Mental health is always an important issue I care about, and I wanted to de-stigmatise the way society views men’s mental health.
The questions I’ve asked these individuals were all open ended, and this is just the first part of the questions I’ve asked them, these will be split up in parts, and posted the next day. I didn’t want to write everything in one blog post, I wanted to create a stage where we can understand what a person is going through.
We are all so quick to have expectations on how a man should behave and to make fun of a man for expressing his emotions.
Before we go ahead with the first question, I want to thank the individuals for taking part and for being able to share their experiences which isn’t an easy thing.
How can we bring up men’s mental health?
Person A : I think bringing up men’s mental health is easiest when it comes up naturally in different situations, like I don’t like to bring mine up randomly, but I’m usually comfortable talking about it if someone asks me or in the right setting.
So if there were spaces to talk about it at work or in formal settings or if friends and family asked about it more often in a supportive way I’d feel more comfortable talking about it.
Person B: It’s a tough one to because we’re always told to “man up”, “grow some balls”, etc and are told that “men don’t cry”, “crying is showing weakness” and that we cannot show those weaknesses. Because of this I think we need to start small before we can go big. So we can’t expect men to immediately talk about their feelings and share when they feel overwhelmed and that they can’t cope. But we mustn’t let it get to that point either.
We have to ensure that men know it is okay to be vulnerable, to be weak, and to show feeling because that’s what makes human. We also need to further and healthily promote that they aren’t alone in how they feel however we can. Whether it be statistics like or videos etc. And of course speaking out breaking social norms that men need to be “manly” men who don’t talk about feelings and all that nonsense. Not only for the men living right now but also so that if they become fathers their sons won’t have to suffer with mental health issues and it’s normal for them to talk.
Person C: I think it's a matter of making men feel safe and that their ego won't be attacked, cause despite the tough persona men are quite sensitive and that's because they get brought up thinking showing emotion or talking about mental health makes you weak.
Person D: So I think the biggest way to improve men’s mental health is to de-stigmatise asking for help, like we’re moving in the right direction but still most guys I know would never ask for professional help, and yet a lot of guys I know when they actually open up have suffered from depression or suicidal thoughts at some point. There’s that whole thing of “I’m the man so I have make sure everyone else is ok and just suck it up if I’m not ok,”
like backwards sexism or something?
Like having an environment where dude can open up without the thought that they’re weak or they’ll get judged for doing so. And being about to seek professional help without the feeling of being weak, a sort of example of this is I know three girls diagnosed with borderline personality disorder- I don’t know a single guy with this diagnosis of anything yet I’m pretty much friends with equal amount girls and guys.
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