Significant differences exist in mental health crisis symptoms for men and women.In men and boys, a crisis may be interpreted as simply problem behavior.Reducing stigma opens up helpful discussions about mental health.<\/p>\n
For years, women died of heart attacks and other heart-related events because they simply didn\u2019t recognize what was happening and thus failed to seek help quickly. A lot was known about the symptoms of a heart attack in men. But it turned out that signs in women tend to be vastly different and were often missed.<\/p>\n
The same is too often true now when it comes to men struggling with mental health issues.<\/p>\n
The traditional list of signs that folks have been coached to look for more often apply to girls and women than to boys and men.<\/p>\n
Males and females are apt to respond very differently to severe mental distress, according to Dr. Eric Monson of the Huntsman Mental Health Institute. Because their mental health symptoms are more classic \u2014 and women are generally more likely to seek medical care than men anyway \u2014 women are more likely to recognize when they\u2019re in mental distress and ask for help. <\/p>\n
For women, those signs include feeling more tearful and disinterested in things that are normally enjoyed, including activities with other people, said Monson, who is also a child and adolescent psychiatrist, computational geneticist, assistant professor at the University of Utah and a suicide researcher.<\/p>\n
Women are more apt to know when they feel down or anxious, he said. <\/p>\n
Men are less likely to recognize their mental health challenges and more apt to brush them off, probably in part because mental health crisis stigma still exists.<\/p>\n
Stigma is, in fact, enough of a challenge for both males and females that world-renowned psychiatrist and brain expert author Dr. Daniel Amen has launched a national campaign to reframe the conversation to one of \u201cbrain health,\u201d not mental health or illness.<\/p>\n
Amen, who founded the Amen Clinics and is the author of a number of books including 2025\u2019s \u201cChange Your Brain, Change Your Pain<\/a>,\u201d recently told Deseret News that the brain health crisis is getting worse, with one-fourth of Americans on psychiatric medication, the number of youthful suicides growing and anxiety and depression diagnoses on the rise.<\/p>\n But just as women ignored signs of a cardiovascular crisis, men are brushing off their mental health crises in part because they don\u2019t know what those look like. <\/p>\n And the signs with which they are familiar are more common in females than males.<\/p>\n A gender look at symptoms<\/p>\n Irritability can signal that a man is depressed or otherwise struggling with a mental health crisis, Monson said. Men in such crisis \u201cmay be really short with people around them. I feel like they\u2019re more on edge. They may feel a drive to lose themselves in their work. That\u2019s a kind of \u2018socially acceptable\u2019 way to deal with a mental health crisis, right?\u201d<\/p>\n He said hard work acts to camouflage the problem, because working hard is a desirable trait. It makes employers happy. And others say things like \u201cWow, you\u2019re doing so good. You\u2019re working so hard.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cBut for the man who\u2019s experiencing this, it could actually be a really significant crisis and they\u2019re not feeling well, but they are trying to do this to escape the sensation, the feelings of this mental health crisis they\u2019re experiencing,\u201d Monson said.<\/p>\n There are other differences between males and females regarding mental health, he said. Among them: <\/p>\n Men show more externalizing behaviors in a mental health crisis and those behaviors can affect people around them. Meanwhile, women in crisis tend toward more internalizing behavior, like self-critical thinking and suicidal ideation.The externalizing behaviors can land men in legal trouble. \u201cThey can end up actually being put into jail as kind of a repercussion of their mental health crisis because they\u2019re not having it managed effectively,\u201d Monson said.Men are more apt to use substances like alcohol and marijuana to numb negative feelings.Women make more attempts to end their lives, but men more often die by suicide.A woman\u2019s attempt that wasn\u2019t lethal may get her the help she needs, because the fact she\u2019s in crisis is clear.Since a man\u2019s death is often the first recognized sign of his mental health struggle, there\u2019s no way to help him after the fact. \u201cIt\u2019s very difficult to catch them, if you will, with the way the system is currently built,\u201d Monson said, sadness evident in his voice.It\u2019s extremely common for males and females alike suffering from a significant mental health issue to be less aware of it than those around them are.What others see<\/p>\n When men misbehave, it\u2019s not typically viewed as proof of a personal crisis, per Monson. A more common response might be to write someone off as irresponsible or mean or whatever negative fits the situation.<\/p>\n