One of the things that's likely affecting male mental health is the loss of the traditional male identity. For better or worse, "being a man" was something men

One of the things that's likely affecting male mental health is the loss of the traditional male identity. For better or worse, "being a man" was something men chose to do and as a result they overcame whatever they needed to. I'm sure I'm not the only one who was somehow very smart in most things so school was boring, and the things I'm not intrinsically good at are very very hard to learn and practice. So it made for an attitude of quickly judging whether something was worth my time or not, and led me to a lot of laziness and escapism. Pile on childhood trauma stuff and the escapism was all that kept me going at times. I still have an "ignore it and it will go away" reflex for any negative emotion, so it was a survival mechanism that served me when I was young, but is no longer needed. Some people can't or won't grow out of their mental crutches and just barely get by for much of their lives. The prevalence of rising mental health issues in general bodes poorly for society, and if people aren't trying to do hard things because they can't this will only get worse.