
State of Health Report Shows Growing Despair Among American Men - eplanit
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/state-health-among-american-men-040100395.html
======
Shivetya
well the vilification in the media certainly does not help, the amount men are
bombarded with the message that they are source of so much wrong has to be
overwhelming to many.

anecdotal nonsense, a few years back we went through a wave of new HR videos
about harassment and intimidation and not one had a non male aggressor. it was
so bad the women attending the sessions were mocking the presentation.

fortunately they canned that approach not long after after the poor reception.

~~~
droithomme
> not one had a non male aggressor

Decades ago I briefly dated an extremely physically abusive woman. Nearly
killed me a couple times. I ended it. Not a single person has the slightest
bit of sympathy over this. I've never struck a woman but maybe I should have
in self defense. If I had though I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever I would
have been reported, arrested, and imprisoned, regardless of all facts.

~~~
octokatt
Hey, from an internet stranger, I'm sorry this happened to you. That's a
terrible situation, made worse by the culture around you.

I hope you've found support since then; if you haven't, here's my anonymous
support.

Here are links to finding more support:
[https://malesurvivor.org](https://malesurvivor.org)
[https://victimconnect.org](https://victimconnect.org)
[http://www.mensadviceline.org.uk](http://www.mensadviceline.org.uk)

------
ljw1001
> The decline in life expectancy is occurring in part due to deaths from
> despair. From 2007 to 2017, the mortality rate from drug overdoses increased
> 82%

This is a perfect example of how corporate greed (and a political system that
now mostly exists to support it) is ravishing the American people. After
decades of obvious abuses, the company pushing OxyContin is finally being
stopped, but no one is going to jail (see:
[https://www.npr.org/2019/09/19/762455218/as-drugmakers-
face-...](https://www.npr.org/2019/09/19/762455218/as-drugmakers-face-opioid-
lawsuits-some-ask-why-not-criminal-charges-too)), and although the company is
bankrupt, we're merely locking the barn door after the billions have escaped.

~~~
notadoc
You're looking at the symptom rather than the disease.

The despair is the disease. Drug and alcohol use are from people self-
medicating their symptoms.

If anyone cared to address this problem, they'd look at what causes despair.
That despair is often from economic and social distress.

Instead, everyone is outraged up on a media and politically driven moral panic
about pharmaceutical medication that happens to be rarely abused and is almost
never addictive (fewer than 0.1% chance of becoming addicted to prescribed
painkillers, study on ___over 640,000 patients_
__,[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27400458](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27400458)).

~~~
whiddershins
No, drug and alcohol addiction definitely can produce despair. Causation can
and does work both ways in this one, causing a spiral which is almost
impossible to trace back to a single thing.

No, I don’t think economic problems per se cause despair. People are richer,
much richer, than 100 or 1000 years ago. I don’t think that changes the
fundamental human struggle with meaning, hope, purpose, and everything else
that wards off despair.

~~~
harimau777
I think that part of the problem may be that people are richer in ways that
don't make them happy or give them meaning, and poorer in ways that do.

Most notably, it seems to me that owning your own house and land would bring a
much greater sense of autonomy, accomplishment, control, etc. than more
consumeristic things like TVs, video games, fancy food, etc. (not that its bad
that those things exist).

------
notadoc
This is not too surprising for many reasons.

Also, a significant part of modern American culture actively devalues men and
thinks of men and masculinity as problematic. This is particularly true within
certain political movements and social cultures. That has health consequences,
as is already widely known from many studies on various other forms of
discrimination and discriminatory movements.

~~~
downerending
This has become a lot more noticeable within the last few years (e.g., the
Washington Post editorial "Why can't we hate men?"), and it is indeed having a
negative effect on my state of mind.

Not easy to do, but I've been working hard on withdrawing from social media,
outrage news, etc., and those who are wrapped up in it. It seems appealing in
the moment, but I do think it ultimately contributes to this sort of despair.

------
sdegutis
Discovering what true masculinity means and how to fulfill it is going to be
key for men today to keep their sanity and hope. And that begins with courage
and a sincere search for the truth, and it continues with the courage to stand
up for the truth in the face of threats and injustices.

------
RocketSyntax
Feel like we're either fat and unmotivated, or overworked and unsatisfied...
with only a thin slice finding something in the middle.

~~~
40acres
Just turned 28 and can say I easily fit the bill for 3/4 of these
descriptions. I've been chalking it up to a quarter life crisis and am
desperate for a geographic move to add some new experiences to my life.

~~~
notadoc
Moving will briefly introduce new experiences but you will quickly adjust.

Finding and developing new interests and hobbies is a much better longterm
solution.

~~~
freehunter
I've moved and helped friends move quite a bit, and in my anecdotal
experience, the only way a geographical change helps if either if you just
can't do what you need to do in your home town (like moving to SV or NYC for
work) or if your home town life is absolutely toxic and you can't get away
from it without leaving.

I moved across the country for no good reason except to move. Absolutely
nothing was different. I was still the same person, except now without friends
or family. I wasn't running from anything but everything followed me anyway.
I've had half a dozen friends in the same situation. You can't run from
yourself.

Meanwhile I helped a friend move about a year ago because she couldn't get
away from high school drama. She was in her 30s, and still caught up in high
school drama from her high school friends. She moved away and made new friends
and completely cut her old friends out of her life. Massive difference. I've
had friends of friends do the same thing when their family life was toxic. Big
help from the sounds of it. Immigrants do it constantly, running from toxic
politics to start a new life in a safer place. It works.

But if you're running from yourself? You can't run fast enough or far enough.
You will always be you. Fix that before you fix your geography, or it will
just be a very expensive lesson learned. It took a long time for my bank
account to recover from my move and even longer for my circle of friends to
recover.

~~~
im3w1l
> it will just be a very expensive lesson learned.

Moving doesn't have to be a financial hit. If you move to an area with higher
wages it may earn you money.

~~~
imtringued
You will have to pay a bigger security deposit.

------
rpiguy
It is at times like these that I wish Hacker News included number of views in
addition to the number of replies.

Threads like this give the impression that everyone is miserable and fill up
quickly with sad stories.

It’s good the internet gives those people an outlet and a place to connect,
but if this was say viewed by thousands and only got 60 replies it might
provide some perspective. Most people are just fine.

~~~
kwoff
So, what is your source that "most people are just fine"? I'd wager that what
you mean is, you're fine and you think most people you know are fine. Good
luck, in any case.

~~~
rpiguy
These two articles sum it up nicely. About 5.7% of men are depressed and about
8.7% of women. Most people are just fine. I hate alarmist journalism and
sensational headlines.

[https://www.healthline.com/health/depression/facts-
statistic...](https://www.healthline.com/health/depression/facts-statistics-
infographic#1)

[https://www.verywellmind.com/depression-statistics-
everyone-...](https://www.verywellmind.com/depression-statistics-everyone-
should-know-4159056)

------
8bitsrule
The following, recent Rolling Stone article provides some real-world context.

[https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-
features/suicid...](https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-
features/suicide-rate-america-white-men-841576/)

------
shaki-dora
I'm a man, and for the life of me I don't get how people are feeling
personally attacked by feminism. Same with racism: I just don't connect these
issues with me as an individual. And I've never experienced an interaction
where others have done so, either. I've been to any number of feminist events
with my partner, and nobody ever made a negative comment rooted in the fact
that I'm a man.

~~~
droithomme
I supported feminism as it was originally explained to me, as against violent
and abusive dictatorial strictly patriarchal systems insidiously designed to
suppress and oppress minority viewpoints and ways.

But since then I've realized there are many other things that feminism means
to people. It's not a great label as it doesn't mean anything in particular.
Some variants are definitely bigoted hate against a certain gender. I don't
agree with those. Diffusion of label-meaning: what can be done about this. For
me... be a label-skeptic. Irrelevant, though no one cares. Only mindless
labels matter in the great big wide world.

~~~
godzillabrennus
Totally understand where you are coming from. My wife and I tend to see modern
feminism as a way to tell males that being masculine is bad while
simultaneously telling females that being feminine is bad. Seems like the same
pay for the same work aspects of the movement are where they should instead
focus.

Likewise politically, I’m for individual liberty for all adults but not for an
anemic taxation system for the rich.

I guess that makes me a centrist these days?

------
sjustns
Just wanted to leave a few quotes here, from The Sociological Imagination by
C. Wright Mills, one of my favorite books. Also, if any of this resonates, see
the link in my profile and come read with us:

"The very shaping of history now outpaces the ability of men to orient
themselves in accordance with cherished values. Even when they do not panic
men often sense that older ways off feeling and thinking have collapsed and
that newer beginnings are ambiguous to the point of stasis. Is it any wonder
that ordinary men feel they cannot cope with the larger worlds with which they
are so suddenly confronted? That they cannot understand the meaning of their
epoch for their own lives? That—in defense of selfhood—they become morally
insensible, trying to remain altogether private men?

Is it any wonder that they come to be possessed by a sense of the trap? It is
not only information that they need—in this Age of Fact, information often
dominates their attention and overwhelms their capacities to assimilate it. It
is not only the skills of reason that they need—although their struggles to
acquire these often exhaust their limited moral energy. What they need, and
what they feel they need, is a quality of mind that will help them to use
information to develop reason in order to achieve lucid summations of what is
going on in the world and what may be happening within themselves."

"What are the major issues for publics and the key troubles of private
individuals in our time? To formulate issues and troubles, we must ask what
values are cherished yet threatened, and what values are cherished and
supported, by the characterizing trends of our period. In the case both of
threat and of support we must ask what salient contradictions of structure may
be involved.

When people cherish some set of values and do not feel any threat to them,
they experience well-being. When they cherish values but do feel them to be
threatened, they experience a crisis—either as personal trouble or as a public
issue. And if all their values seem involved, they feel the total threat of
panic.

But suppose people are neither aware of any cherished values, nor experience
any threat? That is the experience of indifference, which, if it seems to
involve all their values, becomes apathy. Suppose, finally, they are unaware
of any cherished values, but still are very much aware of a threat? That is
the experience of uneasiness, of anxiety, which if it is total enough, becomes
a deadly unspecified malaise.

Ours is a time of uneasiness and indifference-not yet formulated in such ways
as to permit the work of reason and the play of sensibility. Instead of
troubles—defined in terms of values and threats—there is often the misery of
vague uneasiness; instead of explicit issues there is often merely the beat
feeling that all is somehow not right. Neither the values threatened nor
whatever threatens them has been stated; in short, they have not been carried
to the point of decision. Much less have they been formulated as problems of
social science."

"Yet men do not usually define the roubles they endure in terms of historical
change and institutional contradiction. The well-being they enjoy, they do not
usually impute to the big ups and downs of the societies in which they live.
Seldom aware of the intricate connection between the patterns of their own
lives and the course of world history, ordinary men do not usually know what
this connection means for the kinds of men they are becoming and for the kinds
of history-making in which they take part."

He goes on to talk about the relationship between work and leisure as a
"crisis of ambition" in American society. Great read.

------
_bxg1
The headline is a weird, cherry-picked minor point from within the article. I
had to Ctrl+F to even find it (after skimming).

------
hestipod
I've spent every night for the last few months trying to find a way/reason to
keep going mentally. Before that it was every other night, a few times a week,
few times a month etc. Before the inciting event for this decline, badly done
and ultimately unneeded surgery fifteen years ago taking away everything, I
never ONCE considered this. In fact I was positive when discussing the topic
that I would NEVER do such a thing and that there would always be a way,
always be family or friends, always be a system there to hold me up. Because
that's what I had been indoctrinated to believe. It wasn't true.

I worked hard, in a career beneficial to society. I helped people, always had
great empathy, and treated others with respect. Even then I didn't really get
it when I would come across someone like I am now. Someone who suffered and
lost it all. Someone on the edge. I did what I could to help them but I was as
ignorant and naive as ever believing the rest of the system and society would
give them that same attention and value. I thought it would be ok. It's not
ok.

The truth is in American society has decided human life and security isn't the
most important thing. It's decided INDEPENDENCE and profits and ego and the
chance to be wealthy and powerful is. Everyone for themselves. Guns are rights
but healthcare is an "entitlement". Equality is somehow "wrong".If you need
help you are "weak" and a "loser" and "nobody is going to live off MY tax
money". They think if you can even open your eyes, or type an occasional rant
online, that means you can grind away like everyone else and "why don't you
just" and they KNOW this is true because they KNOW they would be able to when
they reached this unfathomable state. Saying this will make a lot of people
angry because nationalism is an identity for many and ultimately proves the
point.

About the same time my health was ruined a friend in Belgium had a similar
experience. He was given social support to keep his flat, healthcare, spent a
few years reeducating in a new skill and was able to reenter society and
function. He has a happy life and family now. My experience was denials from
government assistance programs, struggling to manage with savings and small
private pension but no health insurance, watching a family full of puritanical
hypocrites turn away and blame. My friend lost something of his life, but was
allowed to regain one worth living and not fear every little bump being the
end. He gets to have a future as a result. I do not.

Next came cycles of motivation and disappointment and trying as hard as I
could to hold it together only to have things collapse because with more
limits and needs nobody can manage that alone despite what everyone needs to
believe for their own mental security. The root of victim blaming right there
folks. Some people are always going to need help. Some can rebuild at least
some but still need help doing so. Stability. Access. Caring.

After you see that help isn't coming comes the anger...then that anger slowly
morphs into despair. Then one day comes this indescribable sensation that even
the moment before you couldn't believe would ever TRULY happen even thinking
abstractly about it. Acceptance. Not acceptance of the decline. Not acceptance
of the despair. Acceptance that you aren't afraid to let all of this life go
anymore. You don't WANT to not BE...but you want to not be THIS. You want
suffering, judgement, isolation, pain, complete lack or agency in LIFE
anymore. You are exhausted all the time and it's not worth the tiny if any
moments of joy anymore.

You are still rational. You aren't running around with your underwear on your
head and flinging you poo at people. You are just running on empty, You swim
as hard as you can and you sink, you relax and go with it and you sink,
nothing works. It's always said to be your fault, not the fact you were
unceremoniously dropped in the ocean and told to fend for yourself whilst
people give "advice" from the shore like "just learn how to swim" and then get
offended when you cannot as if your drowning insults them. You have walked
over every "next hill" for years looking for petrol, and it's never there. Or
if it IS there 1/1000000000 times and some nice and truly well meaning
shopkeeper is smiling and waving you there, someone else swoops in front and
takes the rest or the shop closes right as you straggle up to it because you
stepped in a hole and that slowed you down even more.

Despair isn't some inexplicable thing. It's 99% of the time rooted in clear,
multiple causes. But this society, ESPECIALLY this society, won't face or
address them. Most people like me don't end up like me out of some fault in
themselves or some unsolvable problem. But it's easier to punch down for both
ego fulfillment and to bolster your own feelings of personal safety because
YOU are better than that and it will never happen to you. You were smart, and
planned, and have good people around you. Well guess what...the "Just World"
isn't.

There was a time I was an activist for health and social issues. It never had
any macro effect. I tried to "just get out of you don"t like it!" Doing that
alone is very, very hard and I could never get it to work permanently. The
damage done here would follow me everywhere and ironically block the path to
even a life in those better conditions. There was a time I thought about crazy
things like applying for asylum in a more socially conscious country, but the
truth is people in this situation don't get approved. I am out of fuel and
hope, there is no petrol station over the next hill, and my bootstraps were
worn to dust years ago. There are countless people like me and nobody here
ever thinks they will be one of them.

~~~
disabled
You nailed it.

I am disabled myself and I have experienced this. But, I am a dual US|EU
national.

I actually experienced a very traumatic injury on Thursday, and had to be seen
in my city's level 1 trauma unit. I am physically disabled and fell down some
steep concrete stairs, (I probably need to use a wheelchair probably from now
on.)

I ended up having surgery to repair the injury on Friday.

My pain was under control in the ambulance, but that was it.

I literally screamed nonstop during Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, due to the
hospital refusing to give me adequate pain control. My abdominal muscles are
still sore and my voice is gone still. When pain management finally came on
Monday, they cared more about what medications I could "get outside" the
hospital and "what the maximum quantity would be" more than actually
controlling my pain.

They didn't even have any pillows for me on the unit to elevate my limb.

The whole experience was extremely traumatic and barbaric. It was reminiscent
of a third world country.

Supposedly this is one of the best trauma units in the country, too.

I am done with this country. I cannot do this anymore. It is killing me.

~~~
Clubber
Doctors are afraid to get arrested for prescribing pain meds. The government
has injected itself into healthcare as a political response to the media
response to the "opioid crisis."

I have an elderly family member (70s) that is treated as a pariah by one of
the few pain clinics accepting new patients in the city.

~~~
downrightmike
The sackler family did create an crisis so they could rake in billions.

~~~
pitaj
No, the government created the crisis by restricting supply of painkillers
people desperately need. Purdue is a nice scapegoat though. Good job playing
the same card as the drug warriors ("evil dealers").

------
AtlasBarfed
Despite it's dubious underpinnings and specious applications, the theory of
the disposable male seems to fit this.

The only thing the majority of men are useful to in society is
work/production. If you take that away, then the other function of men
(reproduction/fertilization) can be accomplished by a much smaller fraction of
the male population.

We are taking away the only thing that justifies the existence of most men,
and we are reminding them of it every day with the society we are creating
with no safety net or healthcare.

But after the last election, I stopped caring.

~~~
aldoushuxley001
I would imagine a safety net and subsidized healthcare actually diminishes the
traditional biological functions of males in human populations. With a safety
net e.g., the males don't need to necessarily be the breadwinners/hunters to
the same degree and so their traditional function is less required.

But yeah the dispoable male is a dubious theory.

~~~
AtlasBarfed
It explains so many parts of what seems to happen on online dating, but like
many theories it's probably waiting for a better one, or a better version of
this one.

It definitely gets oversimplified/overapplied and abused in service of more
extreme MRO/Incel people, but last I looked there were actual biological
evidence from other species.

------
throwawayhhakdl
When I was in high school I had a stereotypical thought that most of the ass
hole more popular guys would have shit lives after college. Historically that
wasn’t true. But nowadays... it seems more valid. Most of the guy’s who
followed stereotypical social strategies in high school have turned out pretty
poor. The guys who have done well are the one man who were smart or kind. Your
value to others should be self evident from being a person people like. People
saying it’s all about work and money... sound like assholes who don’t realize
it.

------
moosey
Although I'm male, I live my life surrounded by women and have a large focus
on women's issues. I also see the writing on the wall: IVF technologies that
are being developed today will further erode the value of men in most if not
all non-socially conservative societies. I predict large numbers of women in
single, cohabitating, or lesbian arrangements having children together because
large numbers of men have proven themselves insufferable. I certainly know I
have demonstrated as much in the past.

Men capable of rethinking their relationship with women and what it means to
be a male, rather than a man, I imagine will do fine in the coming social
upheaval.

~~~
nostrademons
I could see lesbian parenting becoming more common with greater social
acceptance.

Single or cohabiting though? As a recent parent, I doubt it. Raising children
remains _extremely_ challenging, and significantly easier if you have a
committed partner for it. There's no way my wife would be able to go on, say,
a 10-day business trip to Laos or a 3-day industry conference if I weren't
holding down the fort at home, or for that matter able to get to the gym
tonight if I weren't picking our son up from daycare, taking him to gymnastics
and cooking dinner for him.

How a couple chooses to split up the labor in their relationship is their
business, but the fact that there's more than enough labor for a _couple_
isn't going to change regardless of technology.

~~~
hinkley
I think GP is talking about a James Holden or an It Takes A Village Scenario.
Where one child or group of children has a larger pool of guardians looking
out for them. Doesn’t even have to be that exotic. My aunt’s neighborhood took
it in turns to take all the kids one day a week, so the other parents had a
few days for their own stuff and appointments.

------
tathougies
The good news is that the social groups where both traditional masculinity and
femininity are not looked down upon (typically conservative, religious folks,
not necessarily any particular religion, either) will grow due to the higher
birth and family stability rates. This will hopefully lead to better mental
health for both men and women who are suffering under the current system.

~~~
matt4077
That theory (with a different group of people) has been a favorite of racists
for at least two centuries. Yet, somehow, it never really materialises.

In your specific case, it is bound to fail because the children of religious
parents are rather likely to leave religion. The various kinds of injustice
children experience at the hand of religious organisations helps in that
regard.

If you don't believe me, just think back in time: religious people have
_always_ had more children. And yet, religion has a been declining for a long
time.

Among the most reproduction-happy have been groups like the Amish. But they
haven't taken over the US, have they?

~~~
tathougies
Really? I'm pointing out that religious populations like Catholics and Muslims
are increasing and im being accused of racism? These are the two most diverse
religious groups on the planet. Your accusation is laughable

