And What of the Young Men?

Many of us are aware–perhaps through personal connections or else a broader awareness in the collective social sphere–that for several years, the well-being of young men is of increasing concern. But it is still not widely acknowledged or discussed.

In this post I am not going to produce statistics or reports, I am not citing experts or mental health professionals. I am sharing my personal experience; what I have witnessed directly and what I have learned through conversations with people who are also directly exposed to this issue.

Over the past few years, I’ve had the opportunity to work with young men in an educational capacity. Through the students I have worked with, and those in the immediate cohorts and environment, I have witnessed a change.

Additionally, while working at an eco- burial site, the person who owns the woodland and runs the funeral business shared with me that during the pandemic there was an alarming rise in the number of deaths by suicide, and that almost all of them within that time frame (during and just after the pandemic) were young men.

In another conversation more recently (2025) with a local firefighter, he talked with me about how his job had become increasingly difficult on account of attending many more sites where suicide or attempted suicide had occurred– and that mostly it was young men. He and his colleagues were offered regular counselling to process the trauma.

Notice that in sharing these experiences I am clearly and directly talking about suicide. I am not white-washing it, disguising it, or diluting it for the sake of algo-correct-language. My post may be immediately removed but since losing my original Facebook account, I have few social media friends and very little exposure.

The irony of not being able to use the word suicide on social media while it is on the rise, particularly in the young male demographic, is glaring and should raise questions.

Men are suffering. Women are suffering. Our relationships are suffering. Our health is suffering. The Earth is suffering.

We are lost.

And yet, we are also changing, transforming, awakening. Or at least we have the potential for this (if we are not entirely hijacked by algorithms and machine consciousness).

Currently, our social media channels are dominated by posts and aimed at women’s wellness; resources and information regarding men’s wellness is still relatively thin.

While a growing conversation focuses on the need to support men and the ways to do this– I am thinking of projects like Mankind– it pales in comparison to the available support relating to women’s health. From menstruation and menopause awareness, to ritual, remembrance and initiation, women are becoming more self-aware. Some of this is confused and somewhat fragmented as we attempt to revise a coherent feminine experience, but it’s there and is becoming increasingly fine-tuned.

Not so with the males.

And in fact, as the split between men and women widens, it is men, under the umbrella of patriarchy that are being cast as the villain.

We have yet to get beyond the need to cast our projections and fight amongst each other. Meanwhile we are largely unaware of what drives us, and the conditions that have led us to this state.

Patriarchy does not mean men.

The glut of posts, videos, podcasts and courses– mainly aimed at women–on how to avoid or mitigate the effects of being in toxic relationships with men, widens the gap.

Words like narcissist and predator, are only the tip of the iceberg in a developing lexicon that describes negative behaviours associated with dangerous or unsafe men.

In the chasm between us is a seemingly unbridgeable emotional and psychological underworld, a shadowy territory… the contents of our individual and collective unconscious. As the gulf between men and women becomes wider and less accessible, we have lost sight, not only of each other but also the deeper meaning of our humanity.

To set men apart as the cause of the trouble is short-sighted. All of us, men and women have been subject to forces and influences that are not immediately obvious in our daily lives. Disconnection from ourselves, from each other, lives filled with distraction, synthetics, pollution, to name a few, keep us tethered to a wheel of survival and fear. In short, we are hooked into the lower chakras.

But this is not a treatise on the challenges of modern life. The point of my post is about the increasing number of men, and in particular young men, who are lost to the point of not wanting to exist and taking the steps to facilitate this.

One of the reasons for this post is that I am inspired by an excerpt found in Ester Harding’s book Woman’s Mysteries. Here she writes about the initiation of young men in indigenous culture.

“Before their initiation, for instance, young boys, among the American Indians, spend a long period alone in the woods devoting themselves to fasting, purging, and the sweat bath. This discipline is undertaken with the hope and intention of obtaining a vision or initiatory dream. The ordeal is designed to bring the initiate into direct touch with the deeper layers of the unconscious. Through this he experiences the authority of that divine “something” which is the voice of his own true nature whereby he is released from childish dependence on the authority of the parents.

The dream which the youth has at this time becomes the guide for his whole life; he chooses his vocation and his guardian spirit from its indications; and in every crisis of his life he goes back for guidance to his initiatory dream […] The men seek a dream or vision, which is then subjected to conscious thought and work; it is interpreted either by the medicine man or by the council of elders […] The way in which the initiatory dream influences the whole life course of the American Indian is most clearly brought out in the biographies of Plenty-Coups, a Crow Indian,’ and of Black Elk, a Sioux”.

Imagine a world where, not only young men but all of us are supported, held, encouraged and accepted as we walk our path of individuation, toward the selves that we are here to be, and not bound to systems that not only do not care for our souls on this level, but appear to actively participate in eroding them.