Mental Health

Surprise! Men Feel Things Too

By Praise Mugisha | November 30, 2021

Over the years I have observed that men with mental health challenges hardly admit to their struggle, most cannot even verbalize the words, “I am stressed”, “I am depressed” or “I’m not okay” and “I need help.”

Due to the prolonged expectations men have had, the ignored symptoms as they were boys continue to increase as they adult.

Does depression in men differ from depression in women? “Yes!” they say, “Men seem to experience and cope with depression in different ways than woman do, but it is important to consider the impact of society ideals of masculinity on the differences.

There is a simplistic view that may be partially rooted in truth; “Women get sad, men get mad.” There are so many things we don’t look into, but suppressing emotions for men is a very big and bad thing. It is that women are allowed to get sad but men, because they are not allowed to get sad, they get mad” Nsubuga explains “we need to understand that when men are told to be not-emotional, it leads to what we call emotional toxic masculinity, which hurts men and everyone around them.”

Toxic masculinity

“From our African society, men have for long been raised to be aggressive, defensive ringleaders in all society progression. From our parents we subconsciously received some of our grandparents’ rage, rigidity, beliefs and strictness. This has left most men ashamed of their weakness and have their hurting side hidden while their short term and sexual feelings rising on top of their “weaker” side because they have been taught only to act strong” says Mukalazi.

Nsubuga refers to toxic masculinity as actions that discourage display of emotions, other than anger while also encouraging the behavior that will deem the male dominant in a given situation.

It begins as children when young boys who express emotions are related to girls as they’re told “boys don’t cry”, “man up”, “don’t be such a baby”, “don’t cry like a girl”, “get over it.” Such phrases are hurtful to young boys.
You’ve likely heard those phrases directed to you or someone around, or said by you. But imagine being a young boy crying over injury, that is physical or emotional and being told to stop crying, get over it and man up.

“That lack of confirming that it’s okay for you to feel that pain in fact changes how you process it, how you feel about it and what you can do about it.” Nsubuga goes on to describe that when feelings are dismissed, and gender defining thinking is heard repeatedly, a young person learns to avoid expressing their real feelings and bottles up sadness, over time such behavior leads to dysfunctional emotional expression and ultimately, a lot depression.

Toxic cycles

When a young boy grows up after absorbing negativity that is portrayed by others, especially trusted people “the boy grows to become a man who raise their own children the same way. “Society dictates and boys are raised to believe that confidence, strength, success and composure makes their masculinity and anything emotional is girlish and should be therefore stifled and ignored and I don’t know what the negative connotation around being a woman or girly comes from,” they say “it clearly shows that the world doesn’t like anything to do with women because something like “oh this is feminine” being translated as negative clearly exposes that femininity is a very big issue and the whole idea of sexism towards women is the reason why anything female is stippled upon especially if it’s done by someone who is male.”

Men that have grown in spaces of toxic masculinity have complicated relation towards their emotions. “Often, they attempt to shut their feelings to avoid sensitivity, and I believe that its why men are more likely to use external methods like over working, self-medicating by turning to drugs to deal with the depression, anxiety and cope with the inward turmoil and pain” they say.
Men often deal with depression through escapism, the psychologist Sigmund Freud who is worldly regarded as the father of psychoanalysis famously said, “People repress their conscious in what they believe to be as shameful…” and the work of a Harvard professor Cass Sunstein linked repression of emotions to self-medication as a way of attaining emotional and psychological stability.

So many men express their internal conflicts by directing anger at those around them like their partners or children through violence. Reassuring that the moment a person denies what’s happening inside, then it’s going to show up in much uglier ways.

Suicide

The very nature of death by suicide means we can never fully know the reasons behind why someone committed it, tragically, it is not as rare as we think.

The latest global data availed by the World Health Organization estimated 793000 worldwide suicide deaths, most were men.
Its staggering that even though more women attempt to commit suicide, 3 male suicide deaths are recorded for every 1 female. In the end, more men die by suicide compared to women. “Suicide is a largely complicated issue with a tangled multitude of causes” Nsubuga explains “One question that has persisted is the gender gap between the suicides, why then are more men lost in suicide than women? Men’s suicide methods are more violent making it more likely to be completed before anyone can intervene. That’s why the mortality ratio is high for men than women since having suicidal thoughts, and having a plan, going through with the plan and its methods which in most times is irreversible differ”

As much as depression diagnosis is more in women, the suicide mortality rate is high in men. How we end this trend, one may wonder. “By understanding the culture that we bring up men in, how this culture breeds men to be violent, how this violence triggers by what means men are going to attempt suicide, how men are going to have these thoughts, how they’re going to make a plan and actually make this plan happen probably without telling anyone.”

The suicidal spectrum has a range, there are very many actions taken that may not be considered suicidal, like engaging in risky behavior where someone hopes to lose their life without feeling any guilt of aggressively ending their life.

How are we making this culture better and making a point to know that we check in with our men, brothers, friends and make it normal to have a conversation about being okay or not, mentally, physically, emotionally.

Society Participation

A number of programs and policies can help, but changing the cultural paradigm should be prioritized according to Nsubuga, “Let us make it okay for men to talk about how they feel. When you hear someone tell a young child to “man up”, “be a man”, why did you let that girl beat you” make sure that you check them.”

Nsubuga Allan talking about mental wellness

We are human beings before we are male or female, that’s why when we celebrate someone’s pregnancy, before we know the sex of that child, we celebrate the human being. We need to bring the conversation of our humanity forefront to change the cultural paradigm.

We should also look into ways that suicide can be made harder to complete. Especially because men being more successful in their suicidal attempts.

Men and women are usually studied together by psychologists, despite the attempt to statically control the co-differences. that’s not enough. There are biological differences in between men and women, our hormonal structure and the way our brain’s function.
“I believe that we need to study men and women differently so that we can give men and women therapy separately. When we do therapy, there are things I believe ought to be revised. When you look through the foundation of psychology, we have a saying; “in psychology even the rats are white and they are male”” they say. “That insinuates that most of the basis of our practice was researched-on or founded by cisgender white men, but when you look at the way the world has evolved and what it means to be a man or woman, how we provide services needs to change with relevance to present society needs.”

Mukalazi Brian on the other hand thinks that in these present differences between men and women, there is a common ground where we can all come together and find our identity. “Men’s empowerment is easy if entrusted with people that they look up to because they tend to give attention to people they consider important.”

In their view, Nsubuga believes in that kind of cultural paradigm being put in place. But what we should do now is make it okay to have these conversations and appreciate that men and women are different.

Society (we) need to tear away all these expectations we have of each other so that we are able to promote better mental health for males because those are the root causes of their rejection of it.

Men & Therapy

The rejection of therapy in men is highly cultural. We teach women to be there for each other, have honest conversations about how they feel, but for men, the talk is about the next flight, football, business deals and all those other things.

It seems, men talk about anything apart from their deep-seated emotions and how they feel. So, society basically encourages men to be emotionally unavailable.

In therapy, men often get defensive, they think, ‘I can’t sit there and strip my emotions out –because that makes them feel seen. But, making it okay for men to be seen is one of the first steps we can take to make sure that men know that therapy is good for them.

Men experiencing mental health problems may find it hard to reach out for help. Friends and family should try to keep in touch through even informal ways like texts and calls.

You can just say “hey, bro how’re you feeling? I just wanted to check in and know that you are fine.”
We also need to learn to take care of ourselves.

Brian Mukalazi points out the need for more mentorship, encouragement and growth in awareness of men’s mental health. “The unbalanced gendered efforts in providing support for advancement in society.” It’s like somehow, men have been left to go back and hunt, hustle and dig money out of a depressing field and in world where money is the currency of living a life, it easily pushes on their mental health.

The available data however suggests problem is not entirely on the programming, men have not showed interest in the initiatives availed to them. Before other organisations come in, they must find a way to resolve the issues hindering male involvement, because society has taught men to not need help, the system needs to create interventions that invite and interest men.

Men’s Self Care

It is mainstream to assume that men are some kind-of robots, that they should keep on pushing until they wear out, but its paramount for men to learn self-care for their inner peace.

Looking after someone else is hard, especially since society has put this big responsibility on men, expecting them to look after other people. So, we need to make it normal for men to look after themselves both mentally and physically because it’s exhausting.

Care for your body.

This includes creating a routine for diet, exercise, and sleep. As far as exercise goes, think small changes. It doesn’t require a heavy marathon movement at the gym. That’s not what keeps you healthy. it’s routine movement that is magical. If You want to learn how to manage your emotional reactions to things in life, emotional skills can be learned. Stress-management tools, mindfulness classes, and mind-body approaches like yoga and meditation are important.

Care for younger males

Avoid using stigmatizing rationales like the ‘man up’ stigma. The saying ‘man-up is a misguided statement which teaches boys and men not to express emotion and not to seek help. Truly, it may be hard to ignore, if this is the kind of environment you have to survive in, consider having a conversation with the people if you know they are understanding, and ultimately putting yourself out of that environment will be good for you. If you encounter someone using these toxic phrases, inform them of the side effects.

Talk to someone.

The key issue in men’s mental health is self-imposed isolation through not opening up to somebody. Statistics show that 40% of men reportedly feel like they can’t talk to anyone about their problems. The old saying is true, a problem shared is a problem halved. Talking to someone, whether it’s a partner, friend, colleague or a professional, can take off some pressure.

“I believe, collective support from every man/woman and international person is needed to save the lives and generations ahead of us. Men are expected to be spear heads in life, but they need help to be who society expects them to be. Let us all act on our thoughts and findings to make a difference” Brian Mukalazi concludes.

Contributors

Nsubuga Allan is a residential practicing Psychologist at Butabika National Hospital, they also carry out a private practice and is in their final year of attaining their Masters in the same from Makerere University. They intend to help people who are suffering with anxiety, bipolar and depression to understand where the root of their struggle comes from and begin a healing journey.

Contact Email: allanmwasa@outlook.com