Crazy Old Men

I don't believe in long blog posts. Who would take the time to read them? Having said that, here is a long blog post. It is my column for a senior magazine. It won't appear until sometime in October, so I must wait to see if it gets any interesting responses.


Crazy Old Men
I apologize to mental health workers and patients who might be offended by my title. I chose it because I am willing to do whatever it takes to make a reader stop to see what it’s all about.
For almost three years, I held a most interesting volunteer position at the geriatric unit of Hackley Behavioral Health. In today’s era of language correctness, we no longer speak of psychiatric wards, but that’s what it is. It is a locked, in-patient psychiatric facility with a separate unit for older patients. Old timers still think of it as Northwood. I did what they called music therapy. It was really no more than playing old songs on the piano and reminiscing with the patients, many of whom were younger than I was. I was good at it and there were some rewarding breakthroughs.
The most surprising thing I encountered there was the large number of male patients. I expected that the population of any geriatric facility would be mostly female, as in nursing homes, just because women live longer. I am still puzzled about what it is that is putting so many older men in psychiatric treatment facilities. Is it Alzheimer’s or other dementia? Addiction to drugs or alcohol? Family pressure from adult offspring whose lives are a mess? Loss of self worth because of retirement, especially if forced by downsizing, company restructuring or sale? Can’t get a new job because of age? Indulgent, mothering wives who left widowers unable to care for themselves? Involuntary commitment by family members? That was the case with many of the patients I saw.
Could it be that it is simply more acceptable for men to seek professional help for emotional problems than it was for previous generations. Perhaps we are past the notion that men are supposed to be the great, stoic dragon slayers, Clint and Arnold, shooting and terminating, keeping it all together while our women fall apart There are days when I am precariously close to checking myself in to the psych ward and asking to be pumped full of something to get me through the stuff that the twenty first century is throwing at us old guys. That is a terrible admission that men of my father’s generation would never even have dared think about, much less put it in black and white for all the world to see.
Here is a thought that won’t win me any points with any macho male types out there. Might it be that members of what we used to call the weaker sex are actually better equipped to handle life’s ego-crushing emotional blows and defeats than we men are?
I ask for comments from mental health professionals, patients, family, spouses, men who are hurting, armchair psychologists and anyone who has something to say about all this. You may be anonymous. We waive the usual rule that letters to the editor must be signed. If you e-mal me personally at janman30@yahoo.com, your e-mail address will not be saved unless you specifically say you are interested in personal correspondence.

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