WEBVTT

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This morning, I started
my day by waking up,

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and I'm actually pretty proud of that.

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I mean, apart from the fact that my alarm
went off at 5:15 this morning,

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and it's been a crazy, hectic day,

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it's pretty good to be here.

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And it's pretty great to be here at TEDx.

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And the reason that I'm somewhat proud

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of that seemingly insignificant
achievement of waking up,

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is that this morning, for five Aussie men,
that wasn't the case.

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They're not here today and they don't know
that any of this is going on,

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because yesterday,
they reached a point in their life

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where they believed it was a better option
for them to kill themselves

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than to wake up today.

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Another five Aussie men
will do the same today,

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and tomorrow, and the day after that,

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and the day after that.

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And before this year is out,

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just under 2,000 Aussie men
will have suicided.

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If we expand that out to a global context,
that's around 700,000 men.

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And by this point,
we can only represent each man

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by a single individual pale pixel.

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For each completed suicide, there is then
another 20 suicide attempts.

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I'd show you that, but I'd need another
seven HD slides worth of pixels.

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It's literally an epidemic.

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At a rate higher
than leukemia, than even war,

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men are killing themselves.

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If you're a guy in this room
between the ages of 14 and 44,

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the biggest threat to your life
right now, is actually yourself.

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But, I don't want to get
too bogged down in statistics.

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Instead, I want to talk about what
each and every single one of us can do

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to help reduce the rate of suicide.

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But in order to do that, we need to first
understand a little bit of common context,

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a little bit of common understanding,
around what it is we mean

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when we talk about men,
mental health, and suicide.

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And those ground rules
are preempted by a small disclaimer.

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And that disclaimer is that
suicide also affects women.

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Despite the fact that men complete suicide
at a rate five times that of women,

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women attempt suicide
at just as high a rate as men.

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But as someone who works
specifically in men's mental health,

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I'm going to leave that conversation

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for someone who is far more capable
at that conversation.

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The first ground rule we need
to understand about mental health,

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is that mental health
exists across a spectrum.

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Now, that might sound
like a really obvious things to say.

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Yet often, when conversation about
mental health or mental illness comes up,

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that spectrum becomes really narrow.

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When we talk about physical health,

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we understand that,
at one end of the spectrum,

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we have something as small
and insignificant as a paper cut,

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- and that's not to, in any way, diminish
the bizarre agony that is a paper cut -

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right up to the other end of really
serious terminal illnesses like cancer.

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The same spectrum,
and just as wide a spectrum,

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exists for mental health too.

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At one end, we have
really serious mental illnesses,

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like psychopathy
and severe clinical depression,

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but at the other end, we have things
that aren't mental illnesses,

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that are just poor mental health.

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It might be a tough day,
you might be going through

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a bit of a rough patch,
it might be a breakup.

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When it comes to physical health,
we know that if we get a scratch,

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we put some Betadine and a Band-Aid on it,

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to make sure that minor thing
doesn't become something worse.

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And the same thing needs
to happen with mental health.

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So, if someone is going through
a bit of a rough patch,

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we need to take action
and make sure that support is there,

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to make sure that that seemingly
insignificant moment in their life

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doesn't become something more serious.

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The second ground rule
is that suicide is a behaviour.

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In and of itself,
suicide is not a mental illness.

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Rather, it can be
the result of a mental illness

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or significantly poor mental health.

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For the vast majority of people, suicide
is when their inbuilt coping mechanisms

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are outweighed
by their current circumstances.

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And although it is true that
for a really small minority of people,

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thoughts of suicidality can be ongoing,
or even life-long challenges,

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for the vast, vast, vast
majority of people,

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thoughts of suicide are really temporary.

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This is backed up by a study that came out
of the US, by Doctor Richard Seiden,

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which studied 515 people

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who were restrained whilst attempting
suicide off the Golden Gate Bridge.

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And this was a really longitudinal study.

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And what they found was that
years and years and years later,

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of those 515 people who were restrained,

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94% were still alive
or had died from natural causes.

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94%.

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So, although 6%
is still far too high,

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it suggests that, again,
with the right intervention,

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with the right support,

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we can significantly reduce
the rate of suicides.

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And what's interesting to note too,
of that 6% who did go on to suicide,

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is that a third of those suicided
within the first six months

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of the initial attempt.

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The third ground rule
is that men are emotionally complex.

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I'm sure we've all seen on our social
media feeds, on Facebook and Twitter,

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study after study that say

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that women are more
emotionally intelligent that men,

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and that they express themselves
in more emotional terms than men.

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So you'd be forgiven
for thinking that, as men,

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we're naturally emotionally stunted.

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But what's interesting about these studies
when you look at them closer,

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is that these studies often about

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how it is that men
express themselves outwardly.

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They don't actually look at what it is
that men are feeling inwardly.

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Back in 2014, myself
and my team at Spur Projects,

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we ran a project called
"How is Australia feeling?"

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It was an app for smart devices,

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and we encouraged people across Australia
to take part and log their emotions.

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We asked them to tell us
what emotion they were feeling

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at any given point in time,

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at what intensity
that emotion was being felt,

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and what they were doing at that time.

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And again, you'd be forgiven for thinking
that the results between men and women

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would be vastly different.
That's what we expected as well.

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I should also point out, too,

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that in terms of men potentially
being more emotionally stunted,

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there is actually a term
that's been coined:

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"normative male alexithymia",

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which literally means
"without words for emotions".

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Anyway, getting back to the data.

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This here is the data from women.

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This is the average
intensities felt by women.

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At one end, zero is that a particular
emotion was felt really weakly,

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and up the other end, 100 meant that
that emotion was being intensely felt.

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Here is the results of men.

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We can then break that data down
into the individual emotions as well.

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Here, we have the six
base emotions of the app.

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Again, here is the results from women.

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And here is the results of men.

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Almost identical.

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So, we're now at a point
when we understand

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that men have all the feels like women do.

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(Laughter)

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It's been suggested that potentially

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we're not hardwired to express ourselves
at the same emotional level as women.

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But I think there's also something else
really major at play.

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These things.

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[Man up. Don't be a girl.
Grow some balls.]

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A lot of people in the audience know.

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We live in a society where,
from the youngest age,

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we're taught, almost exclusively,

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that our worth
as a human being, as a male,

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is linked, inextricably,
to our perceived masculinity.

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And that if we want to be a real man,

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we have to conform to a really narrow
definition of what it is to be a man.

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And if you don't believe that,

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these are products
that are literally on sale today.

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And if you're wondering,
the logo for the Brosé

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- that is, Rosé for men -

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is literally a fist, punching
through the wine bottle.

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(Laughter)

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So, I guess it leads to this point
in our society, where, as men,

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we're allowed to dip our toes
into the warm pool of femininity,

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but only if it's accompanied by enough
masculine energy to counteract it.

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And so, that brings us to our two
challenges that I have for you today.

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The first one is to help
undefine masculinity.

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This isn't about redefining masculinity.


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This isn't about saying that, okay,

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you no longer need a beard
and to chop wood to be classed as a man,

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but you now have to do something else.

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No, it's about challenging yourself,

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and challenging other people
when they try to define masculinity.

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For example, if you have a mate who says:
"Oh, I'm off to broga",

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you can say: "No, you're going
to yoga, and that's fine."

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Or, if you have a friend
who accidently blurts out

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that their favourite movie
is 'Notting Hill',

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then you can pull yourself back and go:

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well, actually, no, I don't need to laugh
and mock them because it doesn't fit

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into this little box of preticked movies
that men are allowed to watch.

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No, instead you mock him
because that movie is just horrible.

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(Laughter)

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And I think this is summed up best
by my pseudo childhood mother,

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Noni Hazlehurst, from Play School,
who once said:

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"What would it mean if we could empower
women and mend the broken hearts of men?"

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And the reason why undefining masculinity
in general context is so important,

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is that we can't possibly hope
to get men to talk about

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their feelings and their emotions
purely in a mental health context,

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if all those other barriers
and constructs remain.

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So, by breaking down
general constructs of masculinity,

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we're then able to also
help those constructs

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that stop men from help-seeking behaviour.

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The second challenge I have for you

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- and this is a really,
really simple one -

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is to spend some time
with your friends and family.

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If we jump back to the data from
"How is Australia feeling?",

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these are the results of emotions
logged when people were socialising,

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when people were speding time
with their friends and family.

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And what you'll notice,
by a really large margin,

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the most commonly felt emotions
were peacefulness and happiness.

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So the simple act of hanging out
with your friends and family

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is really important.

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But it's also important, too, for you
to share information about yourself,

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to share how you're feeling, potentially
your emotional vulnerabilities.

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Because we know from the data
that if people are in environments

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where other people
are sharing how they're feeling,

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the other people in those environments
are more likely to share as well.

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It's important to remember
though, that having a conversation

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isn't some sort of emotional
side alley slot machine

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where you can pop in
an emotion or a vulnerability

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and expect one in return.

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But, by laying a foundation
of openness and honesty,

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you're allowing the other person
to do the same.

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And so, that's it.
They are my two challenges for you.

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One: to help undefine masculinity.

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And two: to take a mate out for a coffee.

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So, although these two things
are really, really small actions,

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and they might seem really insignificant,

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by doing these things,
you're actually taking really big steps

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to empower men
to talk about their feelings

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and to talk about their mental health.

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And as I said at the start,
there are five guys out there today

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who are alive at this very second,
their hearts are still beating,

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and they won't be by this time tomorrow.

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But the conversations we have today,
the way we engage each other today,

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the way we interact
with people around us today

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can literally change that.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)