Depression: Differences in Men vs. Women

[branwyn]

This topic came up in a comment of a previous post... I had read previously that men sometimes manifested depression differently than women due to the way they are raised (men report physical symptoms more than emotional ones, for example). However, I did some web-searching today and found this article - the context is depression in men caused by

Comments

[footpad]

Oh good, more stuff I can rip the shit out of. *wag wag*

Not aimed at you! I'm glad if this helps you analyse and better understand your own feelings, but but. As a general "male versus female" thing I think it's a crass overgeneralisation-at best meaningless, at worst harmfully misleading.

My very modest experience of depression, whether in myself or others, is that the key symptoms are passive, withdrawn, apathetic, self-detesting and miserable, regardless of the sex of the patient. Perhaps men do have more of a tendency to turn their hurt outwards, but it's really not helpful, useful or-pardon my French-particularly goddamn compassionate for the author to hand them a checklist and imply they're not 'masculine' if they don't fit into it.

And I'm not just saying that because, by the standards of that chart, I am definitely a woman. :)

[branwyn]

*nods* Absolutely fair.

Gross over-generalization or not (and somewhere in there I think it says that this isn't strict canon) - I am glad that SOMEONE out there bothered to say "Hey, you know, maybe some people, for whatever reasons, might be angry instead of wanting to cry".

I do fall on the supposedly-"feminine" side for some things, but I'd say about 80% of the time I fall on the supposedly-"masculine" side. So... you can imagine that this suddenly all makes a whole lot more sense. A number of other articles I found (with less exhaustive lists of differences) were rather condescending about how the less socialized male of the species doesn't know how to deal with his emotions and so he strikes out in various ways. Maybe you're just more highly evolved. :)

Anyways, I didn't mean to make anyone feel bad for it, and I suppose I should have thought more carefully about working when I posted.

B.

[footpad]

Oh, pshaw, it wasn't your wording I was taking exception to. :)

And I should recognise that the article's actually fairly helpful to me, as it indicates a different (ahem: "masculine"? :) suite of responses to depression, which I hadn't really considered before. Now I'll be more sensitive about snappish, tense, frustrated people as possibly being depressed instead of just arseholes.

In fact, I clearly remember that at certain points during my depression, I was pointlessly, waspishly vindictive towards akeela. Quite why he didn't toss me out on my ear, I'm not quite sure.

[branwyn]

Certainly some of the ways I reacted to things seemed very contrary to what I thought of as "depressed"... like, the fact that I got angry. I think of depression as making one more passive, more "can't give a shit"... whereas I was the opposite. So that certainly made me wonder what the fuck was going on.

An yeah, how my roommates and boyfriend have put up with me thus far is a miracle.

B.