Yes, cowboy, even you should cry
DARYL Brown played Sudoku in the moments before he tried to commit suicide.
He wanted to take his mind off what he was about to do.
Then he prayed that his soul would be saved and he jumped in front of a train at the London Underground.
Friday marked three years since Brown, 29, tried to kill himself. He had left Cape Town for London to “fix himself”, and returned after having lost his limbs.
He decided on his suicide bid after his lover had left him, he had failed to find a job and his church had rejected him for being gay.
Brown didn’t realise he was severely depressed because of his personal problems. The content engagement manager believes that had he opened up about his feelings he would not have tried to end his life.
Research by Stellenbosch University published in the latest South African Journal of Psychology suggests that South African men are dying because they are “suffering in silence”.
Men between the ages of 20 and 25 who participated in the study revealed they were unable to talk about their troubles because of society’s expectations of them to be “strong, heterosexual, protectors and providers”.
Several have tried to kill themselves.
Men, according to the research, account for about 80% of completed suicides in South Africa. Data gathered from mortuaries and the National Injury Mortality Surveillance System in an earlier Stellenbosch University study showed that suicide was four times more prevalent among South African men than women.
Dr Jason Bantjes and Professor Ashraf Kagee found that “all participants affirmed a belief that the gender regime in South Africa prescribes that men should restrict their displays of emotion, silence their fears and hide their sadness. This requirement to ‘suffer in silence’ was particularly marked when in the company of other men.”
Showing sadness, fear and vulnerability “were associated with being gay and hence feminine”, they said.
“Participants said this gender norm prevented men from accessing emotional support as their distress is invisible to others.”
One said: “It is easier for women to congregate and just have a ‘bitch and moan’ session. I can’t say that men don’t do the same, but it is considered demasculinating [sic] for a man to express BODY AND MIND: Daryl Brown tried to kill himself by jumping in front of a train insecurity, to express failure, to express fear.”
The research found that men believed dealing with empowered women was “challenging” and “difficult”.
“The views of the young men in this study imply that suicide prevention programmes may need to move beyond the traditional focus on psychiatric risk factors to include addressing sociocultural factors such as exposure to viwould olence, restrictive gender norms and young men’s perceptions that they are disempowered and marginalised in post-apartheid South Africa,” said Bantjes.
Brown said he hadn’t spoken to anyone about his feelings of failure and unworthiness. “I had been battling depression for more than 10 years, but I never spoke to anyone, because I was ashamed for not being able to pull myself together. I didn’t want to burden anyone and I didn’t know if people believe how bad it was.”
The last thing he thought about when he jumped in front of the train was whether his friends and family would understand his decision and not be too angry. “I had been very involved at my local church until I came out as gay, after which I rejected the church’s teachings about homosexuality being a sin.”
Brown had to heal his body and mind before returning home.
Professor Lourens Schlebusch, author of Suicidal Behaviour in South Africa and principal researcher for the World Health Organisation’s suicide prevention programme in Africa, said the available statistics “could only be the tip of the iceberg”.
He added: “The difficulty is that we don’t really know what is happening in rural areas. The stats are based on hospital or mortuary data. One of the reasons why more men succeed in killing themselves is that they tend to use more violent methods. They don’t seek help because they believe they have to maintain a macho image. It’s a case of cowboys don’t cry.”
I never spoke to anyone, because I was ashamed for not being able to pull myself together
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