Note: We know there is a strong relationship between ACEs and suicide but we don't always hear survivors of ACEs and suicide attempts speaking so clearly and directly about that connection. Here's an interview done by Des of the Live Through This Project with Michael Skinner who is a musician and an advocate.
Michael is an advocate and all about breaking through shame and silence.
Des: Tell me more about the ways in which it is difficult, specifically for a man, to talk about any of these issues—suicide, child abuse.
Michael: That you're looked upon as weak. There's an implied shame. I already feel dirty inside. I don't need someone [to further that]. In the papers, they call survivors of sexual abuse "damaged goods." I already feel that inside. When someone's reinforcing that, you don't want to talk about it.
When the breakdown, breakthrough, happened, I had childhood friends, people I'd known for years, who would not come to visit me, wouldn't even come to have a cup of coffee with me. So, you learn that you can't talk about these things. You're shunned. People don't want to hear it.
In Abraham Lincoln's time, everyone knew that he dealt with depression. When he was severely depressed, people worried about him. Someone had just broke it off with him. The community, they went out to support him. They took away his guns and his knives, and someone stayed with him. How many neighborhoods or communities do you know of that someone's going to go sit with someone who's feeling suicidal? Where did that change? I would like us to go back to that community of caring, where we're not afraid of it.
I don't think men are talking because you know you're going to be shunned. You're supposed to be strong. I have a history of being strong. Been in the martial arts most of my life. A former boxing professional who is now a manager wanted me to go pro.
So, even strong men, it's okay to share that you feel pain, that you're afraid. I can say it now, but I couldn't say it before, 'cause I know how I've been looked upon. When I started to talk about it, people pulled away. When the going gets tough, you really do find out who your friends are. It's sad. Even family members shun you. So if you're a guy, you have this whole thing. You gotta support the family and be strong and stoic.
I still wrestle with that, "Oh, I gotta be strong," but then I realize, no, that's the old stinkin' thinkin'. It's all around you. It's pervasive.
I would imagine it's the same things that's put upon you, the pressures of a woman, the perceptions of what a woman is all about. With a male, you're supposed to be strong, the provider, never showing a sign of [vulnerability]—that John Wayne mentality, that's absolute bullshit.
That's what's helped me, when I read about men and women who've gone through great hardships, when they talk about just breaking down and crying, just wanting to give up, but they just put that foot in front of the other. But admitting their weakness, how they felt so broken... I think the message we get from society is that you're supposed to be tough. We gotta end that. Read more.
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