STRONG SILENT TYPES-STUFF ABOUT MEN

Ogrodniczuk, J., & Oliffe, J. (2011). Men and Depression Canadian Family Physician, 57 (2), 153-155

The question is worth asking, only because some researchers insist on categorising particular behaviours in which men excel (typically abuse of others and/or self) as indicating a peculiar brand of male depression (Ogrodniczuk & Oliffe, 2011, p.153). Now, I’m not entirely sure if that means that male depression is a new disorder, or if it is the same garden variety ‘depression’ as contained in the DSM-IV, but in which men can cherry-pick symptoms (or behaviours) to suit. That would even include fucking to excess (is it really possible to do that?) to mask the horror that lies beneath (2011, p.153).

A disorder of convenience, no less?

Ogrodniczuk and Oliffe (2011, p.153) claim that men communicate their depressive symptoms poorly, if at all.  We don’t talk about it, we repress it, we act it out rather than face it head on (2011, p.153). Most of us are familiar with the stereotypical hard man who bears his distress in utter silence to later become the washed-up drunk, death row inmate or victim of suicide. These are powerful images tied to grand assumptions that hold an almost evangelical status as to deter critique. At the heart of this gender-specific malaise is supposedly that well-heeled culprit, gender role socialisation (2011, p.153).

I would agree with the authors (2011, p.153) that yes, indeed, boys raised into men are constantly exposed to the expectation that our masculinity depends on us biting our tongues, gritting our teeth, putting up and shutting up. However, how does the choice by any one man to bottle up his troubling emotions invariably lead to him becoming angry, hostile, aggressive or violent (2011, p.153)? It is as if to suggest that clustering such violent behaviours within a re-jigged disease state matrix transforms subjectively bad decisions into objectively experienced symptoms. Ogrodniczuk and Oliffe (2011, p.153) go so far as to cast a dissociative disconnect…

‘The catch phrase ‘big boys don’t cry’ prevails, to suggest that boys and men in particular should not ‘whine.’ Such values, implicitly and sometimes explicitly promoted by parents and other caretakers, profoundly shape boys’ and men’s gender identities, roles, and relations as well as their health care practices. Thus, boys can learn to dissociate from aspects of emotional experience, especially any visible feelings of sadness. Anger, shame, and control-oriented defences often arise as a means of self-protection’ (2011, p.153).

Protection, against what?

Undoubtedly, as I often say, many men suffer for the want of strong attachment relationships across the lifespan, a desert that commences at birth and continues to haunt some of us until the day we die. What the authors here call ‘intense and vulnerable emotions’ (2011, p.155) that allegedly emerge from untreated depressive symptoms I would counter are in fact usually the consequence of deep-seated trauma, a recurrent pattern of perceived or actual loss, the incapacity to connect emotionally coupled with an unfulfilled longing to do just that, that is, to connect emotionally. All of this within a culture that creates much confusion by deifying while concomitantly castigating the strong, silent type…

See also…

‘Effect of Gender Socialization on the Presentation of Depression Among Men: A Pilot Study’ (2011)

Large M, Sharma S, Compton MT, Slade T, & Nielssen O (2011). Cannabis Use and Earlier Onset of Psychosis: A Systematic Meta-analysis. Archives of general psychiatry PMID: 21300939

‘The results of this study provide strong evidence that reducing cannabis use could delay or even prevent some cases of psychosis. Reducing the use of cannabis could be one of the few ways of altering the outcome of the illness because earlier onset of schizophrenia is associated with a worse prognosis and because other factors associated with age at onset, such as family history and sex, cannot be changed. Building on several decades of research, this finding is an important breakthrough in our understanding of the relationship between cannabis use and psychosis. It raises the question of whether those substance users would still have gone on to develop psychosis a few years later. However,even if the onset of psychosis were inevitable, an extra 2 or 3 years of psychosis-free functioning could allow many patients to achieve the important developmental milestones of late adolescence and early adulthood that could lower the long-term disability arising from psychotic disorders.The results of this study confirm the need for a renewed public health warning about the potential for cannabis use to bring on psychotic illness’ (2011, n.pag).

It is very naughty of pro-prohibition psychiatrists, who seek to find pre-emptive evidence of emerging psychosis everywhere (and I mean everywhere), when the evidence in support of their sweeping claims is, well, decidedly pale. That is not to deny that some people can be adversely affected by some substances at some particular points in time. See me, for example, when I skip that second heart jolter coffee in the morning and snooze starts to look like reality around noon. I just must have that delicious liquid energy to keep me going. However, if in addition to fatigue I also started to experience hallucinations or delusions or felt particularly paranoid in this post-Wikileaks era, would that indicate a causative link between caffeine and psychosis?

Your choice of answers here are ‘yes’, ‘no,’ and ‘maybe.’ No, you do not have to choose one of the aforementioned options, since all three are equally as valid as they are not. Herein lies the rubbish-scape of combining backwards proving (that cannabis did cause your psychosis) with predictive capacity into the ether (that cannabis will cause your psychosis). Throw in the junk variable that psychosis itself is culturally constructed and made up of whatever ingredients (or symptoms, behaviours, etc.) to which psychiatry is currently enamoured, and you are pushing shite up hill to genuinely prove the link. Still, authority can suffice for reality when knowledge is yours to make, so we continue to build this disturbing clamour around cannabis and leave the big drug problem, that is, alcohol, safely in the back bar…

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