Is Masculinity Killing Men (1) start - 8m 46s

So I'm sitting alone in my car.

It's a warm summer night,

and I've probably been staring
at my phone

for, like, a little bit too long.

The number that I've tapped into
the screen is for the suicide hotline.

There's just one problem.

I can't bring myself to call

because I'm a man, not some princess.

I shouldn't need to be rescued.

So, instead, an ex-girlfriend
who owes me nothing

is frantically calling up my friends,

crying while she tries to save my life.

She really shouldn't have
to be a part of this story,

but because she loves me, she is.

So, I want you to keep her in mind.
We're going to come back to her.

Maybe ironically, at this stage
in my life, I'm a success.

I work with Fortune 500 brands.

I deliver on project work
with staggering massive price tags

with too many zeroes.

And every single day
for two and a half years,

I wake up feeling numb
and empty and alone.

Like I just can't stop drowning.

And I'm here today to tell you that
the rate of suicide is

skyrocketing.

It's higher than it's ever been.

I survived, I suppose,

and what I learned might save the life
of someone that you know.

And in order to do that,
we're going to take an unlikely journey

where the first stop is baby aspirin.

So, by show of hands,
who here has heard of the fact that

if you have a baby aspirin, it can
reduce your risk of having a stroke.

A lot of hands.
And I want you to keep those hands up

if you know exactly
what percent difference

that baby aspirin actually makes.

Okay. Uncomfortable laughter.
Looks of confusion.

That's-- that's pretty much where
I was at with it as well.

So I started doing the research.

And for this particular study,
what they found was

if you give people an aspirin
within 48 hours

of them having symptoms
of ischemic stroke,

one of the most common types of stroke--

for every 100 people that participate,

one of them will be able
to raise their hands and say:

Hey, that aspirin, it saved my life.

And they won't
have to go to the hospital.

They won't have complications.

They won't even
have a follow up stroke.

And so, even though
that aspirin is arguably

like 1% effective,
I'm also going to argue that

the reason why so many of you
knew about that connection

between aspirin and stroke is because
that aspirin is a minor miracle.

It's a simple solution,
many of us have access to it,

and the end result when it works
is lives get saved and changed.

So what if there was an aspirin

but for suicide?

So in 2019,
the CDC estimated that there were

1.38 million suicide attempts
in the United States alone

for just that year.

So that 1% would go a long way.

But if we can accomplish what I think
we can accomplish tonight, and ya'll

seem like a pretty smart bunch,
that seems pretty likely to me,

then the difference won't be 1%.

It'll be 60 times that.

But since suicide starts in the mind,

it's not really a pill
that we need to swallow.

It's more of a thought, an idea,

and one that directly counteracts
another one.

In one place to begin to look is

what thoughts then are causing men
to kill themselves.

And if the research is to be believed,

it all points to one very specific
kind of stubborn thought, and that's:

As a man, I need to blank.

As a man I need to be strong.

I need to keep my word.
I need to have a magnificent mustache.

And I'm a little bit upset
that I can't grow one.

And as a man, I need
to protect the people that I love.

And that last one especially
is a piece of masculinity

that I love that that exists.

I'm proud of that.

But masculinity is more than just

four ideas kind of mushed together.

It's like this big, messy world of ideas

that we hold together with, like,
twine and glue and spit.

Right? It's really complicated.

But to they begin to understand
what we're working with,

we need to also unpack that.

So what comes to mind for you

when you hear the word masculine?

And I want you
to shout out your answers.

[fragmented audience chatter]
Proud. Strong. Good, yes.

Stoic is a good one.

Brave. Leader.

Awesome, I'm looking for one more.
Protector.

Good.

So basically,
what you've given me is Batman, right?

Like-- And maybe,
maybe he has a beard, too.

And this is perfect, right?

This is an example
of our cultural givens.

This is what we were raised to believe
that a proper man should be.

And I don't know about you,
but I was raised to believe that,

as a man,

crying was kind of
the ultimate act of shame.

I also grew up believing,
as a corollary to that,

that, like, emotions were just as bad.

I understood that emotions were appropriate
for like two demographics.

The first of which was
like schoolgirls, and then--

and the second one was womenfolk,
which I was neither of those things,

so I shouldn't have feelings
and began to push those away.

But the thing is that--
the thing that they

never really tell you about that is how,
after a lifetime of practice,

maybe one day eventually you succeed

and then you get to wish
that you really hadn't.

Because you'll have also succeeded

at pushing away the thing
that makes you human.

What they don't tell you about
that is while you're

pushing away crying,
you also kind of begin to suppress

the other emotions in your life.

The happiness, the joy.

And then one day you wake up
and you realize

your entire life has been
about going through the motions.

And it doesn't matter what you're doing.

Whether you're riding a roller coaster
or at a theme park or at a wedding,

you can't feel anything
no matter how much you try.

And while you're distracted
with that thought.

Then one day,
maybe something really bad happened.

Something that you can't push away

and your emotions are screaming.

It breaks you.
Those emotions.

They want to come out, but they can't

because you've gotten too good at this.

At just pushing them down.

And so instead,
reality just starts to hurt.

It hurts and it feels empty
at the same time.

And you don't know
how to make that stop.

So as a man, you endure.

You grit your teeth, you push through it

because that's
what you're supposed to do.

So,

I think what I'd like to do

is kind of create a little bit of
levity here and just collective breath

out if you've been holding it.

[deep breath out]
I'm so grateful and lucky

to have that chapter in my life
over and done with.

Um, I think looking back,

one of the scariest parts
for me was seeing how.

At some point, I got to a place where
suicide just kind of made logical sense

instead of all the pain
that I was experiencing.

I could just have no pain.

There was there was no drama to it.

Um, and that, for me,
was the most frightening part.

What I'm aiming to accomplish
here today

is to help people who are in that space
find their way home,

because I know how dark it can get.

And in order to do that,
we need to turn to the research.

So what is-- what is the research
have to say about what's happening here?