Men's Mental Health
Today we have another guest post from our friendly neighborhood guest blogger, Elijah Greenwood. Men have been taught for too long that they're weak if they show emotion or have poor mental health. This only leads to worse mental health! Men, it's okay to feel what you feel, and get help when you need it.
Yes, I am indeed a man. And yes, I
do have mental health issues. These two things are not, in fact, mutually
exclusive - as most of the world seems to think they are. As a man, I am
allowed to have anxiety. As a man, I am allowed to have depression. And who are
you, society, to decide that my masculinity is altered by these things? Who are
you to tell me that I can not possess and express my feelings and emotions? Or
that I cannot possibly break down or go into a mental spiral? Who are you to
decide that my gender defines my mental status?
All throughout my younger years, I
was told by both society, and professionals, that I couldn’t possibly have
mental health issues based on one thing: what’s in my pants. I was told that to
have anxiety and depression made me less of a man. I was told that when I was
being emotionally and mentally abused, that I just needed to man up and take
it. And that the after effects of that abuse couldn’t possibly exist. Like my
penis was the equivalent of an anti-anxiety or anti-depressant medication. But
being told these things didn’t make the anxiety, depression, and PTSD go away.
In fact, it made it much worse.
Based on a recent study done by the
Center for Disease Control and the World Health Organization, suicide among
males is 4x’s higher than among females. And male deaths represent 79% of all
US suicides. Suicide takes the lives of over 44,965 Americans every year. That
means that of that 44,965 people, about 35,523 are men. And yet, when you see a
mental health poster or a picture on social media, it always seems to be
directed toward women. Please don’t get me wrong...I believe that women’s
mental health matters very much as well but what if we advertised to each sex
equally? What if we stopped making men feel as though their mental health
determines their level of masculinity and stop breaking them down instead of
building them up? Why can’t we stop treating men like they don’t have emotions
and feelings, like some kind of robot? The answer to these questions is quite simple:
we can. But society has to change in order for this to be accomplished. YOU can
help in that task.
So, as a reminder: what’s in your
pants doesn’t matter. Your mental health does not determine or control your
masculinity or femininity. You have a right to your mental health, as well as
your feelings and emotions. You have a right to express those feelings and
emotions openly, without fear of retaliation. And finally, you matter. Whether
you’re male, female, or somewhere in between, you are here for a reason and I’m
happy that you’re here.
Elijah Greenwood, 2018
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