Yeah, Houellie,

But I think reactive depression can be cause by societal pressures.

Give you an example - you say you were encouraged to take pills to address an imbalance.

It's a similar thing I've found with other parents whose high-fuctioning autistic or Aspergers kids attend school. These kids in reality are really just a bit quirky and pretty close to "normal" (that's why it's so difficult for them). I know quite a few of these families online and in my community. Invariably, these children are on Ritilin or similar, and also on anxiety medication to try and make them into round pegs.In fact, I don't know of a family in our position (except my own) who hasn't taken the docs advice and put their child on something.

And still, these children struggle. It's non-stop the stories where parents are beefing about their kid and the school or waiting in trepidation all day in case the phone rings from school. Some of them brag that they only dose up the child during school term and take them off it during the holidays - seeing as it usually takes six weeks for the body to adjust one way or another...well you see what I'm getting at.

Societal pressure and all that - individual quirks and institutionalised education aren't compatible....but that's the way we do it and medication, apparently, is the answer.

Medication did help my
father-in-law's mood swings. However,
it was a combination of anti-depression medication and
psychotherapy that did the most good.

Pop was very reluctant
to seek help. Doctors tended to focus mainly on
Pop's physical symptoms rather then on his
emotions. It took a long time to understand the
symptoms and their consequences and learn how we
could help Pop to cope.

I can understand why men commit suicide. This
reluctance to admit or seek help for depression
means that if it goes untreated - this could be
responsible for the suicide of many men, especially
older men.

Many men and older men in particular tend to hide
or deny their depression. This could be due to
cultural ideas about manhood, suggesting that men should
keep their feelings to themselves. That mental health
problems are a sign of personal weakness. Men who hold
strongly to these traditional ideas are reluctant to seek help
or even admit that they have a problem. The mistake society
makes is by treating only the physical symptoms rather
than including emotions into the mix as well.
We have to recognise the fact that this is an illness
and treat all the causes.

Houlley
It would be sad if men really do think that society views them as expendable?

The consensus from the comments here is that Man Therapy while good intentioned misses the mark for many men.

Thanks all.

Pelican, is pretty much a given for a lot of men that society sees us as expendable.

As an example look the utter lack of interest in a widespread cause of significant emotional trauma for men that I've high lighted yet again on this thread. Some sympathy for experiences that Anti and I have had but an apparent unwillingness by most to pay any more attention to the issue the issue than that.

Have a think about how often its highlighted how much worse some attrocity is because the victim is a woman or child (admittedly all to often the perpetrator is male). There are all sorts of ways the message is reinforced over and over again that its "women and children first".

R0bert

RObert
The 'woman and children first' was also fostered by men as it was seen as part of that historical protective role. Men have had a bad deal in many ways including not least being enlisted as fodder in wars with little thought to their care after these events. Many Vietnam vets still experience feelings of being left behind.

Your experience and that of Antiseptic's highlights some flaws in the CSA and family law area. But there are also stories from women who battle on their own after their men have left them and who do not provide any financial support or whose ex-husbands are violent but nobody believes them. Men can have similar problems with false claims of violence - difficult to determine as an outsider in the judiciary on just whom is telling the truth.

Violence is a problem for men and women in society. Also, sexual violence against women is not treated as seriously as it should IMO.

Frankly it shouldn't be a 'them vs us' discussion but a 'what is right' discussion.

Maybe if society approached these issues from a mostly a non-gender perspective all people would be better served. The exception being of course issues that might be considered uniquely a male or female experience. And I guess there is room for debate on what those might be.

Also we tend to form our views of what society 'thinks' based on media and government information. Personally I don't take too much stock on that alone as it does not necessarily reflect what people think in the real world. Most woman don't see men as expendable just as most men don't see women as only sexual objects. One has to be careful not to assume things about what society thinks. If we did, we would all buy the PM's message about men in blue ties and silly menus concocted by the LNP.

I have some faith left in what ordinary people assume about men and women and it is mostly positive. Take heart in that.

Pelican I think I've been pretty consistant over a long time in my view that for the most part we are all in it together when it comes to shaping society. I get frustrated with feminists when they try and portray our cultures history as male oppression of women or blame men for the shape of society as though women were not part of that.

By the same token I think much of the disaster that is the family law system is a combined effort by men with traditional views of the family and the girls club tying to help other women.

My long term girlfriend is in the boat of not receiving child support for a variety of reasons. I've raised suggestions previously that I think would reduce some of inequities of the system for parents of both genders wanting to do the right thing.

Generally threads in that vein seem to be ignored.

R0bert