In June, the UK started celebrating Men’s Mental Health Month.
While it’s a good thing to celebrate it specifically this month, this is an issue that deserves attention all year round.
I appreciate this month as ot shines a light on a prominent issue that affects us all.
For me personally, at the ages of 15 and 17, I had experiences that shaped my mental health.
Unfortunately, I fell into a period of depression at the age of 15, but I managed to overcome it. Although I sometimes experience a bit of anxiety, I’m working at dealing with this and have come to terms with it.
I know I have better strategies to manage it.
My mental health is in a place where I can truly say that I’m happy with no limitations. But this isn’t the case for all men.
This week, I want to focus on something that we should keep in the forefront of our minds when setting goals. Mental Health.
This week, I aim to provide thoughts on what positive male role models should look like.
This week, I’m going to focus on improving our mental health.
Men’s mental health is real, complex, and in-depth. Adequate solutions are needed, not surface-level ideas.
Let’s look at some men’s mental health statistics first.
There are around 17.4 deaths per 100,000 males. This has fallen by nine percent since 1981, but this is not all.
An eighth of men only report mental health concerns. An eighth out of 64 million—that’s around eight million in the UK alone.
Men face a barrier when trying to understand or open up about their mental health.
This is the ‘hidden truth’.
These figures shine a light on the issues that men face, they don’t show the hidden number of individuals who don’t say anything.
There’s an issue of feeling an emotion but not having a mechanism to express it. I think this is a problem that men face specifically.
For example, ‘I feel sad and anxious, but I don’t know how to talk about it in a way that is comfortable for me’.
Even in an age where therapy and conversations are promoted, some men still face this problem.
Let’s break down even further with age-specific mental health challenges in men. There is quite a divergence:
- Teens in school sometimes face pressure to feel or look a certain way.
- Graduates coming out of university feel pressure to enter the job and property market.
- Middle-aged men with families feel the pressure to provide in a way that conforms to societal or cultural norms.
This is added to by the impact of COVID, social media, and misinformation.
Overall, it’s a lack of coverage on the issues men face, which exacerbates this problem. These factors make uncomfortable topics much more complex to explore.
For me I’m grateful to my home because they have provided me with an environment to explore mental health safely and without judgment.
However, I know that in school with older figures and older men and online, I have been influenced by some of these issues.
During COVID, my mental health took a real downturn because I couldn’t see my friends. With social media and the rumors that people spread, especially when you’re around 15, 16, or 17, it affected me.
So, what is the solution?
Let’s look at some influential figures regarding men specifically.
I’d say around two to three years ago, Andrew Tate took the world by storm because of his no-nonsense approach. By no-nonsense, I mean essentially blunt approaches to mental health.
More recently, many people seem to be finding Myron Gaines on social media with his Fresh and Fit podcast. I think this idea of returning to an old-school masculinity has brought them to the limelight.
Essentially, they try to offer simple solutions to complex in-depth problems in a bid to show that it’s easy to overcome.
- For example, if you are feeling depressed, Andrew Tate has said, “I don’t feel depression. It isn’t real for me.”
There’s also this idea of just getting on with it. If you get busy and keep trying to forge your successful path, all of these issues will fade and be fixed.
But the issue is that the society in which those beliefs were formed no longer exists. We’re in a much different world with more multifaceted beliefs and more challenges to these assumptions.
So why do these influences gain traction? I think there are two reasons.
- First, it sounds easy. For example, if you adopt this one thing in your life, such as going to the gym and getting fit, then all of your problems will be fixed. It sounds easy because it’s just one thing you need to change, and it doesn’t require much thought.
- Second, those people are materially successful. So if you become rich, then all will go away. But again, the common person doesn’t have that. They’re not going to become incredibly rich overnight, and achieving success will take time.
These one-step solutions just don’t work. They only put a blanket over the complex issues underneath.
In Year 12, I felt that if I adopted these no-nonsense approaches, I’d be okay. I thought all I needed to do was focus on myself and my success, and I would be fine. This wasn’t true. I would still have triggering moments that would lead to a mental episode.
So, how then do we use positive male role models to influence and improve our mental health?
Hopefully, I can show you this through my two male role models:
- Lebron James
- My Dad
LeBron James impacts me because he doesn’t shy away from hard work, and he always seeks to learn. He acts as a sponge. This was evident earlier in his career. I’ve learned that there isn’t one solution to problems regarding men’s mental health. There is a range of solutions. It’s important to be open to learning about what works for you in the best way possible.
My dad has shown me that it’s okay to be emotionally vulnerable. It’s okay not to know all the answers immediately to a problem. It’s okay to need time to think. His openness with my family means that I feel I have an avenue to discuss and explore solutions to problems that I face.
My mental health is better, knowing that a realistic outcome when facing problems is going to be a well-thought-out and context-specific solution.
So, this is one takeaway that I’ve had from my experience with mental health in my 19 years of life:
“Positive male role models are those who provide deep and informative thoughts, which are context-specific rather than surface-level solutions.”
They don’t seek to apply their method to you as a stopgap. They use their experience to provide/lead to tailored advice and thoughts.
So, here is my weekly challenge, and this doesn’t have to apply to all men:
- Think about one problem you have faced.
- Ask yourself, how your role model would have tackled it?
- If it’s different from your belief, apply it and try to see a difference.
Have a great week 🙂
Dylan