How long will men be quiet about mental illness?

THE EDITOR, Madam:

I am writing with reference to a letter to the editor published in The Gleaner on December 22 , titled ‘Treat mental health as top priority or face crisis’.

Various mainstream news and social media will state the obvious, that society must open up its collective minds to a common dialogue. Similar solutions are offered when it comes to progressively addressing the challenges of treating and preventing such illness in general.

But these narratives will typically fail to emphasise that general society still fails to adequately address the problem of men with life-threatening mental illness. Their refusal to open up and ask for help due to their fear of being perceived as weak and non-masculine is a barrier that needs to be overcome.

Social ramifications exist all around us, and they are endured silently by males to whom so many of us are closely related. Most of us are aware that they are facing mental health issues, but to this day there remains a mentality, albeit perhaps a subconscious one, that men can take care of themselves.

Even Jackson Nakazawa’s book, Childhood Disrupted, was only able to include one man among its six people who were interviewed. It seems that there is a very small pool of men who have faced adverse childhood experiences, which have left them traumatised. There are very few men who are willing to tell their stories of childhood abuse.

One must ask, how long will the societal mindset of ‘take-it-like-a-man’, one in which so many men will choose to refrain from ‘complaining’ about their torturous youth, will take a toll on men? How long are we going to keep on saying, this is what real men do?

FRANK STERLE JR

White Ro​ck, BC

Canada