50 Miles from the Freeway: A Few Good Men
Linda Stansberry is a writer and journalist living in Eureka, California. Her monthly syndicated column, 50 Miles from the Freeway, is about rural healthcare. This year – 2023 – will be focused on mental health access and resiliency. To learn more, suggest a topic or share your story, contact her via her website www.lindastansberry.com.
A few years ago, my then-boyfriend and I were testing our luck by pulling into the Costco parking lot on a Friday afternoon. The plan was to grab a bag of coffee and a couple slices of pizza and get out. Famous last words, I know. As we got out of my truck a man who had just finished shopping waved at us from his parking spot and asked if we wanted his empty cart. We said no thank you and he shrugged, pushed it away from him towards the general direction of the cart carousel then drove away. I think about that guy every day.
“What about the social contract?” I hissed as we flashed our membership card and entered the high-ceilinged temple of impulse bulk buys. “Hasn’t he ever worked in customer service? Does no one believe the social contract anymore?”
“You know, I don’t think they do,” said my boyfriend pragmatically, steering me in the direction of food.
I imagine life is a lot easier if you don’t spend your time freaking out about who’s not putting their shopping carts away and what it all means, but if you know me you also know that I’m tragically incapable of being that chill. I was indoctrinated into kindness at an early age, the type of kindness that makes living a rural community possible. When your elderly neighbor’s husband dies, you start bringing her firewood. When you see someone stuck on the side of the road, you stop and help. If you use something, you put it back. You put your money into your schools, your community center, your fire department. Honeydew never had a lot in the way of formal services when I was growing up — still doesn’t — but we figured out how to help one another and make it all work. That’s what’s at the heart of a social contract, the implicit unwritten rules we learn to follow through example that benefit everyone.
But not all unwritten rules are good ones. Some of them are killing us.
I’ve been talking about suicide a lot. I spent the last year working on a documentary for KEET-TV about suicide and suicide prevention in our community. What I learned is probably not a surprise for anyone reading this who has tried to access mental health services for themselves or a family member: We don’t have enough of what we need, and what we do have can be hard to access. That is true in the seat of our county services, Eureka, and even more true in Southern Humboldt.
Over the course of working on this project I was able to interview a lot of extremely smart people who are doing good work and bringing resources to our community. NAMI Humboldt, for example, has a support group every Thursday at Redway School. The Mattole Valley Resource Center supports parents and other community members who need help accessing services. Their staff do incredible work, including spending hours on the phone on behalf of their clients. Amy Terrones at the Southern Humboldt Family Resource Center is applying for grants right now to bring more services, including mental healthcare, into our communities. She’s amazing.
We need more. People are dying. Our men are dying. It’s a long story, at least twenty years old, one that started when I was a teenager and began losing a person a year to suicide, to addiction, to car crashes and murder. Men I loved. Men we all loved. It’s still happening. They’re still dying. I still talk to their widows, their sisters, their parents, and we float together on billows of fresh grief that seems to arrive almost every month with a phone call, an obituary, a stricken face and fierce hug in gravel parking lots.
And I want to say: “Men? We’re fucking tired. Your wives are tired. Your sisters are tired. Your mom is tired. We’re scared, and we’re trying, and we’re very, very tired.”
Because those unwritten rules that might have worked when you were being brought up — be a man, don’t talk about it, don’t be a burden, don’t talk about loneliness, kill the pain with whiskey, never let them see you scared, don’t trust anyone from the outside — are they still working for you? If they’re not, it might be time to do something different.
One of the most inspiring stories I heard during my work was about a high school student in Fortuna who — not seeing a peer group for young people dealing with suicide grief or suicidal ideation — just started one. She knew teenagers would talk more openly with other teenagers. And she was right.
Honestly, there’s nothing more Southern Humboldt than that, to see what needs to be done and just do it. So I’m calling on you, my dudes. It’s time to step up for one another. I don’t know what that looks like yet, but I’m confident you’ll figure it out. Amy down at the resource center has lots of good advice to help you get started (and if you’re not in the Redway/Garberville area, there’s probably a different resource center that can help you, or you can email me and I’ll get you to the right place.) Something has to change, because we love you, and we can’t keep losing you.
Last week I was back in the Costco parking lot contemplating which expletive might improve my upper body strength. When my ex left he took the truck, but you know I’m stubborn as hell and was pretty sure I could get this 100 pound boxed shelving unit into the backseat of my car. Well, I hate to admit it, but things were looking pretty grim. Then I heard a voice behind me and before I knew it some long-haired stranger in a goofy hat was helping me out. He loaded the box, petted my dog, and then put my cart away for me. The whole thing happened so fast I didn’t have time to insist that I didn’t need help, thank you, I was just fine and could take care of myself. Which is good because, you know, I wasn’t and I couldn’t and there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s what makes the world work: People who step up when they see something needs to be done and just do it. Good people. Good men. A few good men like that could change everything.
988 is the new toll free number if you or someone you love is struggling with thoughts of suicide. Call or text any time.
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Thank you Linda, as always. I too have seen thirty years of car crashes, addiction, suicide, murder slowly take lives of the men around me. I gave up the drinking and drugs over thirteen years ago, probably saved my life. I don’t know how to quantify it, but I fear a spike in suicides over the coming years, and tons of unhealed mental truama with the collapse of the old industry. My family has been here since the 1880’s, and the family tree details a lot of the boom and busts that occurred over the last 140 years. Lumber multiple times, fishing, railroads, and now weed. What happens to men who lose their careers at 50, 60, 70. Going from being the provider, the problem solver, the rock, too having nothing to earn and contribute to a totally new society is devastating. I have been following a couple people who are voicing their struggles, they are the tip of the iceberg.How many properties are behind on taxes, that is a stat I believe will show the depth of the problem. 1,000’s if not 10,000 business’ have quietly closed up in the last couple years. My kids have already pivoted and gone back to school and have promising new paths. For older folks this isn’t quite as easy. I have been wondering if and when support groups might start to be formed. Thank you for paying attention to this growing problem and the future devastating effects on our community.
I’m one of those 60 year olds that is worried about the future without the industry. Fortunately I’ve always been able to land on my feet. But it is scary.
Altruism and a sense of community are strangely absent, but us boomers were raised by men who had fought a war, and when they came home, they had all the choices…
Really now, a bunch of diffuse folk, moving away from support services to remote locations where they had to do without and live rough, man or woman, and relying upon turning a weed into gold: think about this!
How long did you totally get away with it when it was illegal, and the stress of worrying about law enforcement was also part of the game…
The answer, for elders, is hunker down while your teeth fall out and you eat what you have…
It’s hard to live past 50, but when it all comes down, it’s your day, do what you want with it!
Bad County leaders, who have major conflicts of interest, considering that they all have grows and businesses and properties… Who better to look after themselves first and just make Photo-Op’s and act magnificent while taking meetings with special interests, hiring your friends, and promoting the businesses who paid you off…
Look at the recent story from SF:
https://sfstandard.com/criminal-justice/sf-corruption-scandal-garbage-exec-heads-to-trial-on-bribery-charges/
The answer is education, the realization that Cannabis Farming is failing to support many but the rich, who finance big cannabis…
It was never better, but as we age, we realize what should have been done!
The men you are looking for were always a dying breed, and those who can build the world of tomorrow, are mostly immigrants…
The country will become full of men who have to struggle to survive, and the people who do survive, will be the ones who can adapt!
Natural selection brought the men you pine for, but whiskey and beer used to be the safe drink, and until the 80’s, everyone smoked tobacco.
Thanks for your contribution, Linda!
Natural Selection! Yes, a realist! The men she is looking for have gone nowhere. They are the rural farm and outdoor hill kids who are laughed at as being deplorable trump voting hicks from flyover country. Problem for the people doing the laughing is that someone needs to fix their plumbing, remodel their house, pump out the septic tank, and raise the food on their table while emo hubby is busy buying Facebook stock and planning for his next Tesla with androgynous KPOP blaring through the 10k sound system. In the end, the hicks will rule the world and will be telling Zuckerberg how to adapt. And that is how it should be in America, downsize and eradicate the woke, elite, carbon glutton redcoat class. Common sense Trumps woke. Save the Cetaceans!
Oy. You think rednecks are the only ones who know how to fix a broken pipe or rebuild an engine? What’s the opposite of woke? Sleeped?
Idk I’m kind a going to have to go with him on this one, I don’t see man bun ear gauge Prius guy wrenching on much cutting firewood cleaning a cow or fixing the plumbing.
The most competent man I’ve ever known besides my husband was his father–he was known to wear a man bun, occasionally wore a kimono, drove a Porsche that he rebuilt himself and also cut firewood, milked a cow, and built his own home, lived in the country and despised Trump.
This stereotyping of groups is pointless and leads people to the wrong conclusions and to weird hate of folks whose essential morals may be admirable but whose culture is slightly different than ones you have somehow decided are the good guys.
This issue runs deep. Especially in areas where the masculine energy still has value.
Our broader society has spent the last half dozen decades working to correct an imbalance by reconsidering what a “woman’s place” was in our society. We’ve done a good job of that, at least judging from my view of my grandma’s options, my mom’s options, my wife’s options, and the options I see for my daughters.
Unfortunately, we haven’t kept that broad history in mind for our men. I’ve spent a solid 3 decades being told that I was a problem, a danger, an issue. I grew up in a professional class suburb of a city that was losing it’s industrial base and leaning into the university, the state government, and the hospitals. We were consistently taught that the masculine impulses of boys and young men were a problem. Something we needed to contain, control, and ultimately eliminate.
There was/is always the option of judo flipping the pop culture narrative and joining the ranks of cartoonishly “manly” quasi right wing douche bags. But a lot of us boys do have a conscience, we do care about our moms, sisters, daughters, female friends, etc. We recognize the failings of the past, in ways well beyond the gender politics. So that’s no option at all.
It often feels like you’re left in a dead end. Finding a need for your services but a desire for it to be left at that.
Add to that a bit of a curve ball. We’re learning more and more about the impact of repeated trauma, even minor, to the head. Many of the activities that the masculine energies draw you into result in those sort of consistent bangs. In many circles they’re badges of honor, moments of note or fame, and generally exist on a spectrum between accepted and celebrated.
That’s all to say, there’s a lot coming to a head with our durth of mental health services, collapsing industry that leveraged classically masculine traits, and social structure fractured by the same industry drawing many men into the prison circuit. There’s not an easy answer. And there’s probably lots of unnecessary death ahead. But there’s solutions in here somewhere. And I hope that our community can find some of them
Linda, I loved this article, minus the F bomb, of course. 😁
I want to add that there is a God, and HE is there for men, and people that are not men. He created us, and He loves us.
The Bible calls Him a friend that sticks closer than a brother.
There’s NOTHING that will surprise Him, so be honest cuz He already knows. What if this life really is a gift? What if He really created you wanting to fellowship with you and be a part of your life? And what if you shut Him out? And never acknowledged Him… if you’re reading this it’s not too late. 🙏
God has helped me through many dark, lonely, and even scary, seasons in my life.
I always pray in JESUS name cuz the Bible says to ask God in Jesus name.
This life is spiritual. So if your not calling on God the Father and Jesus Christ His only begotten Son, then you have not done all you can do.
When you feel you’re at the end of yourself and there’s nowhere you can turn, regardless of the situation, please, call out to the One who made you for help!
He’s always just a prayer away 🙏.
I pray this helps even just ONE person.
God bless.
This isn’t the same deity that gives cancer to children is it?
how does god give cancer to children? that’s quite an assumption.
by creating bodies that can turn cancerous. “He”, omnipotent, had a choice.
maybe your god, not mine
Put out an empty box for thoughts and prayers every day and at the end of a year you have 365 empty boxes. Try eating or spending that. In the end it was you and your meditations that kept you going. Don’t stop. Keep doing what you must to keep going. But know that to many, when looking at empty boxes, all that is seen is empty boxes.
While we’re on the subject of prayer…The Bible says that God listens to prayers, God grants prayers that are consistent with His will, and God teaches through prayers.
It also says that God gives freely when we sincerely ask. The only cases I’m aware of when God becomes angry or short with people as they pray is when they refused to accept an answer already provided.
The Bible doesn’t say, “Pray for anything and you’ll get it.” It always has caveats about how our will needs to match God’s will for us to receive what we ask.
Prayer never makes a situation worse.
Cheap religion and obedient followers are abundant, but they are no substitute for a man with a chainsaw clearing the road, a man who can clear a lot and build a home, a man with a job who saves and invests or a man who brings firewood made from the fallen trees…
The number of qualified Pharmacists, Veterinarians, Medical Technologists, Physicians and Nurses is falling while the number of folks needing services steadily increases…
Reality tells us that pot farms won’t evolve into a society of men who have skills, while the #metoo ladies are trying to kill the capable men off…
There seem to be a lot of women decrying the lack of decent hardworking docile respectful and altruistic men, and, I have to wonder, if the country was attacked, who would defend it…
Life is about change, and it changes in a dynamic and constant fashion.
Good men and women build without complaining, and often when they stop looking for something, they find it was there all along…
Other than that, if you can’t find what you need in one place, you can always look somewhere else.
For heaven’s sake, the marijuana farmers that I know are some of the folks most likely to know how to chainsaw, cut firewood, clear a lot, and build a home. Your stereotyping of pot farmers is not helpful nor accurate. My son, who runs our cannabis farm –has blacksmithed, beekept, and made everything from polaskies to buildings to bedsteads –he and his wife cut and stack their own firewood, grow their own veggie garden, can their produce, and even make their own wine.
Reality tells us that folks who stereotype get shit wrong.
One of the best examples of men doing what is needed was experienced by myself, out in Hoopa, in January 2017, when first it rained for 40 days and nights, and then it snowed 2 feet, and then it rained on the snow, causing 6 or 7000 trees to fall over!
The road was blocked, the power was out, but by the time it was light, spaces had been cut in the trees, big enough to drive through, and life returned to normal, in about 4 days…
Obviously, your son excluded, pot farmers are in every other county, and big new grows show up daily, except in Counties where it’s not permitted…
No, Humboldt has no corner on suicide, accidents and struggling elders any more than a corner on weed…
It’s a tough life for everyone, but I salute the guy who helps, and I received firewood prepared by a neighbor, and then I made a nice Amethyst necklace for his wife, to help with her pain, anxiety and nausea during her cancer treatments…
The point is, after a 40 year career helping to care for financially disadvantaged pregnant women, elders, and even some years in Humboldt at Jerold Phelps, Redwood and Kimaw, I can tell you that the universe provides abundance to those who may not expect it, and to those who prepare to care for their own needs.
I also suffered from the collapse of an industry, after 24 years of enjoying having my own thing, and I struggled with depression, drugs and needing to support a family…
Somehow, we roll with the changes, and if things don’t work out in one place, there is always somewhere else…
Now I say, why worry, it will all work out in the end…
Do something for someone, don’t complain about misfortune, and manifest the situation as you desire it to be…
I’m glad someone helped Linda at the Costco, and Eureka is actually a friendlier town than some others, like, say, Yuba City…
OH! And:
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/06/congress-pots-ill-health-effects-00081178
Not everyone should be a pot farmer…
Our nation desperately needs a 2 year draft for everyone that finishes high school or is 18 years old. A draft is necessary for Americans to forge both common bonds and a better ability to defend themselves. Defense of America and its ideals must be made collective again. It will square our lost generation away and teach them duty, honor and respect…
A draft into community service with some manditory time with elders, food service, custodial/waste disposal and government and in return room and board and medical while serving then upon finish funds for school or starting a business or retirement fund.
Yeah
too many people think being a ‘good citizen’ is voting every 2 years…
much much more to it-I like your idea
Spot on…
It’s all well and good to criticize men for not being “white knights”… After all, the cisgender patriarchy has been beaten out of folks 30 years and younger. And crusading do-gooders have been thoroughly isolated and ostracized.
In Houston, Texas, I actually had young women angrily snarl “I don’t need you to do that!” at me for holding a heavy door open at a cancer hospital. At a hospital!
Self-inflicted wounds bite. We’re going to end up like China if we don’t turn around.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muxKB6LT5ZY
Don’t look now, but China’s kicking our ass.
The other day I held the door open for a lady carrying a child at a local store and received the same unhinged reply…
Not sure about social contract sheet, but I think this world has become so fast paced that nobody has time to talk.
But somehow find time to spend hours on the net.
How fast paced would the world be without the net?
One reason I never carry a smartphone and reside in a rural area…
I always put my cart away, and I’m prone to helping out on a whim.
The social contract, unwritten but known, can be for the good.
My mom called them manners.
Social changes, many of them good, have changed or erased many former assumptions of life and therefore certain obligations to ‘the’ social contract.
To have a applicable and useable social contract, the rules need to be known, generationally stable, and shared.
There seems a prerequisite of social integrity, I would claim.
Social integrity.
Think about what that means.
We can’t have McDonald’s on Broadway and social integrity both.
These are opposite worlds.
Building social integrity and reworking the social contract starts at a cultural level.
There we see how very hearty the workload is, lol.
Women, like men, can’t do it alone.
Well, we act like we can, but it gets old, and sometimes you just need a perfect stranger who remembers even the simplest of rules.
Very true.
“Life is like a tougher guy when you thought you were tough.” – song lyrics I heard once on KMUD (don’t know the title or artist)
Nice shout out for Amy Terrones. She does much for our community.
Michael Strahan and Chris Glazer have spoken out publicly about these same issues (link below). Many others have too.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/other/michael-strahan-shares-mental-health-message/ar-AA171yhU
Life has been thoroughly kicking my ass for several years now. No way for me to hide it, so I have had to admit it. Everyone I have confided in and/or had to ask for help or grace has responded with love.
People are kind and will support you, but you have to let them know you need it.
I’ve always let “the rule of the ranch” overrule ” the social contract”. You of all people should know that if you go through a gate that’s open you leave it open. If you go through a gate that’s closed you leave it closed. If you take a hammer out of the barn, you put it back in the barn. Not just “in the barn”, but exactly where you found it.
When I shop at Costco I always park in the hinterlands. I don’like dents. So, I look for a shopping cart stashed out there. When I’m through with the cart I wisely put it back where I found it. I assuage my guilt by following the rule of the ranch.
As far as men goes, my wife says “men are men, you can’t change that.” She has her own rules.
She’s correct.
Better hope you don’t get spotted by Cart narcs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ur5AKB7mILM
Thank you for writing this Linda. I’m a 70+ male that at 50 and a high school drop out had to find a new career, get a diploma and find his new place in this world. Scary but had to shelf all that male stuff and ask for help. I will say that with Gods help and many Blessed Females I made it. Now at 73 and with cancer I find myself at another scary place. What’s to become of my Wife? Again I turn to God and I find those Blessed Females again willing to be by my side. Linda I say to all you tired women, Please don’t stop. We men may not say it, but with out you we would be completely lost and our value would be zero.
😔
🙏
You have one more praying for you tonight.
♥️
Kindness begins with that image in the mirror.
Takes a village. Children do not raise themselves by looking in the mirror either btw
Wow !!! im tired reading all this..
we Do like the fur coat though.Lets bring trapping back to Cali..
Healthcare in the US is largely a broken system. And the reason it’s broken is because we continue to prioritize profit over outcomes. That isn’t going to change because America!
We spend more and get less. We have high obesity rates and high suicide rates. We have a lack of access and high personal costs when we do access it, even with insurance. I went to the local ER, spent 5 hours in the waiting room and finally left without talking to a doctor or getting any tests or treatments and they still charged me $5000 ($1000 out of pocket, the rest from insurance). Needless to say, I won’t be doing that again even if my heart starts acting up again.
Anyone looking in from the outside would simply assume that most Americans just don’t give a shit. Is it little wonder then that people attempt to self-medicate or solve their problems the only way they have easy access to? After all, we do have a lot of cars and a lot of guns. And alcohol and drugs are pretty easy to find.
It’s nice to say we just need to step up and help each other out and I sincerely wish the solution was that simple. But it’s a far more comprehensive problem that can only be addressed if the people we elect actually see it as a problem and pass laws and budgets that reflect that rather than looking for donations from the profit-centered healthcare industry.
If it keeps going in this direction with both political parties betraying us in favor of corporate interests, eventually we might have a violent revolution and guillotine the wealthy.
You sound depressed. Please see a provider for your needs and cardiac assessment…
Way to contribute absolutely nothing to the conversation. Kudos!
You’d have to be a complete fucking idiot not to be depressed about the state of healthcare in the US, especially in rural areas.
How far out is your cardiologist appointment?
If you don’t like it, don’t consume it…
I certainly don’t, but I have a provider and heart meds on tap…
Go to UCSF. No doctor shortage. But go to virtually any rural place and there is. In virtually every country around the world. Except Switzerland. Probably because no where in Switzerland is further from a major city than an hour. With good public train service.
Hello? The median age of the whole world has increased from 20 in 1970 to 30 in 2022. The world is full of old people, aging medical professionals and personnel shortages.
BTW if you waited only 5 hours and left without seeing a doctor, had an EKG been done? Because what that shows has a huge effect on how fast you get seen in an emergency room. Never money.
Thank you
“It’s a long story, at least twenty years old, one that started when I was a teenager and began losing a person a year to suicide, to addiction, to car crashes and murder.” Mental health issues? Poor mental health services? There are people here who can’t find a dentist, veternarian, family doctor even when they have the money to pay for them. Maybe, living in a world of addiction, car crashes and murder is why there are so many suicides. Maybe it is inevitable in a culture that looks to drugs to address stress or boredom because they actually have seen that solution applied all the time. Now that is one whopper of a failure of the social contract.
Just wait. First comes change then comes reaction. Especially when those changes create unreasonable expectations. Constantly demand people change to meet an ever shifting social contract, especially in good times, especially one that heaps on guilt as the method of change, and an ever larger share of people will lose their footing and fall. I say bless those who meet these stresses with doing something. Bless the people who suck it up and take care of business without complaint. Kindness too would have been taking that cart and dropping it off at the cart corral as you walked by. People have offered to do that for me and, once the idea was displayed to me, I have done it for others. I learned from example. I do it on occaision. But voluntarily, never on demand. Demands tend to provoke reaction that is not so kind.
Maybe because I travelled far and wide from an early age and and I am pretty aged myself now, I know that life can be a whole lot harder than it is in this self indulgent corner of the world. There were and still are places where children actually starve, not because of drugged out, neglectful or absent parents but because there is no food. Where police are never contacted because they are much more dangerous that criminals. Where bribing politicians is required to get utilities in a house. Where feral dogs roam the streets without care nor control. Where people are frequently killed by mobs. Places where wildlife are rats and the occasional patch of weedy vacant land. We have it so lucky that almost every evil is caused by self indulgence. And that can be remedied.
Always the reality check,
Appreciate it
FYI children go through hell here too. I lived and worked in the foster system. Had malnutrition. Frankly American culture acts like family is the answer to everything and/or punishment or Orphan Annie pluck and gumption/ “True Grit” or whatever. Meanwhile poorly funded and staffed foster system and mental health, even veterans had to fight like hell for some benefits. Now people practically drool over veterans no matter what sort of people they are nor what job they do yet PTSD treatment in Humboldt? Nope. Veterans’ buildings are more likely to have a bar than have an overnight place for people who are suicidal.
As a man it’s a hard road. You are taught to suck it up your whole life. You’re told not to cry when you’re feelings are hurt. You’re told not to cry when you’re sad. You are always expected to hold it together regardless of the circumstances. It hardens men until some are completely unable to express true emotion other than happiness or rage.
(Those seem to be the only 2 accepted feelings men can have in society today.)
There’s a saying that women and pets are loved no matter what but a man is only judged by his ability to provide. And it’s true! It puts a lifetime strain on a man and he will always feel inadequate no matter what he does because there’s always someone doing it better.
With the loss of the cannabis industry a lot of men lost their ability to provide. It’s an ego blow to a man, to say the least, when his family is struggling because he can’t earn enough to cover the mounting expenses that never stop.
Drugs and alcohol are always an easy way to distract ones self from the day to day problems and unfortunately they are usually cheap and easily available around here. Many of our young men are lost as there is nothing for them to do anymore. Jobs are scarce and the ones around here don’t pay very well. So many men are forced to travel daily to far away places to find money. The harsh reality of this lifestyle often lends itself to more drug use to deal with the day to day stress.
A lot of the men in your life sit alone in their truck or in the restroom, away from everyone, and ponder their own value. More often than you think. We look at our kids and feel terrible that they don’t have everything their hearts desire. We slowly die inside everytime we are asked for something and have to say we can’t afford it.
Nowadays more than ever men are being pushed to their mental limits. We are expected to serve, provide, protect and nurture while society attacks masculinity at an all time high. We are asked to be the man of the house but told to not be toxicly masculine. We are expected to be chivalrous and to teach the youth while being told to stop manslpaining.
Every year I lose a friend, a family member or a neighbor and it breaks my heart.
i don’t know about how the cannabis industry/job loss relates to being a man. honor, and keeping your word are merits a man is judged by.
As a woman I have had to “Suck it up” bla bla bla and be a caregiver too. Pets yes are more loved than most people…women…not so much these days or perhaps ever.
I love this piece. But, its a bit frustrating to, again, put the onus on us men fix our problems ourselves (“start your own support groups”). When at least PART of the problem is expectations that women (in general) put on us, or continue to perpetuate (“confident men are sexy” “hes too sensitive” the list goes on).
As men, we are told, “educate other men on how to treat women”, so its our responsibility to educate our own… why is there no mention of what women might also do to address men’s mental health issues?
So bad men are the problem?
The epidemic of homelessness and high rates of male suicide have the same cause. Economic inequity.
A man working 40 hours per week should be able to support an entire family. This should be true of any job.
After liberals passed law to stop child labor, limit work week hours, and make work places safer, the capitalist seized on the women’s movement to create a new paradigm where both parents have to work full time to make it.
The neoliberals and conservatives bent over for corporations and allowed US companies to operate overseas, avoiding labor and environmental law, then import their goods with no effective tariffs.
We are in a real pickle now! We would need federal minimum wage to be $27.50 immediately to start digging out of this. We will have to really suffer as we restructure our relationship with China, but the sooner the better.
Our working poor, who should be patriotic, buy almost everything from China/Walmart. Corporate interests tricked the working poor into supporting unregulated capitalism, which led to poor pay, work conditions, and a flood of imported goods.
Meanwhile allowing the land-lording of single family residence has created a massive shortfall in housing inventory. It is not that we fail to build enough houses. The fact is that as more homes as built, those with capital buy extra homes to profit from.
If all the income properties where put on the market, housing inventory would skyrocket, the cost of housing would plummet, and most American families would be able t own a home and build equity, the only form of savings most will ever have.
So long as the wage slaves are convinced that laissez faire capitalism is a wise choice, we will contiune to increase class division and eliminate the middle class.
Let’s not forget the liberals attack on masculinity. The way strong men are portrayed as toxic. We are told to accept transgender women acting like men but they are not men. No amount of legislation can demasculinize a society as much as the woke agenda has in the past decade. The liberals teach our young men to think like women. We have lost a whole generation of real men to this political bull crap. It’s funny how women tell men how to act but tell men that they have no say in how a woman should act.
Capitalism actually builds stronger men.
It forces you to work hard for what you get. It doesn’t give $600 weekly bonuses for unemployment. It doesn’t coddle the lazy. It doesn’t care about your sexual preferences. We work hard to achieve success and we don’t save those that won’t man up and handle their business.
The liberals agenda puts more emphasis on communism and wants the hard working men to take care of everyone in society, but to do it on societies liberal terms. It’s a mind game being played on our youth. They are trying to weaken our country from the inside all the while china is teaching their men to be more masculine. Why do you think America has the world’s strongest military. We were built by real men not dress wearing surgeon general’s with mental health issues.
Take a big look at what party wants the men weak. What party wants abortions to be common place. What party forced us to accept the rainbow flag. What party allowed for riots all over America. What party allowed gay pride parades where grown adults dress in bondage while waving giant sex organ balloons in public.
If you want men to be men then let them be. Let boys play football. Let boys do boxing or karate. Let boys be boys and they’ll become men. Stop letting boys play with dolls and wear makeup and maybe the men of America will stand a chance.
Socialism, communism and Marxism don’t work in a real society. The lazy will take advantage of the hard working.
Remember the point of the post is about how our men are struggling.
Perhaps men who don’t fit the mold you just described as the only way “real” men can act are struggling because…you know…there’s more than one kind of real man but society thinks John Wayne is the only role model.
Not all men want to play football—none of my three sons thought causing damage to the brain pan was a stunning example of manhood. Let boys and girls choose for themselves what makes them happy. If a boy wants to play with dolls and wear makeup, stop making a big deal out of it. Then maybe we’ll have less suicides and bitterness.
Yep. That boy that plays with dolls and wears makeup might just, someday, find the cure to cancer!
These hardass conservatives sure like to shove their ideas down everybody’s throat while decrying liberal ideas.
I hate the idea that we’ve lost great minds, hard workers etc because their personal lives made them give up.
Yes and women emulated that in many ways…had to try to be an old boy to be in the network. “Badass” aspirations and there are pretending there are no victims isn’t helping when taken to an extreme.
I agree with about 90% of what you wrote. I love football (played TE and DT, DE, and LB in high school) but all these brain damage revelations in recent years mean football has to keep improving protection for players’ brains.
Re: gays, they have been tormented for 1000s of years but we still have gays. Freedom means each person’s sexual preference is their own business so long as they don’t hurt anybody else.
“A man working 40 hours per week should be able to support an entire family. This should be true of any job.” Can we agree that
an ANY ADULT working 40 hours per week should be able to support an entire family. This should be true of any job.
The response to this provacative article is proportionate to the shared concerns we have.
It sounds good on paper but if I tried to confront a friend who was experiencing self-destructive behavior they would probably tell me to mind my own business, and they have a point: everyone’s made his decisions and even really smart people can (think they) need drugs and/or alcohol to help them live, and/or die.
Thanks for your thoughts Linda…
Hey Paul, I get this, and you’re probably right. I have had this reaction from people in my life before, too. Some people rejected the idea that they might need help and some people later sought help, but no one got worse because I brought it up. In terms of suicide, it’s a really common myth that asking if someone is having suicidal thoughts makes people more likely to commit suicide. I think it’s important that we move past our own fear and discomfort about how people might react in order to have these conversations. You have enormous power as a friend, peer and role model and might reach someone who otherwise might not be reached. Hugs. <3
Well, actually I did try to encourage him to stop drinking, offering him a place to dry out for a couple of weeks, he refused and probably thought I was joking, though he said he would quit instantly if a woman, one with whom he was having a meaningful relationship, asked him to stop.
I’ve heard it said that all problems are financial but it’s probably the power of love, and women, which is deficient for so many, at least all of my friends. (Look at the mass shooters, one thing they all have in common is no loving relationships, and so they lash out irrationally from their loneliness, depression, and hatred.)
But suicide, that’s heavy, I don’t know anyone who’s that sad and desperate.
(Reminds me of that song from HAIR “Easy To Be Hard.”)
Right on! Another HAIR fan!
Regarding drinking…a place for a couple weeks…It is just not so simple. We need far more well trained professionals working in teams and not just AA. And yes, belonging and being loved..the older I get the less corny I realize it is. “You’re nobody till somebody loves you”…so true…even the memory of one good love can go a long long way in life.
Spot on!
From:
https://www.verywellmind.com/gender-differences-in-suicide-methods-1067508
“Suicide statistics reveal that women are roughly three times more likely to attempt suicide, though men are two to four times more likely to die by suicide.
Compared to men, women show higher rates of suicidal thinking, non-fatal suicidal behavior, and suicide attempts.”
“These differences are known as the gender paradox of suicide.”
Partially why we’re so tired…we are less likely to abandon people and exit.
Who is “we”, kemosabe?
“we are less likely to abandon people and exit.”
In the USA women are more than twice as likely to initiate divorce as men. Divorce is a profound form of abandonment.
“Suicide statistics reveal that women are roughly three times more likely to attempt suicide”.
“Compared to men, women show higher rates of suicidal thinking, non-fatal suicidal behavior, and suicide attempts.”
Attempting suicide is a form of abandonment and women do this way way more than men. Nationwide and worldwide suicide statistics by gender make it obvious that women are much more suicidal than men, they just don’t die as often when they attempt it as often as men do.
To be or not to be is up to the individual. The idea is to live the best life and the longest life is not necessarily the best life.
There’s an extensive and interesting review of books on the subject of men “Falling Behind” and men’s issues in modern society in the New Yorker.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/01/30/whats-the-matter-with-men
I’m not sure if there is a paywall to read the article.
Linda shut up and stop acting like living in rural Humboldt made you a victim
LOL
Commendable well OK and what if the following were all that was given to heart attack patients or people with severe covid? “a support group every Thursday at Redway School. The Mattole Valley Resource Center supports parents and other community members who need help accessing services. Their staff do incredible work, including spending hours on the phone on behalf of their clients.”
A support group once a week; hours a week on the phone, a 988 number now with four fewer digits is an absurdly small amount of help even when added to the pills and the 50 minutes a week of talk therapy/CBT or whatever a person is lucky to find especially if poor. A treatment center for women survivors of trauma in-patient that has a web site that rather than looking like a spa (as do many so called “Treatment Centers”, lists many sorts of therapy including experiential is for one month, 38k$. Insane. Local resources are run by one or two people who rule the roost, and may even be doing damage but there is no oversight. If your medical dr messes up they have a team that might catch it for one thing and there is recourse by reporting to a team of health care professionals. Mental health professionals usually work in isolation or in strange tiny clubs as is the one that runs sempervirons.
Too late to edit my last comment and …..
One in four seniors who attempt suicide complete it. One in two hundred young people who attempt suicide, complete it. A hotline or support group might be ok for an impulsively driven person but for someone serious about suicide we have nothing, nearly nothing. For one thing don’t leave a suicidal person alone. There should be an in patient place without stigma for people seriously suicidal where they can go, have a room to themselves, keep a pet with them if nowhere else it can go and not only get therapy but also real solid help such as an elderly person suffering with depression having someone come by in the am just to help get them going. Threre used to be a program called “Community Companions” out of HSU where students would go to peoples homes/apartments many times a week. Social workers also used to be able to do so. Many seriously depressed people cannot get themselves to an appointment and even if they do, once up and out and alone after said appointment drive into a tree cause they can’t take it anymore. A support group once a week; hours a week on the phone, a 988 number now with four fewer digits is an absurdly small amount of help even when added to the pills and the 50 minutes a week of talk therapy/CBT or whatever a person is lucky to find especially if poor. A treatment center for women survivors of trauma in-patient that has a web site that rather than looking like a spa (as do many so called “Treatment Centers”, lists many sorts of therapy including experiential is for one month, 38k$. Insane. Local resources are run by one or two people who rule the roost, and may even be doing damage but there is no oversight. If your medical dr messes up they have a team that might catch it for one thing and there is recourse by reporting to a team of health care professionals. Mental health professionals usually work in isolation or in strange tiny clubs as is the one that runs sempervirons.
A good man starts with a good mother. A good man finishes with a good wife. It is pretty obvious to me a man usually ain’t worth a damn unless he respects and honors the women in his life. When a woman recognizes and embraces that in a man that partnership has a beautiful ride.
Women need to demand respect and men need to show it. All else is details.
Old women are cared for much less frequently than old men. Lots of older women in senior housing actively worrying about their family members and also senior male neighbors and not the other way around….really tiring for sure.
Men need to sort themselves out. A suicidal man is not safe. A few good women can change things for the better without a man. Women don’t exist to coddle emotionally fragile men into being men of good character. It doesn’t work.
That’s harsh, but I generally agree.
Men need to develop themselves and find meaning in that alone, then branch out if they want to breed or what not.
At least found healthy core selves first.
I’ve encouraged my own sense of self by taking messages that were meant to build up women and people of color, and applying them to my own life instead.
Life hack for oppressors, fyi.
Other than that, I haven’t really seen much out there that addresses deficiencies in the development of american men until more recently.
I think the phrase ‘emotionally fragile’ is unnecessarily dismissive to the confusing array of choices both men and women face in life. I’m hearing it used recently.
Reminds me of yesterdays ‘hysterical’.
Yes, men are fragile, even while they can be strong.
The poet in me wants to believe that men and women are each other, part of a beautiful whole, but clearly it’s more than that.
I do appreciate Stansberry for expressing her concern for floundering men in her midst, and it portends a little hope for some.
I nearly quit reading after the part about waving the man away who offered his cart to her in the parking lot. He probably wanted someone to help him return the cart because he was old, tired, or trying to be nice. Talk about “social contract.” Being nice would’ve meant taking the damn cart and putting it away for him. I do this all the time by offering to take someone’s cart to the carousel.
Thank you Linda, the loss of so many is devastating. My personal loss is incomprehensible even as I venture through the second year. I comprehend he is gone. What they don’t tell you, is it does and can get worse. So many things they are missing, so many times it just hits me that I never get to have one of his hugs or see his genuinely beautiful smile again. The pain never goes away, and sometimes it is so fresh it slaps you so hard in your face you can’t move, breathe or function properly. He tried to get help, med-i-cal had the audacity to call me months after he took his life to tell me that they approved his request. Had they approved it when he was seeking a counselor, maybe, just maybe he would still be here. I’ll never know will I? I live with the thought that I do get to talk to him again. It kept me going in the beginning, that someday I will have answers, I will get to feel his love again. But with time slowly moving on, the loss is so real that I fall into thinking, “Maybe I never get to talk to him again, like maybe never”. I can’t accept that, and I don’t have to.
I myself have been seeking help for counseling for a very long time, the mental health services are not available. It is truly a societal problem in this country. Not just our county. It’s an epidemic of sadness in our country. Here at home, the loss of the old ways,(whether you agree with that way of life or not) is such a gigantic blow to so, so many lives. I don’t think many that are not directly involved in the financial loss, can really comprehend the true impact this is having on our community. Families that were thriving, had plans and a future. Yeah, it was illegal, but they weren’t destroying lives, they were building them up, prospering.
Nationally, and at home I think the youth are not seeing their futures as we did 40 years ago. So much has changed. It kills me that we do not talk about mental health as part of a complete health plan. It is tucked away and mentioned behind closed doors, when it should be in the forefront of all conversations regarding health. It is just sad that it isn’t. It’s a societal fail. Nothing has ever made me want to get involved in politics as much as the loss of my son. Things need to change.
Feeling this so hard. Financial problems, half my harvest still just sitting here, worrying about losing my farm, relationship problems, crippling boredom because there’s nothing to do unless you want to go to a bar.
We’re all suspicious of each other, sitting behind our locked gates, not talking or even knowing names. Just isolation without any kind of support system. I’m as guilty as anyone; I’ve passed by people I should have stopped to help because stopping could be dangerous. Feeling awful about that.
And there’s no help. No mental health care whatsoever. I’m a dedicated atheist, but was raised Methodist, and I’ve even considered talking to a pastor. Nearest Methodist church is Eureka.
I know I’m not the only one struggling. I know other men struggling. We want help. They’re just isn’t any. So we just keep going on until we can’t any more.
So frustrating.
I’m so sorry brother. Get in touch with me, let’s talk about this. My contact info is at the top of the page.
♥️🙏♥️ I Just want to hug you right now. I know you’re an atheist but I want you to know that I care deeply about what you’re going through right now and I’m praying for you. I’m not trying to be rude or disrespectful.
We do need something beyond the national and even state organizations–something for folks here that is built of people who understand what the farmers and those whose businesses are supported by them are going through.
Mahasamadhi is the only safe way to leave the body, and is another great case for a meditation practice..
The identification as a unique and important individual with a limited life span is the root of all suffering. Truth is we are All One, manifestations in the dream of One Mind. Truth is only the “gross” body dies. Truth is Liberation..
Surrendering to the dissatisfaction of ‘my story’ was key. Call it Egocide..