Men have been urged to safeguard each other’s mental health during this festive season to prevent them from committing suicide.
A medical lecturer at Kabarak University, Willis Ombete, said scientific evidence has proven that women may threaten to commit suicide several times in their lifetime but they hardly fulfil the threats, but men tend to accomplish the threats faster.
“Men should be guarded against the ‘black –dog’ or depression because when it comes to committing suicide, women threaten but men accomplish it, hence the need for them to be assisted, whenever they show any slight signs of the dreaded disease,” Ombete stressed.
Speaking to KNA at Kabarak University on Tuesday, the lecturer urged men to seek more friends to ensure that anybody who shows even the slightest signs of depression was taken seriously and assisted to seek medical assistance.
“ It is wrong for men to jibe or taunt their depressed friends by urging them to man-up because that feeling is a disease just like malaria, and yet whenever any of their buddies claims to be suffering from more understood diseases they rush them to hospital,” he added.
‘’The black-dog as depression is often referred among medics is not only a serious disease, which people tend to belittle, but it’s the only one known to affect people across all classes, from kings to peasants, it does not discriminate,’’ he stated.
The medic said depression has a severe effect on men than women because the former, have not been taught by society how to express their negative thoughts since they are always expected to be the tough warriors and soldiers for society.
He added that men were more likely to be depressed during this festive season because their families expect special treatments and gifts, which they may not afford.
“Some men may disappear from their homes from the eve of Christmas until after, because they cannot bear the shame of their children begging for chapatis from their neighbours or crying for what they cannot afford,’’ he said.
Ombete gave an example of a man in Kisii County who last week threatened suicide and even dug a grave but people kept on touting him but within three days he had accomplished his mission, and yet what he needed most was medical assistance, but society mocked him.
He added that the expectations of society on men were too lofty and there was a need for them to be lowered because it’s not every man who can afford to be a bread-winner, especially during difficult economic times.
By Veronica Bosibori
