Men and How Do We Handle Our ‘Mental Health’
It’s not that we don’t cry — It’s just hard to let it all out.
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark, the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.
— Plato
For this particular writing, I think I will talk a lot about myself with the hope that everyone — especially you fellow gentlemen — to not feel that you are alone and can give you some sort of comfort in dealing with your internal stress.
I start it off with a quote by Plato where everyone has their own perspective regarding the phrase of ‘men are afraid of the light’. I personally was being afraid of that ‘light’ which is my family’s support, how thoughtful my friends are, and what a lovely cheering girlfriend that I currently have — because I know that I am not worth it at all to receive such support due to my own incapabilities and it’s absolutely suffocating because I couldn’t just past this obstacle even with all of this support to the point that I think I rather just disappear than to disappoint them.
So let me start this talk, with how I rated my own worth as a man in the past.
Men and Our Rate on Self Worth
When we are talking about self-worth, we are mostly talking about how strong our financial power is, or how influential we are to society and the people around us. My last paragraph above is probably a spoiler on how I have none of the financial power or influential effect on anything — rendering my existence in my surrounding as a ‘negative’ or a burden to my loved ones. I keep facing failure after failure even after I try to do my best on everything and this is where I feel like I hit on something that I keep jokingly mentioning to my friends.
I wish I could have died in a plane crash. That way, my family will absolutely be in a better place (due to compensation, insurance, etc).
My family is a lower-middle-class household that mostly lives on the edge—full of debt, barely able to sustain ourselves every single day. I might not be suicidal but that thought of me dying in a plane crash keeps crossing my mind due to how worthless I was thinking of myself. I think men, in general, have a strong pride in something that they feel really confident about, and when life just strikes us and shatters that pride and confidence we had—we are bound to start questioning ourselves about our worth and at the same time comparing our success with others.
I know women also experiencing such emotional conflict like this one but I want to bring out the next part of this toxic mentality.
Our Childhood and The Prescriptive of a Great Men
Starting from our childhood, the doctrines of men as the main pillar of a family or society have affected us quite strongly when we grow up. I know it’s the 21st century and men and women have the same rights and shared responsibilities now — but with some of us who grow in such culture, we tend to unconsciously set a rule of life according to how great men should live based on that doctrine.
The result of this doctrine is a generation of men who aim to have the grasp of stoicism and are capable of handling any challenge in front of them. But instead of the actual stoicism, what exists in men is the process of suppressing their emotions without an actual way out of dealing with it. We just keep it in, without a hint of bursting into tears because showing emotion such as crying or a sign of being ‘weak’ would be way too out of the character for us who live in these doctrines.
We learn not to cry and get so good at holding it in that we don’t even need to try anymore. We became the time-bomb for our own journey to maddening.
A Walking Time Bomb
I watch Gareth Griffith's presentation in Tedx Talk which you can see here. He shows that — women, on paper, are the majority when talking about their suffering, anxiety, and depression. Is that mean the rest of the men are not having a rough time in their life? It’s a bit ironic that men — are actually 3 times more likely to do suicide than women despite them being not vocally enough to share their own ‘battle’ against depression and anxiety.
Everyone has their own reason but the case of toxic masculinity indeed exists and will always be one of the main reasons for us, men, hiding our own wound to the point that it will rot and be the death of us.
Conclusion and Writer’s Note
That is how I as a part of the current generation of ‘men’ was thinking before. I know the people around me put enough care and are willing to listen if they want me to share anything — but it’s just so hard to bring it up, cause just as I said, it would look like I’m breaking ‘out of character’ or might look strange and at the same time might be seen as an inconvenience to others. But I’m gradually being better after reshaping my mental and the idea of mental toughness itself.
Of course, the case of mental health for men didn’t just come from someone's incapability in gathering financial worth and there are a lot of other cases that we need to invest the time and effort on resolving it. If you are a man and don’t feel connected with this story then I’m glad you didn’t have to experience any of this, and if you are going through what I have going through — I hope you can overcome it and find someone for you to share because honestly, that’s the best feeling in the world where you just let it all out of your system and knowing that we all are in pain, just in a different form of suffering.
