It’s time to break the silence surrounding male suicide

The bleak darkness suffered by so many young men

Mark Austin ITV News presenter

I spoke to a psychiatrist recently about depression in young people.

“Young women tend to cry for help,” he told me. “Young men are more likely to suddenly kill themselves”.

It was a generalisation, yes, but also a point well made. Recent figures suggest the number of young men who kill themselves continues to rise.

The single biggest killer of men under 45 in England and Wales is not heart disease, not cancer, not road accidents. None of the above. It is suicide. It is self-inflicted death. Last year 78 per cent of all suicides were male.

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