How to save a life | Lee Crockford | TEDxSouthBank

Today, five Australian Men will suicide. Whilst this speaks of deeper societal challenges, mental health and social change advocate Lee Crockford discusses the seemingly small ways that we can all make a difference, and perhaps save a life.

Lee Crockford is passionate about mental health, social change, the arts, education and innovation. He is both the CEO of Spur Projects – a NFP working in the area of men’s mental health and suicide prevention – and Assemblus – a NFP working to amplify sustainable social impact within organisations.

Lee is an alumnus of IYF’s Global Laureate Fellowship, FYA’s Young Social Pioneer and The Do School’s Global Changemaker programs. He is the recipient of the Australasian Men’s Health Forum’s Youth Contribution Award and was recently named as one of The Cusp’s young people on the cusp of greatness.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

This morning, I started
my day by waking up,

and I'm actually pretty proud of that.

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

and it's been a crazy, hectic day,

it's pretty good to be here.

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

And the reason that I'm somewhat proud

of that seemingly insignificant
achievement of waking up,

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

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

because yesterday,
they reached a point in their life

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

than to wake up today.

Another five Aussie men
will do the same today,

and tomorrow, and the day after that,

and the day after that.

And before this year is out,

just under 2,000 Aussie men
will have suicided.

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

And by this point,
we can only represent each man

by a single individual pale pixel.

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

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

It's literally an epidemic.

At a rate higher
than leukemia, than even war,

men are killing themselves.

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

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

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

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

to help reduce the rate of suicide.

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

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

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

And those ground rules
are preempted by a small disclaimer.

And that disclaimer is that
suicide also affects women.

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

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

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

I'm going to leave that conversation

for someone who is far more capable
at that conversation.

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

is that mental health
exists across a spectrum.

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

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

that spectrum becomes really narrow.

When we talk about physical health,

we understand that,
at one end of the spectrum,

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

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

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

The same spectrum,
and just as wide a spectrum,

exists for mental health too.

At one end, we have
really serious mental illnesses,

like psychopathy
and severe clinical depression,

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

that are just poor mental health.

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

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

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

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

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

And the same thing needs
to happen with mental health.

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

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

to make sure that that seemingly
insignificant moment in their life

doesn't become something more serious.

The second ground rule
is that suicide is a behaviour.

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

Rather, it can be
the result of a mental illness

or significantly poor mental health.

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

are outweighed
by their current circumstances.

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

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

for the vast, vast, vast
majority of people,

thoughts of suicide are really temporary.

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

which studied 515 people

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

And this was a really longitudinal study.

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

of those 515 people who were restrained,

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

94%.

So, although 6%
is still far too high,

it suggests that, again,
with the right intervention,

with the right support,

we can significantly reduce
the rate of suicides.

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

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

of the initial attempt.

The third ground rule
is that men are emotionally complex.

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

study after study that say

that women are more
emotionally intelligent that men,

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

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

we're naturally emotionally stunted.

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

is that these studies often about

how it is that men
express themselves outwardly.

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

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

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

It was an app for smart devices,

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

We asked them to tell us
what emotion they were feeling

at any given point in time,

at what intensity
that emotion was being felt,

and what they were doing at that time.

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

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

I should also point out, too,

that in terms of men potentially
being more emotionally stunted,

there is actually a term
that's been coined:

"normative male alexithymia",

which literally means
"without words for emotions".

Anyway, getting back to the data.

This here is the data from women.

This is the average
intensities felt by women.

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

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

Here is the results of men.

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

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

Again, here is the results from women.

And here is the results of men.

Almost identical.

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

that men have all the feels like women do.

(Laughter)

It's been suggested that potentially

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

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

These things.

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

A lot of people in the audience know.

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

we're taught, almost exclusively,

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

is linked, inextricably,
to our perceived masculinity.

And that if we want to be a real man,

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

And if you don't believe that,

these are products
that are literally on sale today.

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

- that is, Rosé for men -

is literally a fist, punching
through the wine bottle.

(Laughter)

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

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

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

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

The first one is to help
undefine masculinity.

This isn't about redefining masculinity.

This isn't about saying that, okay,

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

but you now have to do something else.

No, it's about challenging yourself,

and challenging other people
when they try to define masculinity.

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

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

Or, if you have a friend
who accidently blurts out

that their favourite movie
is 'Notting Hill',

then you can pull yourself back and go:

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

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

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

(Laughter)

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

Noni Hazlehurst, from Play School,
who once said:

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

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

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

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

if all those other barriers
and constructs remain.

So, by breaking down
general constructs of masculinity,

we're then able to also
help those constructs

that stop men from help-seeking behaviour.

The second challenge I have for you

- and this is a really,
really simple one -

is to spend some time
with your friends and family.

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

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

when people were speding time
with their friends and family.

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

the most commonly felt emotions
were peacefulness and happiness.

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

is really important.

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

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

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

where other people
are sharing how they're feeling,

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

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

isn't some sort of emotional
side alley slot machine

where you can pop in
an emotion or a vulnerability

and expect one in return.

But, by laying a foundation
of openness and honesty,

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

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

One: to help undefine masculinity.

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

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

and they might seem really insignificant,

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

to empower men
to talk about their feelings

and to talk about their mental health.

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

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

and they won't be by this time tomorrow.

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

the way we interact
with people around us today

can literally change that.

Thank you.

(Applause)