Mental Health @lemmy.world spaduf @lemmy.blahaj.zone 2y ago

Boys experience depression differently than girls. Here’s why that matters

www.sciencenews.org Boys experience depression differently than girls. Here’s why that matters

Boys’ depression often manifests as anger or irritability, but teen mental health surveys tend to ask about hopelessness.

Science @beehaw.org spaduf @lemmy.blahaj.zone 2y ago

www.sciencenews.org /article/boys-experience-depression-differently-girls

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men who were depressed often didn’t present with classic symptoms, such as sadness, but instead presented as hostile, impulsive and aggressive.

So true.
Honestly, none of the points on the "Male Depression Risk Scale" listed in the article match my experience. It's always been closer to hopelessness for me I think. Hopelessness and a growing desperation for a way out.
- They mention that the men- specific scale very much still misses a lot of people, but it does close the gap.
  
  Oh yeah, not gonna begrudge better coverage. Just voicing my experience really, which still seems reasonably common for men given that the old "sad or hopeless" scale still caught a decent number of men.
  
  Yeah, theres no such thing as perfection in mental health science. Just a little better than before.
- Hey man. I feel you. But I hope you won’t forget that there is hope. There is a future for you and for me. And you’re not alone in this. Hold on. And hold on tight. For you, and for people who love you.
  
  I'm actually in a really good spot right now, but I appreciate the thought!
  
  In the worst of times, it's always the thought of incidentally hurting loved ones that keeps me together, though at those times it can feel like that's what's tearing me apart.
- It was the absence of feeling that I sought to alleviate but didn't know it at the time. Substances generate feelings but I can imagine people find lots of ways to feel something. I abandoned all of my hobbies, nothing made feel normal any more. Anti depressants made little difference.
Rather than crying when feeling down, for instance, boys may act irritated or lash out. Or they may engage in risky, impulsive or even violent acts. Inward-directed terms like “sadness” and “hopelessness” miss those more typically male tendencies. And masculine norms that equate sadness with weakness may make males who are experiencing those emotions less willing to admit it, even on an anonymous survey

I think it's less that men/boys are less willing to admit they're sad/depressed, even on anonymous surveys, and more that they haven't even realised they're depressed yet. I've had several friends whose realisation that they've been depressed has come from talking to me about how they're feeling and me saying, "it sounds like you're depressed". I think a lot of men simply don't have the tools to be emotionally introspective and honest with themselves enough to come to terms with the fact that they're depressed in the first place.

That's not to say men trying to hide their emotions isn't an issue as well - it definitely is. But I think a lot of men aren't even getting to that point where they know what emotions they're trying to hide. It's less "I'm trying to hide the fact that I'm sad" and more "I don't know what the fuck I'm feeling right now or how to process it and I'm not even going to bring it up because I don't understand it (or maybe even know that it's an issue in the first place)".
It was a rather discordant experience reading this article after reading OP's other post on LGBTQ+ people and depression. (No shade on OP; both articles provide useful insights, and are worth a read. Thank you!)

The representations of "boys" and "girls" in this article are configured as strongly gender-conforming, cis and hetero in terms of their "typical" responses. That's not a bad thing, but it is very limited.

People who are non-binary, transgender, or even gay/lesbian with some gender non-conforming personality components are likely to present with differing constellations of presenting symptoms, and thus to be overlooked.
Wondering if dysphoria makes the symptoms of depression work opposite than expected on any given subject?
I'm glad this was posted here. It's really encouraging to me that the younger men in my life seem pretty self-aware and willing to talk about mental health. While my young son (18) didn't reach out to me to ask about an increase in his usually mild depression/anxiety and whether he should start medication, his brothers did. He was back to normal pretty quickly. Men and boys need to advocate for each other wherever they can.
what a gender?

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