I was approached about a month ago to help look into supporting a campaign that talked about this major issue of ‘Men’s Mental Health’.

At the time I had thought little about it and what was such a big issue as to why I was being asked to look into it again and again and again… So being the nosey person I am, I did… lol

What I wasn’t prepared for was the realisation that Men’s Mental Health is not very good at all… And I was surprised! “What the hell is going on out there…” Which therefore got me asking more with those friends and family, to then having a discussion among others from all different backgrounds – and the results were shocking!

A friend of mine who lost her brother to suicide in 2017 at 27 years of age said to me that her brothers dream was to have the 1950’s dream of the suburban house with white fence and would come home after a day at work with the house all sorted, cleaned, a meal ready for him on the table and life would be happy ever after…

After applying the dream to today’s day-in-age, I realised there was some inconsistency to that lifestyle, but also in the way he believed it could manifest to achieve the happy ever after.

Furthermore, I found that the immense pressure men are having interms of goals for themselves and their whanau seems to bring quite a few stresses in life with balancing the ‘lifestyle’ of having everything they could possibly need and want to the growing increase of bills and cost of living.

With the readily available technology in our palms, the perspective of seeing celebrity status through a fish bowl and the general life struggles within the NZ economy, it was frustrating to see for myself that these dreams of the many could have come true, but didn’t – although for many reasons.

I read of a poem many years ago which has always been sitting in my memory bank! I felt even when I had read it back in the early 2000’s of how truer a paradox is when reflected on life as it is today.

It’s conluded well in this poem called ‘The Paradox of our Age’

This poem is a true reflection of life as it stands and how much we have wrong, or alternatively what is really out of balance in life.

In thinking back to those who have taken lives dying to try make it, theres is evidence in speaking with their families that that’s exactly what happened. Almost a vivid mental block causing false senses of reality, pressure and expectation. But why?

If I use my friends brother who was 27 when he he took his own life in 2017 as an example, amdist the use of ‘palm technology’ I can’t help but feel that our Men’s Mental Health is of concern because we reach to see through ‘palm technology’ the virtual reality of what people show us, but are afraid to have the real discussions that matter.

This builds an immense sense of pressure to get people to see a distorted reality on the celebrity or influencer who has the flash car, nice home, money to splash and the virtual reality of being liked – but no reality in their own worth as a person, as a contributor to their whanau or a member and citizen of the universe – but would rather be the person who has created a Instagram lifestyle.

Among the stress of daily pressures of life, the 1950’s dream as percieved as ‘the life’ for my friends brother would never work in this day-in-age because the quick access to show what perfection looks like doesn’t often meet the exact reality of what it takes to get there, or that it may have been obtained on a mountain of loans or that it was merely a photo of little or no substance.

So are we building our dudes up out there on allowing them to stream through social media for the perfect lifestyle with the audicty to achieve it in any way or any how? Are we giving them the tools that overnight success is a perfect platform to stablise any form of connections or relationships? Are we teaching them that outside the house you smile and act strong, be the alpha male, but when your behind closed doors you need to fall into all that pressure of what you promised but can’t deliver on?

And is it okay that we’re sitting there with this false sense of reality that when it doesn’t work out, the way to end the suffering and pain is to take your own life?

DudesLikeUs – Facebook Support Group for Men, Dudes, Guys and Youngins…