Irritable Male Syndrome: A Male Version Of PMS?

Recently it came to my notice that there are men who do not know what IMS is all about. Initially, in a bout of ‘now I’ve got you men’ attitude, I rubbed my hands together gleefully and decided to make a satire post on the issue. But then after a minute of reflection, I realized I would be no different than those sexist men who tarnish all women with PMS problems and say that men with 'attitude' suffer from IMS.

Just like PMS, IMS (Irritable Male Syndrome) is no laughing matter. A grumpy man flipping channels, stonewalling his wife, or worse, snapping at her housekeeping, might be feeling a shift in his hormones.

What men have hormones? Most men think shifting levels of hormones is something only women suffer from, but facts show otherwise. Men are equally prone to depression, high stress levels, and mood swings.

The old traditional approach of "being a man" and holding back one's feelings causes many men to implode where a seemingly regular feeling of blues slides into manic depression, sometimes even leading to suicide.

Male menopause, according to Jed Diamond, is real and could well be the reason for some marriages becoming rocky when men have "midlife crisis," but at the same time it is a process that could hit even at puberty.

Some people might consider this whole analysis of the midlife crisis to be hogwash and tell a man to be a man and deal with his "manly" problems, be they work-related or general blues, but common sense demands that we as human beings find healthy outlets to deal with our mental or emotional issues just as we deal with any sickness that ails the body.

Cracking jokes about IMS, as most macho men do for PMS, would further make a man suffering from depression or having some sort of testosterone driven problems feel less of a man.

At the end of the day we need to look beyond Gender Wars or the tit-for-tat attitude and deal with emotional issues with compassion and wisdom. Men are not from Mars and Women from Venus. We all suffer from depression, frustrations, and stress. The only difference is that women express their emotions where as men have been taught to suffer in silence and tend to become lonelier.

Could that itself be reason why women tend to live longer than men?

Article Author: Deepti Lamba

Deepti Lamba is an aspiring writer and an editor for Desicritics. She can be found at Things That Bang and at Suspended Moments

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