Men and Mental Health

Guys this post is for you.

We're not great at talking about our mental health, especially Asian men. I'm not great at it either but I'm getting better at it. In England 1 in 8 men have a common mental health problem. Unsurprisingly however, men are more reluctant to seek help for their problems from family or friends, in fact in 2019 the number of people that did talk, was only 25%.

Why do men keep it all bottled up. Well there are a number of different reasons why men don't talk. The biggest reasons however are probably societal roles and traditional gender roles. Societal expectations are ways society expects men and women to behave.

Traditionally men were seen as hunters and would be the breadwinners in the house and would exert their strength and dominance and control. Over the recent decades this traditional male expectation has stuck around and the definition of what it is to be a man and masculinity have not really evolved.

As a result. because of these expectations, men find it very hard to talk about their mental health and indeed trying to conform to these expectations of what it is to be a man may negatively impact men's mental health. The stats also say that only 36% of men refer themselves to an IAPT (Increasing Access To Psychological Services) service.

That number, 36% is very low when you take into account that 1 in 8 men suffer from a common mental health problem. Not talking is not good. In 2019 around 75% of registered deaths by suicide were men. This is sad, yet unsurprising. If we are not talking and are keeping it bottled up inside we are just letting the problem grow inside us and that is not healthy because then we end up often expressing our things by getting angry or becoming violent or just becoming withdrawn or, sadly, committing suicide.

On the 14th June 2020 Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput was found dead at his home. The cause of his death, he committed suicide. I watched how Sushant's death was covered on the popular Indian news channel NDTV. It shocked me that his mental health was hardly mentioned and I think they only had a brief five minute chat with a psychologist. The rest of the coverage I saw featured lawyers and police officers. Why did Sushant commit suicide they asked when he had a promising career, lots of money, a great marriage? They never took into account his mental health or even looked into what troubles he may have been going through or why he felt he couldn't talk to anyone.

We need to talk. We need to be honest about how we are feeling, we need to know that it's ok not to be ok and that it's good to talk. It may not conform to expectations about what it is to be a man but what it means to be a man needs to be reviewed. The whole "stiff upper lip" and "real men don't cry" sayings are outdated. We need to talk, especially during this time of covid. We are all facing extraordinary circumstances and as a result everyone is under more stress and there's more anxiety. If we don't talk about our mental health then it will just eat away at us.

Time to change has some great tips for men on how they can talk about their mental health which you can find here. It's time to get talking, it's time to start a conversation it might just start with a simple "hey". However you start the conversation, it's clear that we do need to talk.

Stay safe.