@ Lexi, Thursday, 13 June 2013 11:51:28 AM

Lexi,

That must have been hard to write, triggering the sad memories. You are right though.

The culture of the medical system reflects society. No surprise in that, but what it means for men is that traditions once set are pervasive and very hard to recognise let alone break. Medical practitioners unconciously treat men as society has come to regard them. HIC numbers for instance show much lower numbers of screening tests ordered by both male and female doctors for men than for women. Women doctors order a slightly higher number of screening tests for men than male doctors do.

To be blunt, when a male, particularly an older male is in hospital, be aware that a relative or friend should be looking to ensure he is getting the treatment he needs. Everyone is busy and while being missed once may not be a problem, a few misses on change of shifts can be. That applies with bells for discharge planning and procurement of needed services after discharge.

Mental health is part of the overall system and has the same traditions.

'But I think reactive depression can be cause by societal pressures.'
Societal pressures may cause depression but they may just be exposing a lack of resilience, esteem, or some kind of emotional weakness or dysfunctional identity formed during formative years.

'individual quirks and institutionalised education aren't compatible'

I think its the only way it can ever be Poirot. The only people who are allowed to really have a great degree of individual quirks are the rich and the supremely talented. The rest have to make a living in some sort of company, where conformity, taught at school, is a necessity for survival. Well, depending on the safety net.

'medication, apparently, is the answer'

Drugs you mean. It's AN answer, one I have used myself, though I have on occasion engaged in quite unconventional 'medication' regimes. Our society has some strange contradictions when it comes to drugs. Who is to say whether after trying a hand full of different therapists the next one would have had half a clue. Who is to say they wouldn't have given me similar drugs to those that I ended up buying illegally.

Religion
Shopping
Drugs
Fitness
Food
Therapy
Tribalism
Sport
Violence

People have always had an outlet.

Maybe if they stopped toning down the violence in sport, and the risk in almost anything, men would fare better.

You blame doctors, but I think you also discount the guilt-factor for parents. What parent wouldn't jump at the chance for an alibi when things go pear shaped with their kids, and have a convenient scapegoat of the mysterious chemical imbalance.

It's also not unheard of for super-moms to get their kids diagnosed but then take the Ritilin themselves to keep up the facade.

R0bert,

I have heard news reports, even quite recently about natural disasters, you know - not like war that is the fault of all men via their gender, and they still report specifically how many women and children were killed. Just like they always find an Aussie with a bruised leg in any overseas natural disaster where thousands were killed.

' 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.'

I think those situations are given much more credence in our society and in the legal protections, hard fought for by feminists, and good on them for that. The trouble is, those very same feminists are protecting their ground even when the side-effect of believing the default position of male oppressor female victim leaves some men marginalized.

Like you say I really think for true equality, we really need gender-neutrality in law and in social initiatives, and I really don't think there are any real cases where men and women are not humans. Ordinary people in extraordinary situations, with strengths and weaknesses and yes, gender, but that is secondary, to their simple human needs and entitlement to be treated as a person not a stereotype.

The trouble is you wont fix things purely by law, the problem involves the execution of the law by bureaucrats in an industry with it's own culture as far as I can see.

Just as there are culture wars with left vs right, there are culture wars in the area of family war. Sorry Law.

That's why you get domestic violence defined as men hitting women exclusively; The powers that be believe even the smallest concession of even 10% depictions of women hitting men would somehow weaken their Australia Says No message. They worm their way around it by saying they're just addressing a uniquely female experience of violence. It's bullsh1t. Violence is violence. Or not these days as the threat of violence and even metaphorical violence is also included too.

Well, Houellie, I was being sarcastic when I said medication is the answer.

Medication is an answer if it's desired that the child sit down and shut up when it's required. And you can't run a school by allowing kids (especially boys) to run around and let of a bit of steam when needed.

The thing I notice that my (unmedicated) son likes to do is slip outside maybe eight times a day (if we have a day entirely at home) and he runs and jumps, hits a ball, you name it, he gets physical and then he comes back in twenty minutes later ready to tackle something else. On the whole he gets to go out when he feels like moving about a bit - works for him (and I realise he's lucky that way)

Houellie, I don't necessarily blame doctors - they're only doing the parents bidding, who are only trying to acquiesce to societal mores.. the pressure often comes from teachers who will keep on harping at a parent until they go to GP to get a referral to paediatrician who is the first port of call.

Dear onthebeach,

Thank you for your kind words and
for your understandig.
The medication did help his mood swings.
The psychotheraphy he totally rejected.
He simply would not talk about his feelings
neither with us nor anyone else, try as we
might. All we could do is let him know we
loved him unconditionally, and spend as much
time with him as we could. I did manage to
get him to begin writing the reminiscences
of his youth (we bought him a computer which he loved)
he wrote quite a bit which I'm
now saving for his grandchildren.

RObert
No argument from me, we are certainly all in it together. That is what makes the recent media obsessions with Gillard's blue ties and menugate all the more regressive to that end. Lots of trite and not much substance. The continual displaying of the gender card in this context ends up being the boy who called wolf (or should that be girl) and diminishes misogyny to an almost meaningless state.

Houlley
'The trouble is you wont fix things purely by law, the problem involves the execution of the law by bureaucrats in an industry with
it's own culture as far as I can see.'

Yes it does have it's own culture. It is not as black and white though and I would not generalise from one agency to another. Once laws are enacted it is really out of the hand of bureaucrats and the judiciary takes over.

After the laws, what is left for the bureaucracy is the sort of stuff we have discussed on this thread about programs and attempts to manipulate (or 'shape') certain behaviours.

It is not all bad news though as there is a slow change coming within the bureaucracy even it does seem more obsessed with primarily womens' issues. Australians have experienced better policies and laws around child custody and family relationships centres centred on mediation first to obviate the need for a court case. This was one of Howard's good policies. Well a good start anyway and recognised the importance and influence of both parents in the raising of children.