WE NEED TO TALK

Men are taking their own lives at an alarming rate, but we're less likely than ever to reach out for help. Can opening up help us hit the brakes? Or is this really the end of the line? Let's have a difficult conversation.

- KIERAN LEGG

When he was alone, those feelings would turn into a constant rumination; manifesting as a single, repeating question: "What if this is what the rest of my life is going to be like?" And, unable to open up to anyone, a dark answer started to emerge. "In that head space, it felt like there was nothing else: this was it," he admits.

"And I couldn't deal with another week of it all, let alone years." Plans to take his own life began to take shape. And those plans, gave him comfort, promising an instant release from the cycle he felt trapped in. One day after an unremarkable disagreement with a colleague, he decided the day had come. However, as he arrived home, he was struck by an inexplicable impulse. Victor picked up the phone and called his friend. The pair's relationship was surface-level, relegated, like many male friendships, to occasional 5-aside football games, drinking and dick jokes.

"But I thought, seriously thought this was the end-so what was the harm in opening up right now," he says.

That phone call saved his life.

Silent Desperation

Victor's friend wouldn't go on to become a confidant, or "his rock", but the catalyst for a new perspective on life. In the space of a five-minute call, where his dumbstruck friend tried to argue him off a cliff, Victor felt an intense relief. He'd spoken the words, the questions and dark answers out loud, and in the air they lost most of their weight.

Opening up is a profound act, which-although terrifying-can be a lifeline when you're in a dark place, says Sikander Kalla, a Registered Clinical Psychologist and founder of Cohesive Collaboration, a mental health consulting brand. Your head, after all, is an echo chamber. "Men are living lives of silent desperation," he says. "Our lives are so focused on just simply surviving that we start to lose our purpose and that can leave you feeling hopeless, hollow and disillusioned."