Are you alright?

In Ireland, ‘How’re ya?’ is a common greeting used so much that the words have lost their meaning altogether.

The normalized response tends to be ‘ara, you know yourself’ or ‘grand sure’.

But, what if we listen to the question and actually say how we are feeling:

How’re ya?

Not too great.

Why? What’s wrong? (asked in a worried tone)

Just feeling down.

Oh, aren’t we all? Sure, it’s that time of the year. The weather’s miserable.

The Irish are admired for the musicality of our language, for being friendly and able to have a good laugh, drink a heap of pints and dance jigs.

But I’ve noticed we also love to dance around our feelings in conversations. We’ve learnt off appropriate social responses like a familiar tune. When people open up, it’s common to dismiss it as ‘not so bad’ because there’s normally someone worse off.

This makes it harder for people, men especially, to open up if they are feeling ‘out of sorts’. It seems ‘silly’ to be sad without a reason why or a clear solution. It’s as if we need to undergo a tragic event for our feelings to be taken seriously. Trust me, we can always find someone who is ‘worse off’ than us, but it’s never a comfort to compare.

I don’t think we do this because our society is ignorant or careless. I think we actually care too much but don’t know how to have these unfamiliar conversations so we dance around them instead. This is something I believe all of us can work on: our language with friends, family, even strangers and ourselves.

Read these words, then read them again:

Suicide is the number one killer of men who die under the age of 45 in the UK

Men in the Republic of Ireland are four times more likely than women to take their own life

I have been thinking A LOT about these statistics, especially since the days have gotten shorter and the weather is colder. I often scroll through Instagram and see pictures of lads in big friend groups on nights out or playing sports with teams. Happy faces and tons of likes. (I know, I am generalizing big time here). But it’s so easy to forget that social media is subjectively filtered: and it’s much more popular to filter out the ‘bad’ and share the ‘good’.

How often do people’s voices get lost in big groups? If the only time you meet with friends is at the pub or for group outings, can you really know how your mates are doing?

When you pick up a ‘suicide prevention’ leaflet, there may be black and white pictures of people looking miserable, ones that would make you want to get away from them as quickly as possible. We are brought up to believe depression and loneliness is someone whaling on the floor or walking around sulking. The truth is, there is no cover photo for depression. Roman Kemp, whose best friend died from suicide, talks about how today’s younger generation have become experts at wearing masks because of maintaining appearances on social media. Someone could be the life and soul of the party, not wanting to burden others with what’s going on underneath the mask.

How often do we see sad faces and hear people opening up about their pain online?

Normally we don’t until someone has overcome their struggle or lost their life to it. People wait until they reach a low before they reach out. They might turn to addiction or come close to suicide before friends and family even realise ‘They are not alright’. We are living in a consumer society that encourages doing more, buying more, moving forward until you physically can’t. Self-help books are thrown at us when we feel sad, and though mental health may now be a hashtag, it’s often linked with facemasks and solo outings. Mental health poblems are glamorized to be heroic struggles rather than just feeling like shit. We celebrate victories, promotions and achievements, then hush away addiction and mental health problems until we’ve ‘overcome’ them. The labels linked to it feel too heavy to bear. ‘I’m not that bad’ is repeated so much till it gets too bad to vocalise.

We have a whole month devoted to men’s health. But what about the whole year? What about people who are gone too far to even look at their screens and see past their pain? Sure, this generation has gotten better with posting about mental health, but how about talking about it? Or how about talking in general.

Take time to check in by asking ‘are you alright’ and actually listening to your friend’s response instead of presuming you know what it will be. Not just commenting on a post, sending a meme or liking a picture. Write a text, pick up the phone and speak to them. You don’t need to have a guidebook with solutions, you aren’t responsible for their pain and you don’t have to fix it. Just acknowledge the person’s feelings and let them know you see them. Help them feel like an individual human being instead of a burden that needs to be sorted out. If you are also struggling, it could be helpful to share that too and normalize the dialogue of not being alright.

I cringe at the ‘advice’ I gave people who confided in me when I was an oblivious teen. I’m pretty sure I told someone “You can’t have a rainbow without a little rain” regurgitating a quote I’d read about overcoming hardship. I didn’t know what to say and found the conversation too uncomfortable to handle. Imagine how they felt?

I think societal gender roles are a big part to play in why women are more likely to open up about their feelings. We expect lads to be tough, sporty, funny, the man of the house, and dominant in relationships. Whereas women are linked to motherhood and appearing pretty while being emotional and submissive.

Of course there are more genders than this, and the world is becoming more open-minded with gender identity. But I still think there must be reasons why men suffer so much with their mental health that suicide is a leading killer in the UK and Ireland. I have been listening to podcasts focusing on how men are less likely to have ‘close friendships’ than women, especially as they grow older and settle down because sharing your feelings isn’t ‘manly’.

These gender expectations are unconsciously reinforced with the language we use when speaking to one another. Remember you are a role model for your kids and your friends. You have a choice to question these gender roles – to speak to your kids about how they are feeling.

I could list a million different helpful tips for people like therapy, journaling, meditation, exercise, social media detox (to name a few). BUT everyone is different and we all might not be priviliged enough to have access to these resources. The most vital thing we can control is our conversation with one another. Ask more people how they are instead of chatting shit about people who are struggling, which might discourage a friend from speaking up.

People go to AA meetings and Cancer support meetings, but do we need to wait till we’re labelled before we can sit around in a circle and talk about how we are feeling? We like and dislike posts, but people can’t simply be labelled as ‘liked’ or ‘disliked’. Our human experiences shouldn’t be limited to that. So have a chat. Roman Kemp suggests asking friends how they are when you are driving in a car or out for a walk, incase eye contact makes it difficult to speak honestly.

Asking for help is such a brave and admirable thing. Being vulnerable is beautiful. Please speak up if you are feeling low. But remember this can be extremely difficult for someone who is already in that headspace. So check in with your loved ones regularly.