in more detail. You can also follow me on Pinterest @doncvoilaquoi and Instagram @jessielouisevernon, though my accounts have been shut down before (like my old @doncvoilaquoi on Instagram), so keep an eye out for updates.
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