Pieta House CEO Brian Higgins tells JOE about his hopes for a future where the service he runs is no longer needed in Ireland.
“Ultimately, what we need in Pieta House is to do ourselves out of business. Where, in one sense you could view our figures and say that growing numbers represent a growing level of success – and it is a success to the extent that people are accessing our services – to the same extent it’s not a proper indicator of success.
“A proper indicator of success would be ‘how many rooms or how many Pieta House centres we can close, year on year, if we can get things right as a society and get rid of the reasons feel suicidal or engage in self harm in the first place.”
Brian Higgins, CEO of the suicide and self harm crisis centre, has spoken about the reasons that men – in particular – are flocking to use the services provided by Pieta House in Ireland.
Higgins was speaking to JOE ahead of World Mental Health Day on 10 October, where he will speak as part of a panel discussion at #TimeToTalk, an event held in conjunction with LYONS Tea in Dublin to talk about the future of mental health governance in Ireland.
‘Redser’
He was keen to talk about the various stigma that men face that may conflict with good mental health, not least in certain Irish rural communities.
“One of the things that never fails to fascinate me is this; when you go to rural communities, I’ve been introduced to people and they’re fully grown men in their 50s and 60s, and I’m introduced to them with a nickname.
“It’s like ‘Redser’ or whatever. When you explore what the nickname is it’s because of something stupid they did on a football pitch or something heroic they did on a football pitch when they were 11.
“I think, to be a fully grown man but have a name that defines you by an act you did as a child, there’s something in that I find a little bit disconcerting, or a little bit quaint. As a society we need to allow people to grow and to become who they are and live their lives as they are, rather than something you did at 11 defining how you will be termed for the rest of your life.”
“To get men in to Pieta House is hugely important. It’s almost as if there’s a conspiracy against us. The communities we grew up in, the GAA community, the rugby community, all these other communities are doing great work in targeting stigma. At the same time, there’s a whole level where your success or your failure in that particular activity stays with you for the rest of your days.”
‘Man up’
Higgins pointed to some of the words we, as men, often use to each other to tamp down any possibility of opening up, and revealing that everything is not as it should be.
“Even the terminologies of pop culture of what it is to be male and female. You have to ‘man up’ and ‘act like a man.’
“Acting like a man is being tough and acting like a woman is being weak, and I think there’s an equal issue on either side. Women are not weak and not strong. We’re all a little bit of both.
https://twitter.com/dougleddin/status/780154664222388224
“So I think, as we grow up, we watch television and we read things and if you look at Enid Blyton vs. The Hardy Boys. They’re completely different stories. One’s about flowers and it’s all nice and lovely, while the Hardy Boys are getting stuck in there, shirt sleeves rolled up, they’re tackling crime and they’re just 15 years of age.
“I just think that, culturally, the whole concept of what masculinity is is just based on how people look, and how people behave, but not how people are. And I think there’s a piece of work to with men about acknowledging who we are in the first place.”
Be your own man – not your family’s, and not your friends’
Higgins feels that the ability of men to follow their dreams is, in part, curtailed by the structure of Irish society.
He insists that suicide rates in this country are so high due to the unrealistic expectations we place on each other, however well meaning we might be.
“As an Irish society, other people designate who we can be or who we’re likely to be, based on our family backgrounds and based on how we were as an altar-boy, or with the cub scouts, or on the football pitch,” he said.
Great work @lustforlife, @GillenMagic & @nbrez on tonight's event at EP! Thanks for having me! pic.twitter.com/nwUJcYZKI6
— Brian J. Higgins (@brianjhiggins) September 4, 2016
“They designate what we’re capable of being.
“Young people go to university but they don’t get any break – they go home every weekend to play for the club, and as soon as they’re finished in college they feel this obligation to go back to the club. And they must hit a point of crisis where they go, ‘I haven’t been able to make decisions on my own life because of the skill in my two legs and hands in terms of co-ordination have tied my into a lifestyle that I don’t necessarily want.
“It’s like Billy Elliott; A kid who grows up in a mining community and is supposed to box, but wants to dance.
“In my own case, I’ve made decisions for the benefit of my career and there’s a whole generation of people who go, ‘what the hell are you talking about a career for? We don’t have careers. You get a job, you get stability, the stability buys you a house and buys you a car and that’s it.’
Pic: Brian Higgins
“It’s only my own thick temper that made me say, ‘no, actually, I’m interested in more.'”
‘Stop trying to make us into women’
The issue of stigma was thrown into sharp focus for Higgins during an appearance on Sean Moncrieff’s show on Newstalk in 2015.
“Last year I was interviewed by Sean Moncrieff and even some of the messages that came in were saying, ‘stop trying to make us into women.’ There’s something sad about that.
“The person who texted that in must have moments of doubt. Must have moments where they’re low. Must have moments where they need support and must have moments when they need a hug.
“I look at my own nieces and nephews and a hug is a hug. My nephew will come over and ask for a hug because he doesn’t know that there’s a point in time where he’s not allowed to do that anymore. He can get a hug from a woman if he’s in a relationship with her, but he can’t go to another man and ask for a hug ‘because that’s wrong.’ Even though that in itself is bullshit.”
We categorise emotion as weakness
“In theory I could give you a hug, but I won’t. But if I’m on a football pitch or a rugby pitch or at a match and we score, I can hug you. But hey, that’s context, I only hugged you because I was happy. But if I turned around and said, ‘ah Jesus, give me a hug, because I haven’t a clue what to be doing and I’m struggling here,’ people look at you and say that that’s very odd and they ask why the hell would you ask for a hug?
“I think we categorise emotion as weakness, and I don’t really know what the solution of it is. We just need to be aware that as men we are our own worst enemies.”
Social media and suicide prevention
JOE spoke to Higgins about the role that social media plays in the work that is done by Pieta House, his response being that something as – on the face of it – insignificant as a single Facebook post or a tweet may inform policy at the highest level within the organisation.
Engaging in #selfharm is nothing to be ashamed of… it's the #stigma that shames us all https://t.co/f5Mu18hv0P pic.twitter.com/BoBIHc0iIB
— Pieta (@PietaHouse) September 27, 2016
Pieta House’s Facebook page, for instance, is coming up on 200,000 likes and is updated regularly by the centre’s communications team.
“One of the things that social media has done for us, is it actually informs the direction of our services. Because people highlight through social media what their real needs in society are, and what the real needs in individuals are. That finds its way through the reports that we see that allow us as an organisation to ask, ‘Are we doing enough for that community? Are we supporting them properly? Is this an issue that’s coming up?’
“It’s an important tool to allow the country to help us make sure we are serving the people we really need to serve.”
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