'Boys are disappearing' from mental health care, as signs of depression and anxiety go undetected
'Boys are disappearing' from mental health care, as signs of depression and anxiety go undetected
While girls typically show sadness through emotions, boys’ symptoms of depression may be swept aside as “typical” teenage behavior.
Research found while antidepressant prescriptions have risen dramatically in the US for teenage girls and women in their 20s, the rate of such prescriptions for young men “declined abruptly during March 2020 and did not recover.”
Contrary to the pretty lies we like to say here in the US, "There's help if you need it/you matter/don't be afraid to get help" There are no meaningful resources to help those not attached to meaningful capital, and seeking help will almost certainly leave you with more problems than you started with.
And if you're a man, you'll also be ridiculed for it.
We made a society that works against itself to the point that we eagerly send the biggest losers out to die of exposure under a freeway, of course screaming "time out please I give up I need help" isn't going to end well for you.
I wish at the very least we could be honest with ourselves and cut out the patronizing, cutesy lies that we say to absolve ourselves of the guilt of our society's cruelty.
I agree with the first paragraph as my own experience with a much-needed year of therapy left me in debt
I disagree with the second sentence entirely. Even my very conservative father supported me going. There's tons of terrible men in this country but we need to stop perpetuating the myth that every man in the US has a fratboy mentality.
There are no meaningful resources to help those not attached to meaningful capital
This is not true. I received lots of free counseling and psychologist treatment when I was on medi-cal, both as a child and as an adult. You do need to seek it out to receive it.
Yall call this civilization? We might have spaceships and cellphones, however we can't help but crush some strangers head with a rock and take all their shit. It's just now its through the economic system or the justice system.
Instructions unclear, what should I do with this bloody rock?
I aint religious but Amen.
My experiences with mental healthcare have been laughably inept. You can get better therapy in the worst game of DnD you'll ever play.
My experience is always different than anyone else. Everyone else in my ward wound up loving it and saying how it was the most important thing and it's a great place.
For me, I never had a constant therapist and was swapped around with no one keeping notes. It was all group therapy and I hated repeating myself all the time. Everything felt like a cash grab. Most of the therapists and people there seemed to have to take on a lot of work. I was lucky in that my insurance was paying for it all but the bills were insanely high.
It was all group therapy and I hated repeating myself all the time.
My experience was similar.
You go to therapy to be listened to, and instead you end repeating yourself 100 times because nobody is fucking listening. It was legitimately more frustrating than not going, because I was literally paying money to have someone listen to me and they still couldn't fucking do it.
Who is going to pay for this luxurious mental health care?
Maybe the boys are doing great and don't need mental healthcare.
lol. Good one
This is the best summary I could come up with:
“We have this very classic understanding of depression as being sad, being tearful, crying more, not eating as much and losing weight,” said Dr. Lauren Teverbaugh, pediatrician and child psychiatrist at Tulane University in New Orleans.
Dr. Kao-Ping Chua, a pediatrician at the Susan B. Meister Child Health Evaluation and Research Center at the University of Michigan, led the study.
Parents, pediatricians and even psychiatrists may not pick up on mental health problems in boys, Uchida said, because “they don’t fit the stereotypical image of depression.”
Dr. Willough Jenkins, a psychiatrist and the medical director of emergency and consultation liaison psychiatry at Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego, blamed, in part, a societal normalization of teenage angst and irritability.
“They’re a really good measure for being able to pick up on something that is beyond the norm.” Teverbaugh and other experts said that many referrals for boys seeking mental health treatment stem from behavioral issues in school.
Mass General’s Uchida — a mother of three young boys — encourages parents to permit sons to express their sadness and frustrations.
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