The Hidden Epidemic of Male Suicide | Dr. Susie Bennett

Sam: 00:00:00

Hello and welcome to the show. My name is Sam, and this is the Lonely Chapter.

On this podcast, I speak to interesting people, extracting their stories, the lessons they learned along the way, and their knowledge in order for you to learn and take value from it. Today we are learning from Dr. Susie Bennett, who studies the topic of male suicides at the Suicide Research Lab.

Expect to learn what led Susie to focus in on this specific area of research, why understanding the opposite genders issues is so important, and how we can begin to break the stigma that surrounds male mental health. Thank you for listening. This one was made for your enjoyment.

Suzy, thank you so much for coming on today and I appreciate, really appreciate you traveling down to it in person.

Susie: 00:01:01

Pleasure, Sam, thanks for having me.

Sam: 00:01:03

you started this research in: 2018

Susie: 00:01:15

Yes, that was my first study in male suicide.

So I spoke to 32 people that was a mixture of men that had attempted suicide or lived with thoughts of suicide, and then people bereaved by male suicide. And those conversations completely changed my life.

Sam: 00:01:36

And what led you there prior to that? What sort of took you into that area of research?

Susie: 00:01:44

So the people I had had loved ones who experienced suicidal crisis, and that had been a part of our family story for a while. And so I had a very kind of central, I suppose, pain inside of me around what can.

What brings someone to that point of feeling like they can't bear staying in existence? And what can we all collectively do to try and make life more manageable for people? And then I grew up with three brothers, so.

And we were four of us, four years apart. So my entire sort of childhood and adolescence was very much embedded in male energy.

And I think it's given me so many beautiful things, but a real kind of love of men and a feeling of safety with men.

And I think that in: 2018

And at the same time, I remember seeing the statistic around suicide being the biggest killer of men under 50, which is not to say that older men don't really face a lot of challenges related to this as well.

But I thought something between these two positions of this sort of all powerful, all privilege, and then the biggest killer of men being these deaths of despair just didn't make sense to me. And so I really wanted to understand what's going on, what's going on for men.

And I think I went into the work as somebody who, if you told me at the time, would have said, oh, I think I know men quite well, I have a lot of love and care for men, but this journey's just completely opened my eyes to, and I think at times really made me feel a lot of sadness and shame for the things that I didn't understand about what it was like for my brothers and other men that I care about to exist in the world and the ways in which sometimes my own behavior could be restricting the sort of space available to them to express themselves as fully as they might want to. So, yeah, it was very much a sort of personal journey. And, yeah, like I say, it's kind of just really changed my life, changed my perspective.

And I met so many incredible men along the way.

Sam: 00:04:45

Yeah, I think what you touched on there was the.

Where that sort of me too movement came in and those important conversations then created that sort of feeling that all men had this area of privilege. And obviously not every single man does, and a lot of men don't, obviously.

But the stats we'll get into, one of the stats that you mentioned there was, it's the top killer of men under 50.

Susie: 00:05:08

Yeah.

Sam: 00:05:09

Are there any other stats that sort of prominent stats that we should know for people listening before we get into this conversation?

Susie: 00:05:16

Good question.

g recorded in this country in: 1861

So since: 1861

And you would have thought given this context of all powerful, all privileged, that, well, then there must have been loads of research to understand what's putting men at such risk. And that just hasn't happened. So there's still so many, like, critical, critical things that we don't have proper evidence to say.

We might, you know, I'm sure as we'll talk, we'll reveal sort of intuitive things that we feel but Getting that evidence base so we can start putting, you know, practical things in place is really, really important. And so the other statistic that I think is quite revealing. So for last year, 75% of suicide deaths were male, so three quarters.

And that's pretty much consistent in every country around the world. So, again, there's this real question about what is happening not just for men in the uk, but men around the world.

What is it about the male that's putting men at such, such risk of so much pain? Sam? Because that's what, for me, suicide is. It's just an express, an expression and manifestation of deep, deep pain.

And I think that, you know, there's a lot of conversation now about mental health, mental illness, all those things are important, but I don't think that they resonate with everybody.

So some men that I speak to, absolutely, getting a diagnosis or understanding themselves through the framework of mental illness or poor mental health is really helpful for them. But a lot of men I speak to, it's not. That's not how they understand what's going on.

For them, it's about job issues, financial issues, all these different external pressures.

But pretty much consistently, what every man I speak to talks about is his pain, this level of pain that he's in, the invisibility of the pain that he's holding, the sort of loneliness and isolation he feels around that pain.

So for me, this idea that there's a group of people who are men who seem to be vulnerable to going through life, accruing so much pain without that pain, getting proper, meaningful relief is something that should be of, you know, heightened concern for all of us.

Sam: 00:08:25

You said there about pain. So is that a physical pain? Is that a psychological pain? Do they both join in together?

Susie: 00:08:33

Yeah, I mean, it's really hard to separate them out. It's like when there's a cake and you're trying to a baked cake and you want to separate out the egg and the flour, like the things baked together.

But the sort of suicide that I look at is largely rooted in this psychological pain. So psychological pain, in a way, is just sort of an umbrella term for any kind of emotional feeling that's unpleasant to feel.

So whether that's embarrassment, jealousy, despair, guilt, shame, anything that's unpleasant to feel, and therefore we don't want to be feeling it, we want to feel something different. We want to transform those feelings into something else.

And if we can't, and those painful feel feelings keep building and building, we might reach a point where we start to think that suicide is the way with which we can, you know, find relief from those feelings. So I understand and think about suicide very much through that lens of psychological pain.

So then when I'm thinking about, I mean, what I should say, Sam, is suicide is so complicated.

If we think of like the spectrum of human behaviors, from sort of making a cup of tea, which, you know, not many factors go into that sort of decision.

When talking about the decision to stay in existence or not, it's right at the end of, like the spectrum of complexity in terms of the amount of factors that, you know, that contribute to that decision, whether they're conscious or not. So it's always difficult when we talk about suicide because you, you want to make it.

It's really important to me to give people better information about what might be going on for them.

And at the same time, I don't want to any, in any way sort of make it sound like every person that's suicidal has exactly the same experiences, but very broadly in terms of that idea of pain and suicide, I think that there can be sort of three critical questions to ask. The first one is around, what pain has a person been exposed to both historically and presently?

The second question is, what tools does a person have to regulate that pain? And are those tools helping to reduce the pain or increase the pain cause?

Sometimes in our research, particularly with men, sometimes you'll see pain relief behaviors such as drinking, drugs, gambling, that may provide short term relief from what's going on internally, but long term are potentially ultimately exposing you to more pain.

And then the third question is around, when have you reached your threshold for how much pain you can tolerate and what are the sort of warning signs for you that that pain is becoming unbearable?

So, for example, I mean, I'm somebody who's had thoughts of suicide in my life, and I know a sign for me when I'm dipping is I listen to music all of the time and I know I'm getting mentally into a bad place when I don't want to do that, when I just want silence. So that for me is a sort of a sign for me, but it's gonna be different for each person.

But I sort of see those three questions as being quite helpful in terms of understanding for yourself what might be going on for you.

Sam: 00:12:19

Yeah, absolutely. And trying to understand that like you have there with your own stuff, with the, the music. Yeah, trying to understand what your sign is.

What, what is your sign that you're sort of going down downhill mentally talking about how it starts to manifest. So obviously the pain that you feel and you did say about historical and current events.

Susie: 00:12:46

Yeah.

Sam: 00:12:47

Do you find that there's any difference? Does it tend to be a sort of buildup of old events over time, or can it be one significant event in the moment? What does it tend to be?

Susie: 00:12:58

I mean, most of the time, when I speak to men who are suicidal, there's been a long history of difficult things. And I think that often there can sometimes be a critical event before an attempt or before a death, but often it's the sort of tipping point of it.

I've described it in the past as sort of imagining that every single one of us carries a tank of psychological pain. Because to be a human being means that you're going to be exposed to painful things in life.

We're all going to experience pain, so we're all gonna have pain coming into our tanks. And so I think it's rarely that there's one event that pours all the pain into the tank that you then hit that threshold of feeling too much pain.

And certainly, I think experiences in childhood can be really significant, and they can vary really hugely.

I've seen evidence of things to do with, you know, abuse, you know, sexual, physical, emotional abuse, emotional neglect, physical neglect, absent caregivers, caregivers with addiction problems, mental health problems, very controlling caregivers. I've seen evidence of kids who had amazing caregivers.

But maybe there was horrific bullying that was happening at school or abuse that happened outside of the home. But often there is something. Some stress in childhood.

And I think the thing that's important to remember when we're talking about men and something that I feel very emotional about in a way, is that sort of potential double jeopardy for boys who exposed to painful events in childhood and then are socialized in these cultural ideas of masculinity in terms of suppressing your pain, being independent, being in control.

If you've experienced, you know, horrific bullying as a child and that pain's getting no release because you're being told you just need to deal with it, is absolutely horrendous.

Sam: 00:15:23

Yeah. Just bottling things up. One of the. When you spoke about the psychological pain tank, there something that came to mind.

I was essentially the same thing, but it was quite a nice analogy. I was speaking to a psychotherapist who explained this to me in his own experience.

So he was saying that it was like he was walking down a road, and every now and then there'd be a brick on the floor, and he'd pick up the brick and he'd throw it over his shoulder and. And he'd think nothing of it and carry on. And then he did that for however many years.

And then one day he got to a point where he just fell to his knees and he said, what I didn't realize was I had a massive bag on my back and every single time I threw the brick over, it wasn't leaving me, it was going straight in the bag. He said it just got too heavy one day. Which, yeah, it's the same sort of idea, but it's just. It was a nice analogy.

Susie: 00:16:16

It's a beautiful way of putting it,.

Sam: 00:16:17

Which, yeah, he really sort of makes you understand it in a different way almost.

Susie: 00:16:22

That's what something that I feel really passionate about is. I really. It troubles me when there's sort of this. I very much think that we. There's huge diversity in men, so it's very difficult to talk about.

You know, I've spoken to men who've had amazing experiences in therapy, Men that really didn't like it. Same with medication. There's, you know, there's men that think still have these ideas that going for help is a weakness.

There's lots of men who are absolutely desperate for help and they can't afford it, or there's long waiting lists. So there's huge diversity in men and male behavior.

But I really, really, what you've said about the bricks going into the bag is so important because that is a human experience. Doesn't matter what your gender is like. Painful things happen in a physical, biological, psychological being, and they have a legacy.

So for me, encouraging men to be. Have more cultural permission to be able to understand emotionally what has happened to them.

I really don't like it when there's a suggestion that that's an attempt to feminize women, because it's not. The emotions aren't something that just belong to women. They're part of the human experience.

That bag of bricks every person has, you can't escape it. And so for me, it's really, really important that that gets framed in that way. Does that make sense?

Sam: 00:18:06

Yes. Helping everyone understand we are all at the same.

We all have that same experience of that thing, but there is also the nuances of each gender, I suppose, and everyone is going to have a different experience. And even within that gender, I suppose, like you said before, there's such a wide range of humans.

So when you're looking at men or women, you can't just generalize everything because some men will be okay going and sitting down and talking to someone Some men would rather go and run up a mountain. Just that would be their way of dealing with something.

Susie: 00:18:42

Yeah.

Sam: 00:18:42

So. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Susie: 00:18:44

And the point being that when something difficult happens and we. Because by virtue of being human beings, we have emotional responses to that.

And so encouraging men to have more sort of cultural permission to have that emotional response, however they then sort of want to express it, it's not to try and make them more feminine and behavior, but to try and help them access the fullness of their humanity. Because that emotional response to difficult things happening is part of being a human being.

Sam: 00:19:20

Yeah. How do you think we got to the point where it is for men, it is that feeling of just being told, just deal with it.

Whereas women are allowed to feel their emotions, maybe more from a society standpoint.

Susie: 00:19:37

Yeah. I think this is a fantastic question and I think it's really difficult to.

I think so many different ingredients go into how those sort of cultural ideas emerge and then what sustains them. I did read something really interesting and I can't remember who wrote it, but they were talking about.

They sort of rooted the cultural emergence of these ideas back to the point in history where we moved from kind of living in small communities, living off the land, and it was much more, potentially kind of more people doing relatively similar roles in a way. And then when we became more urbanized and industrialized and suddenly we had this heavy industry, we had large scale wars.

And they were, they suggested that there was sort of a cultural value for society as a whole for men to be encouraged to sort of disassociate from their emotions.

Because if you're asking a group of the population to do jobs that endanger their lives, to go to wars that may endanger their lives, there's potentially a value for society in getting that group of people to sort of feel like they can't talk about their pain, to be fearless, which I found really, really kind of interesting.

And I thought, and I really liked, I suppose, because it was looking at how we've all potentially benefited from these ideas and norms in some way instead of. Sometimes I think the conversation can be like men have somehow done it to them, to themselves. Like they.

And so for me, sort of that contextualization can be really important. But I mean, it's impossible. It's a very difficult question to kind of answer.

But I think once those ideas take hold and they become kind of, you know, most of us on some level want to belong with this human need to want to belong. And so we can. I'm not saying everybody does.

But we can often do the behaviors that give us that safety of belonging to what the majority is telling us is required. But my work very much looks at.

When I talk about cultural norms of masculinity, I'm very much talking about these ideas and beliefs and attitudes and expectations that exist externally to men that I think sometimes can be harmful for men.

I'm absolutely never talking about something that's inherent inside of you, Sam, by virtue of being a man that is kind of harmful for you or a toxic thing like for me, that. That's not what the evidence I see is saying at all.

Sam: 00:22:52

What are some of those external things that you would look at in that scenario?

Susie: 00:22:56

So I would say that there are sort of three really key external things that I think of. If you imagine like suicidal pain as a kind of chord on the piano, right. I would say that there's kind of key notes in those chords.

And those notes relate to sort of unmet needs or pain in key psychological areas. And I think that potentially those notes are the same irrespective of gender.

But I think because of these cultural norms of masculinity, men may be at more risk of feeling pain in relation to those notes, if that makes sense. So the first note is around your relationship with your emotions. And I think that's probably intuitively the one that we would.

That most people would reach for.

And that this idea of male emotional suppression and how that can then impact some men's, first of all, ability to identify for themselves what they're feeling, what's going on for them. And then, of course, limiting some men's ability to feel like they can express what they're feeling to other people.

And then getting into these situations where it's building up inside, not getting sort of any meaningful processing or release and reaching that point of feeling sort of these overwhelmingly painful emotions. The second note, I think, is around our relationship with ourselves. So how we think and feel about ourselves.

How you think and feel about Sam, how I think and feel about Susie. And we see again, how sort of cultural norms of male success and expectations for who men should be in the world.

And then these feelings of failure that can come then if you feel like you're not hitting those markers.

And that was a huge thing for me, Sam, as a woman doing this work, like, really early on, to get my head around how fucking enormous those feelings of failure can be for some men. How, you know, and I found it so moving.

And then some men speaking about feeling like a failure, but then almost sort of creating this, we call it like a performance of self because they didn't feel able to tell anyone about those feelings. And so they would get into these situations, performing to the outside world that they were happy, in control.

And then this sort of, first of all, how exhausting that is to do that performance. And then second of all how lonely it is as this gulf kind of emerges between how you're externally presenting and what you're feeling on the inside.

So we also saw then these sort of, that was a sort of second note in terms of painful feelings that you have towards yourself. And then that third note and that chord of suicidal pain is often around our relationships with other people.

And again we sort of see the impact of these cultural norms of masculinity. For men to be independent, to suppress your emotions, to be in control, to be self reliant.

All of those ideas impact then how you build meaningful connections with other people. It's much harder in a way to be meaningfully connected to somebody that you're not revealing your, you know, your full self too.

So often I speak to men that are, feel deeply, deeply isolated, deeply alone. And sometimes these are men who are visibly excluded from the world.

They don't seem to have many close people around them and other men that are really, seemingly have many people around them and yet within those dynamics feel incredibly kind of emotionally isolated.

So in that cord of suicidal pain, you've got this note about your relationship with your emotions, this note about your relationship with your self, and then this note about relationships with other people. And I think that these norms of masculinity can increase sort of men's pain in those three areas.

Sam: 00:27:34

On, on that feeling of sort of loneliness you said there about, obviously you can be lonely with no one around, but you can also feel loneliness with people around, surrounded by people.

And that's, that's one of the things that sort of strikes me with people I've spoken to is without being in that position, it's so difficult to understand when you have got all these supportive people how you can be that lonely. Is that just because that gulf between how you present yourself and how you're actually feeling is so big.

What sort of causes that loneliness feeling?

Susie: 00:28:06

Do you know that in some ways I think that this notion of loneliness is kind of the heartbeat of male suicide sometimes. And it's I think also a loneliness around your pain not being seen, not being visible.

I think that there's a big one of the primary challenges, I think in this conversation around male suicide, which is on one hand sort of more spaces saying, we gotta do something about it. Men, we need to encourage men to talk and everything else that's important and valuable.

But at the same time, I don't think that we are properly acknowledging and addressing a sort of empathy gap that I think exists in terms of our ability as a society and a community and culture to hear men's pain and to recognize it and understand its validity.

And so I think that a lot of men can feel very isolated in that way, which is not to say, of course, you know, I have a lot of conversations with worried partners, worried wives, worried mothers. I think there's a huge well of concern from a lot of women about how to support and come alongside the men in their lives.

I think it's really, really difficult when we're talking about norms and you may be experiences as well. Like, I remember we did a study on what I mean about it's difficult with norms.

Is it like you can't suddenly change them overnight and say, oh, I'm now 43 years old. You've told.

I've been told one thing socially my entire life, and now I'm just going to flip 180 and be completely at peace with doing this opposite behavior. So there has to be huge patience in this.

And I remember we did a study looking at barriers for men who were suicidal around accessing professional support.

And I remember some of the men saying, I found this so interesting that basically they wouldn't judge in any way a man in their life going for help and for support, but they couldn't bring themselves to do it. So it was. There was this kind of, like, I described it as a sort of cultural lag between these old norms of how men should behave in these new norms.

And you could see this group of men sort of still caught in the, you know, transition of that.

Sam: 00:30:46

You spoke as well. You briefly mentioned that you obviously, when you started off as a woman working in this.

This area, sort of getting your head around certain things and understanding the male experience was quite difficult. How have you found that as a whole? Do you feel that you understand it now?

Will you ever fully understand the experience or has that ever got in the way and in any way?

Susie: 00:31:11

I mean, I definitely. I don't think I can ever fully understand because I don't have that biology and I just haven't. I don't move in the world as a man.

But I understand as well that there's huge diversity in men and the male experience. And even if I was a man, I would only be one. One man within billions. So. But, yeah, I totally.

And, you know, I try as much as possible to be respectful of the fact that I don't. There's things that I don't understand. And so for me, kind of there's a limitation always in my work because of that.

But then there's also this other possibility that I bring, is I can take the stories, take the things I'm hearing, and filter them through the brain of somebody who has been socialized as a woman and start to see the different.

I mean, I really don't like the language of privilege because I just think it takes us into all of these kind of places that can be really, really unhelpful. But in this moment, I can't think of a better word.

And I start to filter those findings through my lens as a woman and start to see, oh, I think I have real female privileges in certain ways.

My life has been afforded real privileges by virtue of being a woman socialized and raised in these cultures in terms of the amount of emotional intimacy that is available to me in my life through the friendships that I have. And, you know, I have had. I've experienced them as. I mean, I wouldn't. I wouldn't.

I can only speak on my behalf, but like, of having incredibly intimate conversations with men where a lot of trust is exchanged. But I absolutely think that there were probably things that maybe a male researcher would be able to. I think that there's.

I don't know how much you want to get into this, but in terms of male sexuality, I think that there's lots of things that's potentially going on there that I think it. I. I wonder what space is available for us to have a candid conversation about male sexuality in this current.

Sam: 00:33:45

Yeah, expanding that a little bit in.

Susie: 00:33:47

This current climate, I think that.

I think, again, that there would be things that I could say as a woman that would be interpretedly different by people than things that you might say as a man.

So if we both spoke at the moment about any romantic loneliness we might feel or lack of physical connection or unfulfilled desires, and I understand that there's a reason for why those things might be heard differently by people.

But if an expression of unmet human needs and the pain that comes from that is being heard very differently, then it can be very difficult for that group of people who are feeling that same unmet need, but also feeling that there's not a environment of compassion within which they can express and explore that without assumptions being made about what they're then you know, saying or. Or implying. So I think that there are areas of work that I'd be really interested in exploring further.

But, I mean, I've had conversations about all sorts of things with different men around, a lot of traumatic things. So it's. I don't feel my conversations are sanitized or overtly censored, but it's. It's.

You know, I. Sam, what I would love to see, I would absolutely love to see at the end of my life is a sea of male suicide researchers around the world that were inspired and kind of motivated to start doing this work.

Because I think the more researchers that you have, the more different perspectives and lived experiences and histories and questions and ideas that we bring into this space. And I think that diversity is so, so, so important.

Sam: 00:36:06

Is it a group of research that is expanding currently, or is it still quite an understudied area?

Susie: 00:36:13

It's still huge. Oh, my God. Sam is still hugely understudied. Hugely. And I mean, fucking weighs on me because it's. There's so many. Because we don't have time.

We don't have time not to know things, you know, like when. And there's sort of new kind of emerging areas of interest as we start to see, oh, actually, nobody's really looked at neurodiverse men and suicide.

Nobody's looked at disabled men and suicide, or black men and suicide, or men in prison and suicide men in the care center. There's all these different groups of people, you know, elderly men, what's going on for young boys and suicide.

And it's like, it's not good enough to just say, we don't know. Nobody's done the work, and nobody's doing the work at the moment. It's an absolute travesty.

This is why, you know, I really, from my perspective, I'm absolutely desperate for a minister for men to have some. A place politically where I can go and say, help, Help us. Yeah, you know, we need the money. We need to start researching and evidencing this.

Really pushing things forward.

Sam: 00:37:46

Yeah, I think that's an important thing. And something to push for is getting someone that you can then help fund it, but also then take those problems to the top, essentially.

Susie: 00:37:58

And the other thing, Sam, is that we have to start making visible to the world that a lot of men are having very, very difficult lives, very difficult lives that need a, like, specific lens placed upon it. And I think that by having a ministry of men, you start to create that visibility.

You start to challenge this narrative of men Being all powerful, all privileged.

Sam: 00:38:25

So in terms of men and women who would be experiencing some of these things we've spoken about, so the loneliness, these suicidal feelings, they're hitting the notes on the chord. What is it about men that makes them maybe less likely to reach out for that help when they're in that same level of distress?

Susie: 00:38:46

I think that it's a lots of complicated factors come into that. So going back to that study in terms of barriers for men around accessing support.

So we, our findings kind of, we group them around these three principles of behavior change. So there's this behavior change wheel, that's this kind of framework to explain how you get someone to change their, to do a behavior.

And it's got three components. Motivation, opportunity, capability.

So if we think about making a cup of tea, in order for me to make a cup of tea, I've got to be motivated to do it. I've got to want a cup of tea. Second of all, I've got to have opportunity. So I need physical opportunity.

If there being a kettle and tea bags and milk and then there's got to be social opportunity. You've got to be somebody who thinks having a cup of tea is okay.

Otherwise I'm not going to drink a cup of tea potentially in front of you if you think all tea drinkers are monsters. And then third of all, capability, I've got to know how to make tea. I've got to know that you boil the kettle, you put the tea bag in and so on.

And so when we did this study looking at barriers towards help seeking, we could see these barriers for this group of men grouping in those areas. So in terms of motivation, we had evidence of men who'd come for help and help was shared. So why would they be motivated to do it?

Again, other men that hadn't necessarily gone for help, but they thought the help that was available would not be useful for them. So again, why would you be motivated to do it?

This was men that couldn't understand, like how could medication or therapy help me with these sort of financial stresses that I have or you know, other sort of practical things, practical stresses going on in their life. In terms of a lack of motivation, for some men it was around not trusting professionals.

They feel professionals are paid to care that it's not authentic that professionals wouldn't necessarily be compassionate about the male experience and problems that men face. Some men, a lack of motivation was around wanting to be self reliant, wanting to cope by themselves and stay in control.

This sort of fear of Having your agency removed by being put on medication or put in being sectioned.

Then in terms of opportunity, lots of men saying I don't have the opportunity to get help because I can't afford it, or the waiting lists are insane, or the help that's available is only available during work time. Other men saying they didn't feel they had the social opportunity.

So some men still worried about getting help being a weakness or as I said earlier, that they could imagine support. Other men going for help but couldn't bring themselves to do it.

They were worried about the opinion of loved ones changing towards them if they went for help. Some men who are worried about burdening other people with their problems.

This idea that you're sort of as a man meant to be the protector and the provider and therefore you don't understand yourself as a sort of legitimate recipient of care and support.

Or men saying, you know, if you know that the system is really under pressure, if I take a spot in that system, how do I know that somebody behind me doesn't need it more? And then lastly we saw barriers around capability. So men saying they didn't feel they had the psychological capability to utilize help.

So they didn't. Some men saying they didn't know how to express their feelings, they didn't, couldn't, didn't feel they had the emotional language to talk about it.

Or other men feeling their self esteem was so like devastated at this point.

They didn't see themselves as worthy of help or they'd had so many bruising experiences with other people in their life they didn't know how to trust somebody to go and speak to somebody about things that are going on.

Or some men who struggle with anxiety and the thought of picking up the phone or going to an appointment is so anxiety inducing, it's just not within their capability to do it.

So there's all sorts of, I think complicated barriers going on and I think it's really dangerous for us to ever sort of talk in a, in a two dimensional way about these things as men just being poor help seekers or reluctant help seekers because actually there's all this other, you know, complicated and nuanced stuff going on.

Sam: 00:43:49

And in. So that's in terms of sort of like how men might not might find it hard to reach out in the first place.

Is there a difference as well in how men and women communicate their problems?

Because I've heard a lot more about the sort of idea that men maybe find it harder to talk into face to face with someone they might feel shoulder to Shoulder? Yeah, on runs, walks.

And like when I speak to George, I mentioned that, that some of the deepest conversation, conversations I've had with men is when we're just out on a run and you're running through the park and before you know it, you're talking about quite a serious subject. But if you sat down like we are now and sort of said, tell me how you're feeling.

Susie: 00:44:30

Really? Yeah.

Sam: 00:44:31

It might either just be brushed under the carpet or. Not really. Yeah, not really to the same level. Is that something that we see as well?

Susie: 00:44:38

Yeah, absolutely.

And I think I. I think that for me, like doing the research, there was kind of this sort of transition that happened for me in terms of understanding that there is no silver bullet in the sense of this one solution that's going to be the thing that helps people regulate everybody's kind of suicidal pain. Actually, what we need is this, you know, beautifully diverse ecosystem of support and care and interventions.

Because in that huge diversity of men, there's a huge need for different kinds of things. Like some men I know have had incredible experiences with therapy that really want that eye to eye.

They want to be met in that level of, in that form of intimacy. But, you know, absolutely, so many men who. That shoulder to shoulder stuff is so important.

And I think it's making sure that all those things are celebrated. Whatever works for you is, you know, is your kind of own journey to figure out for yourself. And often it's kind of.

There is an element of trial and error. And also in my own experience as well, there's different things that have value at different times.

Like sometimes one kind of support's gonna feel right and another time something different.

But I do think that we still need to do a huge amount of work, I think, around really understanding what works for different men and making sure that we are making space for those different ways to have validity that we don't bring to this.

No, the only thing that's valuable is sit down, eye to eye kind of, you know, therapy, I think a huge space that whenever I talk, I always go on about it because I absolutely love it, is peer support, community interventions, men taking care of each other and like being alongside each other, however that looks. I think those male spaces are absolutely sacred and really, really, really important.

And I think that my feeling is that men are deeply lonely for each other in a certain way. And I think creating spaces where those connections between mental, of real, authentic kind of connection is really, really, really important how.

And that can manifest in loads of different, different ways.

And I'VE spoken to some people doing, you know, from like, like vintage car meetups, like cold water swimming, as well as the more, you know, like football and stuff like that. It's. Yeah, I love it. I think there's.

Sam: 00:47:33

But again, there's that, there's that so much variety and like you were saying, like, some people will be okay sitting down, some people want something else. So even when you get to that community aspect and that what he actually is can look so different for everyone, like meetups. It could be.

Susie: 00:47:52

Yeah.

Sam: 00:47:52

Going to Jiu jitsu. It could be whatever it is.

Susie: 00:47:55

Yeah.

Sam: 00:47:56

And it. Yeah, it could be completely different.

So just getting that, like you say, that massive diversity of understanding within that, how help is offered and how, how we help people.

Susie: 00:48:07

Yeah.

Sam: 00:48:08

Trying to find the right fit for that person rather than just having. This is the thing we've got.

Susie: 00:48:13

Exactly.

Sam: 00:48:14

You do it and it works or it doesn't work.

Susie: 00:48:16

Yeah.

Sam: 00:48:17

And I assume at the minute, absolutely, that's one of the reasons we're seeing these stats, is it's not working for a lot of people. Yeah.

Susie: 00:48:24

And I think also quite a few men that I've spoken to because, you know, the reality of the current system is that if you can't afford to go privately, there are long waiting lists, full support in.

And so, you know, men who sort of found they're trying to build an alternative therapeutic psychological curriculum for themselves by watching certain YouTube people on YouTube or podcasts. You know, conversations like this, I hope can be helpful for people that can't financially access support.

I've done quite a lot of work trying to create public guides of all of the studies that we do so that that information in terms of what we found can be accessible for. Primarily for men to help them get better tools just to make sense of what might be going on inside of themselves.

Sam: 00:49:24

And in terms of that sort of being a running theme throughout the conversation, I suppose, is that sort of stigma that, that feeling of maybe society that men have to be held up to this level of what masculinity is. How do we start to change that? Is there anything we can start to do? Obviously, like you said, there's a. There's a patience element to it as well.

Like things don't just change overnight.

Susie: 00:49:49

Yeah.

Sam: 00:49:51

What can we start to do on a small scale that might start leading to that change?

Susie: 00:49:57

For me, the, the most important thing that I've done is the self reflection, the excavating for myself, the things that are internally popping up for me. Like I, you know, when you hit that Bit of your knee and it.

Sam: 00:50:12

Yeah, the reflex.

Susie: 00:50:13

Yeah, the reflex. It pops out. It was like. When I look back on this journey, I absolutely see that I had a. I call it a year. A year about men.

Reflex of, you know, someone saying something to me about men and the male experience. And then, you know, prior to this research, I probably would have said out loud, yeah, but men.

And then give an example of the ways in which, you know, you perceive men as being. Causing difficulties. And then slowly, that voice was no longer. I no longer said it out loud, but it was still internally. I would notice at times.

Yeah, but. And then now I don't hear it at all. And only now, in not hearing it, am I.

Am I extending to men the same compassion and openness and love, ultimately, that prior to that journey I was offering everybody else. And that's not okay, Sam. That's not okay.

And so, you know, and there's no blame, I want to say, like, in any of this, because it's not that we all sat down at birth and said, these are the cultural norms and attitudes I want to be raised in. And these are the things I want to end up believing.

You know, we're just thrown into these huge spheres of cultural ideas that have this long history long before us, and we absorb them like sponges.

But at the same time, for me, that has been really, really important to start excavating those ideas for myself and start to understand then how those ideas were limiting my muscle of compassion and, you know, towards men and the male experience.

And now at this point, I've had so many conversations that prior to doing this research, I'd never had with men before about traumas that they've experienced. Abuse, bullying, violence, isolation, loneliness, sadness, grief. All these different, you know, flavors of pain that then totally change.

You know, when I meet a man now, the lens with which I sort of understand his potential experience in the world. And that lens is not to look at this man as somebody who's all powerful and all privileged, like, you know, completely the opposite.

And I think that's something that I think is all within our gift to do in a way, is to really examine and not just for people that aren't men. I think it's something for men to do as well in terms of the, you know, how it might, you know, influence how you.

Not you person, but how other men come alongside men too. So these cultural norms of masculinity aren't just things that men are socialized in. We're all socialized in them.

And they all they have an impact on. On all of ours.

Sam: 00:53:27

Yeah, I think broadening that as well. I think just getting everyone to understand everyone, like speaking about.

Susie: 00:53:35

Yes.

Sam: 00:53:35

Men, women, understanding each other. Understanding each other within your own gender. I think there's this weird sort of point we've got to now where it's everything.

Everything in life is so like, one side or the other and there's no openness to talk.

Susie: 00:53:53

Absolutely.

Sam: 00:53:54

And it's almost like that. Yeah, but men, even just taking the men out of that, it's like, yeah, but whatever comes from the other side. Yeah, it's not your side. It's.

Yeah, yeah, but. And then there's a rebuttal and it's like, well, yeah, what if we actually listen to it?

Yeah, take it on, have a conversation, civil conversation, and try and move forward from that.

Susie: 00:54:14

Yeah.

Sam: 00:54:16

So, yeah, it's a difficult question to answer. I suppose if I asked you how we can start to understand each other more. But.

Susie: 00:54:24

But, Sam, do you know what's really critical is understanding. I'm not at war with my brothers, and I refuse that narrative. I refuse for people to try and draw me into a feeling that I am.

Of course, I'm not at war with them. They're some of the most important people in the world to me.

I'm out to bat for them and to fight for the, you know, a better world for them as they are for, you know, for me. So I think there's this idea that it's sort of men versus women is so corrosive, so toxic, so unhelpful, so dangerous.

Like, I need the men in my life to understand the difficulties and complexities and challenges that I face, you know, by virtue of being things that they might not be. And likewise, they need me to do the same.

Sam: 00:55:13

Yeah, 100%.

So in terms of sort of, for anyone listening, like, hopefully the whole conversation is going to have a lot of impact and hopefully help people listening.

But if someone is struggling now and they're sort of resonating with some of the things you've spoken about, what are some actions they can maybe take to start to move towards that better place?

Susie: 00:55:38

So for me, as I said earlier, I'm somebody who's had thoughts of suicide in my life. I had my first kind of serious thoughts when I was about 18, 19, and then my last serious thoughts in sort of April this year.

So it's been a recurring feeling in my life.

Something that was really, really helpful for me was this theory of suicide called the fluid vulnerability model, which is a bit of A jargony title, but it's this idea that basically every single one of us has a baseline risk for suicide because we can all experience painful things. And when that pain, if we think back to that tank, it's that pain builds and builds and we're starting to hit our threshold.

We then move into what this theory describes as an acute suicidal mode.

When we're in that mode, there's a potential danger for life because we're now, the pain is too much, we're hitting our threshold and we need to, we're potentially in danger. And that theory for me was really helpful in my own brain to start to see if these.

Okay, there's two levels of personal intervention that I need to think about. I need to think about when I'm in my acute mode. In that state, what matters is moment to moment is about keeping yourself safe from moment to moment.

Because when I'm out of the mode, I want to be here, I want to live. I'm so, you know, I've got so much hunger for life and. But when you're in that mode, I can lose sight of that.

So for me, there's one level about, that's the first level about what do you do moment to moment to keep safe? And that's going to be different for, you know, every person is, you know.

And so then the second level in a way is around when I'm outside of that acute mode. What are some of the things that can help me with those baseline restings?

What are some of those things that can help me get some of that pain out of my tank over the long term?

And looking at both those levels, in both those levels, it's about an individual toolkit because for every person it's gonna look different around what over the long term is going to be useful for you.

When I say it's gonna look different, I think ultimately whatever you end up doing, it's gonna help you with those three notes that we spoke about earlier, it's gonna potentially help you regulate your emotions. It's gonna hopefully help you feel better about yourself, start to feel bit by bit that you're somebody of value in this world.

And then on that third note, hopefully help you bit by bit bring yourself into more meaningful connection with other people. But how you achieve those three things I think could look really different. For some people it might be about sit down therapy.

For other people, it might be around reading certain books about certain things. It might be about a cold water swimming group that you go to.

And certainly I don't think it's ever going to be about one thing, but about multiple, multiple things going on.

And again, in terms of that acute state, I think things that can be helpful, like if you Google safety plans, starting to get a bit of a plan in your mind as to what you.

Things that might be helpful for you, certainly sometimes for me, like sensory things like going and standing against a wall or kind of cold water, things that bring me back into the body and kind of dislodge this fog of despair that's descending over me. So I like, I really encourage everyone to be like, you're a researcher in your own life in the way that I'm a researcher in my own life.

And then also more broadly on this topic, like starting to dial into what's. How do things make me feel? What do I find helpful? What. Oh, did that thing actually calm me down for a moment.

That took me my mind off things for a bit. And starting to build up your own kind of, you know, often through trial and error kind of toolkit for your. For yourself.

Sam: 01:00:16

Yeah, I love that idea of everyone being a researcher in their own lives. That's cool. And you mentioned in there as well, obviously you've spoken very openly about your own experiences, the idea of suicide.

A lot of people, I think, think that the person just wants to die. Whereas you'll know, and I know from speaking on the phones at Samaritans. Yeah, people just want the pain to stop.

Yeah, they just don't want to be in that position.

And that is, that is the thing that I think a lot of people cannot get their head around because they, they think, why would, why would they want to die? Yeah, that's not what they want. They just want to end the pain. They just can't take it. The overwhelm, that feeling.

So again, just I think getting society in general to sort of understand that even though it sort of seems like a very small thing, but it's just a further understanding, isn't it, of. Of that aspect?

Susie: 01:01:15

Absolutely.

And I think it's really important as well to say that it's a lot of time it coexists this, these thoughts of suicide in the way that you've described as a release from pain and a hope for life, a desire for life.

And I've sometimes been really confused by myself that I can move within the space of a few hours from feeling very optimistic about life to feeling really sort of crushingly full of despair. And I think, you know, how things changed sort of so rapidly.

But that's something that we also see in our data and in some of the studies we've done that these two forces can exist at the same time. And the question is, how can we nurture? How can you individually, for yourself, figure out how you start to kindle that flame of hope for life? And.

And I think it is really useful to understand that desire for suicide is an indication that the pain in your life is currently too much and that we got to now figure out ways in which that pain can be better managed and better regulated.

And my heart absolutely goes out to everybody who feels that way because it's just so crushing and, you know, and in its moment, you know, consuming and disorientating.

Sam: 01:02:51

And in terms of, again, sort of going back to the people listening. So, yeah, men, women, whoever's listening, they might not be struggling themselves, but people around them might be.

And as we've spoken about, it can be difficult to know when they are. They might not reach out. Are there any signs that you might see in a man in your life that they're not doing okay?

Susie: 01:03:19

Again, the evidence I've seen tends to be really diverse.

So I've sort of seen sort of two ends of the spectrum in a way, in terms of suicides where they've just seemed to have happened completely out of the blue, and then suicides that have happened where there seems to have been a long history of struggle and complexities going on. And then, you know, also heard sort of descriptions of.

Some men will talk about thoughts of suicide only when they're drunk or they sort of talk about them in a jokey way. Other people have said the, you know, that there was a sort of withdrawal beforehand.

Other men have described a uplifting mood before a suicide attempt because they've. There's this feeling of like, oh, I suddenly know how to find the answer. Yeah. So there's all kinds of, like, complicated things going on.

And I think it's, you know, in terms of loved ones, you might not be the person that they are going to be able to confide in because maybe it's too difficult in their mind to do that with you. You might be exactly the person. I don't know.

But it's understanding that if you're not helping them find the person, that could be, whether that's through a peer support group or, you know, if you're in a religious community or, you know, a mentor. I. I don't know who that person is going to. Yeah, it's going to be different for everybody. And I think if you're.

If it's a man worried about another man. I think that there can be real value if you don't.

If you see someone struggling and they're not opening up, leading then with the sharing of stuff that's going on for you, starting to create that sort of permission, I suppose, around struggle and being open about it can then help to sort of. And. And also sometimes as well, it's. It's not always that somebody wants to.

You might not be the best person for them to confide whatever the stuff going on is. But maybe in that moment I can provide you with some relief from what you're feeling by taking you to go and watch the football or whatever.

You know, it's so difficult because it's so individual and because it's also, you know, a case of what people are comfortable with. What sort of conversations can you.

You know, you're obviously a trained Samaritan and, you know, comfortable then in having conversations about suicide with people. I do think that that is something to. For anyone listening, worried, like, I think it's so.

I think we can be really afraid when we hear the word suicide, which I totally understand, especially if it's coming out of the mouth of someone that you deeply love, because, of course, that's very distressing. But same time, for me to feel suicidal, it's very natural. You know, I think it.

It can be a perfectly natural response to existing in these complicated worlds with all these painful possibilities abounding around us. So at the same time, it's normalizing feeling that way whilst also taking it very, very seriously.

Because often we don't want those feelings to lead us in the direction that they can do when they're left unmanaged, if that makes sense.

Sam: 01:07:15

Yeah, absolutely. And I think on top of that, the.

That when you're having those conversations about suicide, one of the things that sort of struck me when I started doing the Samaritans was how forward you are with it. So in terms of if someone says, oh, I just can't do it anymore, what do you mean by that?

Susie: 01:07:36

Yeah.

Sam: 01:07:37

And they might say something. I say, are you thinking about taking your own life or have you thought about suicide?

Which sounds to someone who doesn't know, sounds like, whoa, you don't want to put that idea in their head. But then if they've already got that idea that you're not doing anything, if anything you're making them realize, actually, yeah, I am.

Or if not, you sort of shock them and think, oh, no, definitely not. But either way, you've clarified where they are. 100%.

Susie: 01:08:07

Yeah.

Sam: 01:08:07

You're taking the vague sort of phrases out of it. And obviously the studies say that by doing that, there's no showing that you're going to make them more likely to take their own life.

So, yeah, another thing to just add on for anyone speaking to people about it. So bringing it in. So just wanted to bring it back to yourself. So you have been again, you sort of mentioned a few times about your own experiences.

It's quite a heavy. It's a very heavy topic for you to be researching, obviously, for so many years. How do you look after yourself doing that?

Susie: 01:08:46

It's a very good question. I. I'll be the first person to say I've done it very poorly at times. Like, I. I am a real workaholic. And so I haven't.

I didn't have sufficient funding for long times. Was, you know, about five years of this research journey.

Has been doing other jobs alongside doing the research, trying to have enough money to keep a roof over my head. And so that creates pressures as well.

The payoff is the human connection that, like I probably one of the richest people on the planet in terms of the, you know, conversation that we've just shared now on a Thursday morning.

And, you know, I had those moments of connection over and over with people who are anchoring you all of the time in what makes life for me meaningful and purposeful of, you know, how can we take better care of each other. That for me is the central question of, or one of the central questions of life.

So in some ways it has huge benefits for my mental health because it's giving me these amazing nutrients of connection with other people. And I meet in Sam, I meet so many particularly great men. I've been really as, you know, like Georgia Tinman. He's helped my work so much.

Dan at man up, who've given me 12 months of funding for this for this year. He's helped me so much, so many men in different. In different ways trying to do what they can to support other men and show up for each other.

And I just find that absolutely just beautiful, beautiful energy. So there's lots of kind of, in some ways kind of mental health gains for me in this work.

But yeah, at times for me, I think the hardest thing in a way is the financial stability instability. Sorry. Because it's like it is. It can be challenging work and I don't want to have to be worried the whole time about money.

And also there's only so much I can do as one person trying to, you Know, that's what I mean about having a whole kind of movement of researchers and, you know, really scaling up what's happening, because the urgency of it is so important. But for me, it's a really. It's a lifelong journey learning to take care of myself.

And I think the biggest thing, in a way, is fighting your own lack of self esteem. Sometimes, like, you have to sort of be able to tolerate yourself sufficiently to start taking care of yourself, if that makes sense.

And I think that that can be a big battle for some of us of like, yeah, like an incredible amount of self abuse can happen in here. And I do and say things to myself that I would never tolerate anyone else doing or saying to me.

Sam: 01:12:23

Yeah, yeah. I think that's a very common thing as well. I think a lot of people do that within their own minds.

They say things that they wouldn't even say to their worst enemy. Yeah, but for some reason we just. Yeah, it's like this compulsion.

Susie: 01:12:37

Yeah.

Sam: 01:12:38

But, yeah, it's just managing that, I suppose. So bring it into the end. So I like to leave the listeners with a question.

So if you could give the listeners a single question that they can take away and ask someone to start a conversation.

So it sort of goes back to when I was listening to podcasts, and I like to sort of have those conversations after it so they can speak to a friend, family member, stranger. What question would you give to people?

Susie: 01:13:09

I think the question I would ask people to ask is, who have been the great men in your life or who are the great men in your life? I remember reading something once about, it's like a telescope.

When we think about men, we, like, pick up a telescope and we sort of look at this one group of men who are at the top of everything, and some of the men in that group are doing terrible, awful things in the world.

And we never move the telescope down and see all the men who are completely the other end of the spectrum, leading very difficult lives, very limited access to any kind of power whatsoever.

But it's also that we can often look at the way in which I think that we forget there's no space often in society to celebrate the wonderful men in our lives. And for me, that's one of the other beautiful things I think about.

This work has really, like, put me back into that energy of, like, I don't know who I'd be without the sort of love and support of, you know, my brothers and their care and protection.

Likewise had amazing male friends in my life and male teachers, and so I think starting to have more of those conversations of, like, who've been the amazing men and making sure that we're having a space to celebrate masculinity as well as talking about the things that people may find difficult within the cultural expectations of men and masculinity and how that can manifest in certain behaviors. It's got to also be this conversation of celebration and gratitude and pride for.

Sam: 01:15:04

Yeah, I think that's a great question. So thanks so much for coming on and speaking today. I've really enjoyed it. And yeah, thank you for being so open as well.

If people want to follow you and find, find out where you are online. Is there a place I can do that?

Susie: 01:15:20

The main place where I'm sort of active is on Instagram, so it's male underscore suicide, underscore research. Male underscore suicide, underscore research. Yeah. So I tried to post information about the findings and things on there.

Sam: 01:15:38

Yeah. And I'll put a link for that in the description.

For anyone who wants to scroll down and have a look from our side, you can follow us on Instagram as well. That's oneychapterpodcast. If you have enjoyed the episode, please do share it with someone who you think will find value from it.

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