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The Many Masks of Male Depression
There are millions of men who are depressed, but don't know it and millions more who know it, but are afraid to show it. It isn't manly to be depressed. There is a double stigma for men. We can accept physical disability, but mental disability makes us feel helpless and out of control. Emotional problems are also seen by many of us as "feminine." We cover our unhappiness with drink, drugs, excessive exercise, overwork, and angry moods.
Psychotherapist Terrence Real, author of I Don't Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression says: "Hidden depression drives several of the problems we think of as typically male: physical illness, alcohol and drug abuse, domestic violence, failures in intimacy, self-sabotage in careers."[i]
Not only is it difficult for the men to recognize their depression, those around them tend to see the men as "bad" rather than "sad." It isn't surprising because men's behavior seems more aggressive than passive, more wounding than wounded. "Because men are raised to be independent, active, task oriented, and successful," say Drs. John Lynch and Christopher Kilmartin, authors of The Pain Behind the Mask: Overcoming Masculine Depression. "They tend to express painful feelings by blaming others, denying their feelings, and finding solutions for their problems in places outside of themselves."[ii]
One of the largest studies of its kind in the world, the Epidemiological Catchment Area study, sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health, sought to find out the percent of the population suffering from various kinds of mental illnesses. A total of 19,182 persons were interviewed. Although many believe that psychiatric disorders affect women more than men, the data showed that 36% of men suffer from some kind of psychiatric disorder, compared to 30% of women. It was found that 5.2% of men and 10.2% of women suffered from some kind of affective disorder such as depression. 23.8% of the men and 4.6% of women suffered from alcohol dependence. 7.7% of men and 4.8% of women suffered from drug dependence. 4.5% of men and .80% of women suffer from antisocial personality disorder.[iii]
"Interestingly, men outnumber women in alcohol-related disorders, drug-related use and disorders, antisocial personality, and any psychiatric conditions," say Drs. Sam V. Cochran and Fredric E. Rabinowitz. "Additionally, the sex imbalance in these male-dominated disorders raises the question of how many men who might be 'depressed' are manifesting their depression in these categories or through other undocumented syndromes."[iv]
I suggest that Irritable Male Syndrome is one of the categories where male depression is manifested. This idea was given additional credibility by two studies done in Denmark indicating that males and females show equal levels of depression when an irritability and aggressive component was added.[v]
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[i] Terrence Real. I Don't Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression. New York: Scribner, 1997, p. 22.
[ii] John Lynch and Christopher Kilmartin. The Pain Behind the Mask: Overcoming Masculine Depression. New York: The Haworth Press, 1999, p. 7.
[iii] L. Robins & D. Reiger. Psychiatric Disorders in America. New York: Press Press, 1991. Summarized in Sam V. Cochran and Fredric E. Rabinowitz. Men and Depression: Clinical and Empirical Perspectives. San Diego, California: Academic Press, 2000, p, 13.
[iv] Sam V. Cochran and Fredric E. Rabinowitz. Men and Depression: Clinical and Empirical Perspectives. San Diego, California: Academic Press, 2000, p. 13-14.
[v] See Finn Zierau, Anne Bille, Wolfgang Rutz, Per Bech. "The Gotland Male Depression Scale: A validity study in patients with alcohol use disorder." Nordic Journal of Psychiatry. Vol. 56, No 4., p. 265-271, 2002.
See also Rutz, W., et. al. "Prevention of male suicides: lessons from Gotland study." Lancet. 345:524, 1995.
Does this sound familiar? Drop me a line and let me know what you have experienced.
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This article first appeared on Gordon Clay's MenStuff Web site, http://www.menstuff.org/
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