Scott Hutchison represents the men we all love and for whom we must do better
By: Kathryn Black
Tags: Suicide, Mental Health, Scott Hutchison, Frightened Rabbit, Mental Health Awareness

CW: mentions of mental health, suicide, depression

It’s Mental Health Awareness Week but for many of us our awareness has been there for a while, lived in every day experiences, banging down our door and cemented by the loss of Scott Hutchison from Frightened Rabbit last week. It’s difficult to speak about what happened to Scott without falling into cliches, but he was an inspiration to so many of us. His music touched our hearts and soothed our souls for several years and will do so for many more going into the future.

His death has left a gaping hole in so many of our lives. Personally, I have cried many, many tears and have experienced an acute, overwhelming grief unlike any I’ve known before. I am struggling to accept a world without him in it and, as I have done so with the loss of friends and family in the past, cannot accept the permanence of what has happened. There’s always an inkling of hope he might come back but the sting of reality won’t let us forget the truth.

What is it that makes this one hurt so much? We’ve lost famous faces before and as the numbers tally up it seems to have become a horrific part of everyday life. Who will be next, we wonder, numb in a world where sad news has become the norm. To me, the answer’s obvious.

Scott Hutchison represents all the men we know and love. The tragic truth is he is not the only man to have taken his own life recently. In the music industry alone we have seen the lost of several young men including Avicii and Chester Bennington of Linkin Park over the past few years. Suicide is still the biggest killer of men under 45 and it is no secret that men suffer crushing pressure to live up to the stereotypes society has laid out for them. The ways in which this manifests itself differ greatly but there seem to be two main choices for men: a silent depression or a loud and dangerous anger. Too many times have I seen the men I care about fall into these categories.

Perhaps the most noticeable reaction to poor mental health is the outward projection of it onto others. Late last year, Ross Kemp Behind Bars — Inside Barlinnie gave a clear indication of how young men from the west of Scotland feel they need to live their lives: defensive, angry and violent. It’s all they’ve ever known; learned behaviour that they are very likely to pass on to their children. It’s nothing new and we continue to see it manifesting in domestic violence and sexual assault. The majority of victims of domestic homicides recorded between April 2013 and March 2016 were females (70%) and women continue to be more likely to be murdered by their partner than by anyone else.

At the other end of the spectrum, many men withdraw themselves from their loved ones, ashamed of not being able to live up to the expectation to be strong, self-reliant and in control. The amount of young people who go missing is still staggering, with up to 80% of them experiencing mental health problems. Consider not all those people might not want to speak out about their issues and the figure, in reality, could be even larger.

It’s easy to see men struggling in every day life; all you need to do is pay attention. When a tragedy happens, women tend to rally together, nursing each other’s wounds with bottles of wine and group conversations, days out and a box of tissues. If the same happens to men, they hold it in, uncomfortable and afraid of appearing weak or having failed. Men briefly check up on each other, then stick the football on, never to speak about the issue again. At least, that’s what they’re expected to do.