'Editor' Murray Tackles Serious Issue

Andy Murray is addressing mental health and male suicide in his role on Tuesday as guest editor for the Huffington Post. The World No. 2 is teaming up with HuffPost UK as they launch Building Modern Men, a month-long focus that raises awareness of the suicide epidemic among men and the issues they face around identity. Murray penned an editor’s letter discussing his own experiences handling difficult emotions and the high rates of male suicide in the U.K.

You may have noticed I work in a pretty emotional job. Whether I’m winning or losing there’s a huge amount going on under the surface. The pressure is always there and quite honestly, at times it’s hard to hide.

In my younger years I sometimes struggled to manage what was going on in my head. Moments of anger or frustration would spill out and it rarely helped me win.

But when I cried on the centre court at Wimbledon after losing to Roger Federer, some people saw me in a different light.

People didn’t laugh or think less of me, it was the opposite. It felt like they respected me more. They respected me for letting off the pressure cooker of emotion and for letting the mask slip.

Sadly, many men don’t feel they can let the mask slip. Many men express their stresses and emotions in self-destructive and sometimes life-ending ways. They build up emotion and don’t have the tools to deal with what’s going on in their lives.

Suicide rates in the UK identify a glaring problem for men. In 2014 there were 6,109 suicides in the UK. 4,623 of these were male, which means suicide is the biggest single killer of men aged under 45 in this country. It’s time to act.

Suicide is very much a male epidemic, with men almost four times more likely than women to take their own life – but the reasons why are unclear.

Read Andy’s full editor’s letter