meIn mid-2020, in the midst of a growing pandemic, 19-year-old Llyr George, the younger brother of island of love dr star alex george – He died by suicide. What made it even more daunting for Llyr’s family, as for many others, was that there was no warning sign. The unanswered questions only aggravated the pain. “Sadly, men are still much more likely to take their own lives than women,” his brother says today: three quarters of suicides in the UK in 2020 were committed by men. “The terrible shame is [that many] don’t tell you, so you don’t realize they’re fighting. We know that men generally use violent forms of suicide, while women have more help-seeking behaviors and will often go to A&E or talk to their friends.”
Since the passing of his brother in July 2020, the man known affectionately as Dr. Alex has used his platform to help ensure that others do not suffer in silence. Appointed Downing Street Youth Mental health Ambassador last year, he is under no illusions about the task at hand. “We fundamentally have a treatment-based model in this country where mental health services are expected to address everyone’s struggles. They’re actually designed for only about three percent of all the people they see: anorexia, bipolar disorder, or other psychotic illnesses. Whereas much anxiety and depression, even early body image issues, can be treated in the community.”
Consequently, George asks Liz Truss to fund 190 early support centers. Designed for walk-ins and no wait times, and aimed at people up to 25, they should, it is thought, quell early anxiety before it turns into something much worse. Case in point: “One of the biggest mistakes we’ve made when talking about body image is that we’re mostly talking about women,” she says. “But hundreds of thousands of young men across the country are taking anabolic steroids to change their appearance. When I was 15, I didn’t see men with perfect bodies every day unless I was shopping men’s health magazine. Now you go to Instagram and that’s all you see. It affects men.”
the island of love the student recalls his own battles with body image, including a brief period before entering the village. “Before the show, I felt a lot of pressure to look a certain way; I trained two hours a day, I was starving, I didn’t see my friends. I wouldn’t even have coffee because I didn’t want the calories with milk. Even if I looked at what could stereotypically be seen as good form, I felt absolutely horrible.”
Of course, it’s not just young men that society is failing them at the moment. In 2021, men aged 50-54 were found to have the highest suicide rate in England and Wales. Kriss Hall, founder of The Burnt Chef Project, a nonprofit organization that addresses mental health issues in hospitality, also suggests that traditionally male-dominated industries foster stress and anxiety. “Within hospitality, and certainly within the male realm of this, you’re under a lot of pressure and you have to make sure you’re not the weak link,” he explains. “You don’t want to be the one to sink the ship, especially when everyone has high stress levels.”
When it comes to professional kitchens, for example, the 35-year-old regularly informs chefs that there is nothing unmanly about being vulnerable. “Being able to identify that you are human and susceptible to emotions, feelings and illnesses is a powerful tool that you can use in an environment that is 70 percent male dominated. You can still be stoic and lead bravely.”
Over the past decade, Hall’s scheme has supported and trained thousands of people in hundreds of countries. As part of its recent Guide to Stress in the Workplace, which surveyed 673 people working in the hospitality industry (nearly a sixth of whom were men), 69.44% of workers said that stress unrealistic time limits had affected their well-being. Ultimately, Hall says, we can only create safe spaces for men to seek comfort and open up if we focus on the culture of the entire company, not just a few bad eggs.
“Everyone sees the Marco Pierre White and Gordon Ramsay of the world as very aggressive and domineering characters,” he explains. “But I see two people who have succumbed to high levels of stress over a period of time, whose ability to cope in an emotionally intelligent way has been severely affected. Unless you give people the tools and support they need to understand, stop and change that behavior, then they’re not going to change.”
It is estimated that there are currently more than 1.5 million people waiting for a mental health appointment with the NHS. This comes as no great surprise to Hall, who opted to seek private help after he himself came to a head when he was in his twenties and found himself at the end of a phone queue. A decade and a global pandemic later, he warns that, aided by one of the worst cost-of-living crises in modern history, we could be sleepwalking toward a new low point for men’s mental health. “Post-Covid, we are already seeing millions of people on waiting lists to access therapy for at least three to six months,” he says. “At the same time, we have private therapists who increase their costs due to the balance between supply and demand.”
Like George, Hall believes it is unfair to blame the NHS. It’s just too big for that. “As mental health awareness grows, people ask for help sooner, but we don’t have the mechanisms to deal with it. That’s why I’m so passionate about creating free access services to help stem the tide.”
Conor O’Keeffe (right) during one of his marathons
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Another person bringing these issues out of the shadows at the moment is Conor O’Keeffe, an ultramarathon runner from Cork who recently ran the equivalent of 32 marathons in 32 days in 32 Irish counties. The endurance athlete even started the challenge with 32 pounds on his back to symbolize negative thoughts. He lost a single pound a day to help raise more than £60,000 for Pieta House, just one of the charities currently bearing part of the burden for Ireland’s equally creaky mental health services.
Along the way, O’Keeffe, 30, was joined in person by social media followers and listeners of her podcast. An encounter with a young man in County Clare sticks in the mind. “It was a superficial conversation: college, sports, plans for the future,” recalls O’Keeffe. “Once we had run around together for a bit, he jumped into his car and drove off.” Minutes later, however, the teen pulled up in front of O’Keeffe and jumped out of his car with a different demeanor. “I could see tears in his eyes and he just put his arms out to hug me, telling me my podcast helped him a lot. Now, he’s the typical guy you’d read about in the paper taking his own life: outgoing, fit, healthy, handsome, a genuine guy who doesn’t know who cares in the world. Obviously, he felt that no one understood him.”
Clearly, O’Keeffe did. But how do we create more of these conversations? “I’ve found that men respond especially well to ‘no nonsense,'” says O’Keeffe. “They want honesty. What they do not need is a campaign of companies that jump on the bandwagon because it is the best way to make money. We need real kids who have been affected, talking about real experiences, warts and all. Instead of saying ‘I felt really bad,’ we need to be honest, ‘Yeah, I felt like I jumped off a bridge and never woke up again.
Dr. Alex George with his new book ‘A Better Day’
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He speaks from experience. Before finding his purpose in running, O’Keeffe would drive around his hometown with a numb feeling, feeling “listless, dull, depressed and slow” to the point of wanting to crash his car into a wall. “I am incredibly grateful that whatever was inside kept me going.”
O’Keeffe also believes that a less talked about reason for the rise in male suicide is the uncertainty of the modern world. “The idea of what a man is has been changing in recent years,” he says. “Our grandparents knew their place within the family unit and therefore within society itself. this puzzle does not exist [that] we can fit in seamlessly anymore. The landscape had to change, of course: women put their careers first and then have children, but we’re still figuring things out. For men, modern life is undermining confidence and self-esteem. That is something we struggle with. As a gender, we are also conditioned from childhood to ‘man up and move on’, so the sooner we can start talking to boys about [their] emotions better. It’s hard to get to a five year old at a deep level, but it’s not impossible. It starts from there.”
It’s also one of the reasons George just published a children’s book on mental health: A Better Day: Your Positive Mental Health Handbook – and aimed at readers ages nine and up. “Imagine Wembley Stadium full of children and multiply that by six,” she says. “That is roughly the number of children currently waiting to be served by mental health services in the UK. The problem is increasing and getting worse. I have already received many amazing messages from parents and children. Writing this book is to help prevent things like what happened to my brother. I want people to live and thrive instead of just surviving life. It does not have to be this way”.
‘A Better Day: Your Positive Mental Health Handbook’ by Dr. Alex George, published by Wren & Rook, is now available in all good bookstores.
If you are experiencing feelings of distress or are having difficulty coping, you can talk to the Samaritans, in confidence, by calling 116 123 (UK and ROI), email [email protected] or visit the Samaritans. website to find the details of your nearest branch.
If you reside in the US and you or someone you know needs mental health assistance right now, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255). This is a free, confidential crisis hotline that is available to everyone 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
If you are in another country, you can go to befrienders.org to find a helpline near you.
