First - I am sorry you have ended up in hospital, and I thank you for posting here. No matter how many people open up here it still takes a certain amount of courage to open up as you did.

The article is from the perspective of a young woman. Speaking as a male, this:

how do you talk to a friend who you believe is masking her depression? Landau says to ask if she is okay, pointing out that she hasn’t been herself lately. Leventhal echoes that sentiment. “Just little things, like asking, ‘How are you doing?’” she says. “Just be there to listen and ask them what they need. Different people will need different things.” Landau says it’s best to be able to come armed with a suggestion, like a reputable therapist, or an app like Headspace, used for meditation. “There are so many different types of therapists, medications, apps, and other tools,” Landau says. “That’s why it’s tragic that so many people don’t seek help.”

is unimaginable to me. Men do not by and large open up to that degree, nor anything close to it in my experience. I am not saying men have it "tougher" than women - society loads a whole other set of expectations on women that mostly don't apply to men.

That said, there's a reason men are about four times as likely as women to commit suicide. My own opinion, wholly uninformed by any studies or empirical data that I know of, is that if we could break down the barriers of male and female, and do better at supporting each other as people rather than dividing along gender lines, we could improve the quality of life for so many of us who feel so isolated. Flame me for a sexist, but for a variety of reasons men just don't open up to each other the way women do. I also believe some men can provide a different perspective to women that they might not get from their own friends. (And vice versa, of course.)