Depression, and getting over it

Depression is one of the biggest problems for men beyond 50.  We all feel low sometimes, but depression is long-term – I’ve met many mature men who have been depressed for years, often on antidepressants continually, and are resigned to living in semi-gloom indefinitely.

How would you know if you’re depressed?  Typical symptoms are self-dislike, lack of motivation, being preoccupied with negative thoughts and feelings about yourself and the world, loss of energy, sleeping poorly, pessimism, lack of interest in other people and life in general.

Befriending darkness: learning from the wood

Hazel Hill: Autumn Equinox

The Autumn Equinox was September 21.  This year, I’ve had time to go deeper into the meaning of this time by exploring it at Hazel Hill Wood, the magical 70-acre woodland retreat centre which I run near Salisbury.
An Equinox is a balance point in the year, and it can help us find balance in ourselves: between light and dark, active and receptive, masculine and feminine...However, the Autumn Equinox has a very different flavour from the Spring: it’s the threshold of the darker months, the slope down to Midwinter, the time of decay and dying back.

Life Threatening Crises for Friends

In the past few months, the wives of two close friends have had late diagnoses of advanced cancer which could be fatal.  The husband of another friend has had a stroke.  At the Summer School I go to each year, two couples from last year are now singles, having lost their spouse to cancer.  These are relatively young people in their fifties and sixties, with a history of good health and lifestyle.

Hallo landscape my old friend

This is my third day in the North Pennines and Yorkshire Dales, and I realise I’m feeling high on the scenery.  This has set me pondering, why are some landscapes so special for people – and maybe especially for maturing men?

Dentdale

The Looting Riots: August 2011

It really is like a horror movie come to life: whole buildings on fire, gangs of feral kids, mass looting and vandalism.  One Chief Constable said tellingly, “This was not an angry mob, it was a greedy mob”.

Slipping away on the ebb tide: Suicide and Maturing Men

My friend Bob is a psychotherapist in Wales.  He was visiting me for the weekend when he got a text from Davey, one of his clients.  It read, 'My kids r ok, but can c no reason 2 carry on.  Wd love to slip away on the ebb tide, noone would notice.  Davey'.  Davey is a man of 63, who had retired from Cardiff with his wife two years ago, to a dream retirement home in remote rural Pembrokeshire.  His wife died very unexpectedly eight months ago. 

Bob and I sat at the breakfast table, shocked and sad, feeling deeply for this man many hours away from us.  What could we say or do?  Is suicide sometimes the right answer?

Twenty years ago, suicide rates were alarmingly high among young men, 18 - 30.  This has dropped, but in the past ten years, suicide rates have risen among older men, age 40 - 60.  The highest suicide rate in any age group is men over 75.

This issue has a deep resonance for me: my father's father took his life at the age of 56: his two sons, who found him, disguised things so it looked like an accident, and their mother never knew what really happened.  My father suffered from periods of depression and anxiety throughout his adult life, until his seventies, and I used to worry whether one day I would find him gone. 

I asked Bob, "What are you going to say to him?"  Bob read out his text to me as he keyed it in: 'Away, can't meet up 4 a few days.  I know this urge will arise.  I'd like u not to slip off on the ebb tide.  I and others enjoy u so much.'  It was a huge relief to receive another text from Davey, a few minutes later: 'I imagine u here talking with me, it's a great help.  Won't do anything to end it.  C u soon.'

I asked Bob if Davey was an unusual case, and he said no: Bob's experience fits the national picture, with increasing numbers of maturing men committing suicide, and increasing numbers of clients in this group seeking help.  This is true in rural areas as well as cities, and with manual jobs such as farmers.

Whilst I had known about the statistics, this episode made it all real and immediate.  Pooling Bob's experience of what worked with clients, and some of the ideas in my book, we came up with a few pointers to offer to men feeling suicidal, and the people around them.  For those around them, our key advice is focus on this man's feelings, and your feelings for him.  Don't urge him to stay around because suicide would upset his kids, colleagues and others.  Most men have been burdened with calls to guilt and duty since they were boys, and this approach could drag them further down.

For the man himself, we would say:

• Just focus on the present moment, this day: make the best of this day, find what you can appreciate in it.
• Don’t always trust your thinking, it may be unreliable, it’s probably too negative, and could lead you to decisions you’d regret: things will probably look different later.
• Don't go into the future: if you feel awful now, you risk imagining it will be awful forever.
• Find a way of giving out to others: even if it is a small action, it can help them and it will help you.
• Look for new things you will enjoy, here and now.
• Be compassionate with yourself – take time to feel your sadness, anger, without having to act on them.
• Find someone you can talk to for support: a close friend, if you have one who can handle this, or a counsellor or therapist.
• You may hate yourself, feel angry or ashamed and want to punish yourself.  Give yourself a break, be kind to yourself, at least for today.
• You probably feel that something in you has died, but don't confuse that with feeling your whole life has to go.
• Accept that suicide is an option for you, but don't do it on impulse, really consider it carefully.
• Find some meaning in your day, no matter how small: you may like to read Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, who writes of finding optimism even in tragedy.

If you are feeling suicidal right now, try these:

• Phone the Samaritans 08457 90 90 90
• http://www.mind.org.uk/help/diagnoses_and_conditions/suicidal_feelings
• http://www.befrienders.org/support/index.asp?PageURL=suicidal_feelings.php

The names and details of this true story have been disguised to protect confidentiality.

Why steam trains matter, and Dampfloks are AOK




Ik droom van stoom!  The Zuid Limburgse Stoomtrein Maatschappi in the Netherlands

Many men are searching for meaning, a sense that the events of their life matter and have a shape to them.  I have hatched a belief that steam trains can help in this.

If you’re aged late fifties or older, you’ll have grown up with steam trains in your childhood.  I can recall many maturing men who get excited when I broach this topic, and who plug into vivid memories of magnificent steam engines.

I can bang on at length about the lousy features of my childhood, if provoked, but many of the happier times I recall as a kid involve steam trains - either travelling on them with my mother to see my grandparents in Bournemouth, or watching them as a trainspotter.

The Hubbert Curve: why we all need to know about it

Whatever your age and gender, the Hubbert Curve predicts huge changes which will have a big impact on your life, and everyone worldwide.

Hubbert was an American petroleum geologist, who in the 1950s started to calculate global supply and demand.  His work has since been updated, and the current Hubbert Curve is shown below.  Just Google it to find out more: this is not some cranky astrologer talking, it’s a respected tool within the industry.

Men and Pornography

Guest Posting by Ger Murphy

Jack(56) came to see me at my psychotherapy practice some months ago complaining of depressive episodes and lack of motivation. As he spoke he revealed that he had been experiencing strong feelings of loneliness and isolation following his wife`s recent work changes, which meant she had taken on a demanding new work role and was increasingly unavailable to him. He disclosed that their sexual relationship, which had been vibrant, had diminished and that he had begun watching pornography for significant periods 3-4 times a week and masturbating to ejaculation.

Sailors, structures and serenity

V S Pritchett: great insights on maturing men

V S Pritchett is one of the great underrated English story tellers: he is brilliant at evoking characters, drawing out the emotions woven through everyday life. His short stories are especially good, and I was impressed by one I read recently, simply called The Sailor.

In this story, the narrator describes how he meets and befriends a shabby middle-aged man who is lost in London. He turns out to be Albert Thompson, a ship’s cook, invalided out of the service two years before.

“Off a ship?” I said.
He looked at me as if I were a magician who could read his soul. “Thank Gawd I stopped you,” he said. “I kep’ stopping people all day and they messed me up, but you been straight”.

The writer, who lives alone in the country, gives Thompson a job as his cook, and things change from day one.
 

Relationship puzzles? Thank Heaven there are only 2 genders!

Do you ever reach a point where relationship is doing your head in?  I do, regularly, but I’ve found a way of looking on the bright side.  Imagine if there were three genders, not two: instead of a man and a woman trying to get it together, there’d be three.  Let’s call them male, female and alien.



Male, female and alien, looking for harmony

Now a man would have to understand, impress and attract two quite different species, not just one.  And the female and the alien would have to fancy each other as well as the man.  Exciting sex positions would become far harder, with three genders having to align themselves.  But the permutations could be boggling.

Father of the Bride: A Rite of Passage for You Too

A few weeks ago my younger daughter got married, the first wedding in our family for over twenty years.  The intense feelings of that day are still strongly with me, they’re a surprisingly large part of my present awareness.  I keep wanting to go up to strangers and tell them about my daughter’s wedding, and I’m a person who rarely talks to strangers about anything.  I am writing this partly to work out for myself why it was such a major experience.

Football as a map of the inner life for men

I am writing this at the end of May 2011: it has been one of the most exciting Premiership seasons for years, with the relegation battles going right to the wire on the last day.  Followed by the extraordinary experience of our League champions being totally outclassed by Barcelona in the European Cup Final.  Since so many men share my love for the game, it seems wise to use it as a guide or metaphor for the inner life in a blog intended for men.

Top 11 books for maturing men: #’s 7 and 11

Here are the details of two of the best books I've found to help men make sense of life beyond 50.

Woods: wellbeing and wisdom for maturing men



May bluebells in the heart of the wood



One of my top tips for men beyond fifty on how to enjoy life to the full, is to find yourself a wood to spend time in and make friends with.

Surprising?  I’ve seen it work for many other men, as well as me.  A wood can give you a sense of deep safety, of being nurtured.  It can bring you wisdom, and connect you with the strength of the Green Man and the Celtic tradition.

Men like proof of such claims.  I have no scientific data, but a lot of experience to refer to.  The main wood in my life is Hazel Hill, a 70-acre wood in Wiltshire which I have been caring for – and which has cared for me – since 1997.

At that time I received money from share options in the large company I was working for.  Instead of investing it, sensibly (?), in shares, I asked myself, ‘What would I enjoy doing with this money’, and out of nowhere came the answer – buy a wood.  Since then, I have learned a lot about conservation forestry, and have created simple wooden buildings which are used by a range of retreat groups.  The deepest of these events that I have experienced have all been men’s groups.

Handling Separation

If you want to amuse yourself, do a search on Amazon for 'handling separation'. You will get a complete mish-mash of manuals for divorce, and books on the chemistry of fluids. Maybe both are relevant...