Our Team share their thoughts for Men’s Mental Health Week
1. What do you find supports your mental health, and is there anything specific you do to take care of it?
Acknowledging that it exists feels really important.
It’s a cliché but talking to others is often the biggest thing that helps to manage my mental health. Even if there’s no solution from those conversations; getting things out really helps to stop them spiralling in my head.
For me, respecting the importance of play and fun helps; spending time doing something for no reason other than I enjoy it. Not to beat my score, or achieve a new level of fitness, or receive some form of validation. Reminding myself that doing something purely for the love of that thing is not only OK, it’s essential to balance out the stress of life.
2. What do you think can get in the way of men accessing mental health support?
Despite all of the progress in recognising emotional health and wellbeing, it feels there is still a perception that asking for help means you have failed or are in some way weak, rather than it being a normalised part of life.
A lot of us assume a responsibility to “be strong” or carry on or provide or cope until the last possible moment. Sometimes it can be because of messages we take from society as a whole, sometimes from those we grew up around or the role models we had when we were young, sometimes it’s a pressure we put on ourselves to perform or manage.
Wherever it comes from, we don’t give ourselves permission to need help nearly as often as we should.
There’s often a sense that things need to escalate to a certain point before asking for help becomes acceptable or justifiable.
The instinct is to manage and get on with things until they are completely falling apart, rather than asking for help along the way for “smaller” difficulties that could prevent reaching that point.
Across society there is not a lot that actively encourages vulnerability and help-seeking in men. Media portrayals are still stereotypical about the role of men and society is filled with “role models” who embody toxic traits. There are precious few examples of men being vulnerable as part of everyday life. If someone is openly vulnerable, it’s done retrospectively about a relatively extreme incident from which they’ve now “recovered”. It’s another cliché, but so many fathers (or the equivalent roles men may have had for many of us) are either absent or otherwise emotionally unavailable, prioritising practical and intellectual growth over emotional development. It all adds up to the fact that one of the biggest things impacting men accessing support is an absence of other men showing them how.
3. What would you like other men that are struggling with their mental health to know?
Carrying on alone is not strong and courageous. Asking for help does not make you weak.
It takes more courage to be vulnerable and ask for help than it does to carry on when you’re falling apart, but doing so can make more difference than we think.
If you got burned in the past by opening up to someone who didn’t respond how you needed them to, it doesn’t mean everyone will. Pick your moments to start a conversation. Let the person know what it is you need, even if that’s nothing more than a listening ear. Don’t wait until you’re drunk to do it.
Openness and vulnerability are contagious. If you have the courage to demonstrate these qualities, they very often inspire others to follow suit.
Being vulnerable with someone is the only real way to make meaningful connections and those connections are what can really enrich life.
You are never alone. There is always someone who has been where you are or who has felt what you’re feeling, even if they’re not around you right now.
If you ask how someone is as a greeting or at the beginning of a conversation, never just take their first answer. Ask them again later on, once they’ve relaxed, and they’ll open up so much more.
4. The importance of having spaces where men feel they can speak about their mental health experiences — and how we can make them more accessible
Having as many confidential opportunities to engage or ask for support as possible in ways that aren’t exposing helps (eg not feeling like there are witnesses to asking for support)
Acknowledging that it takes to time to feel OK being vulnerable and honest. It’s not reasonable to expect you to bare your soul at the first point of contact.
Naming that it’s OK to come back for support, change your mind about support, be flexible about how support can work.
Creating physical spaces that are comforting and not clinical.
Understanding that “men” is a very broad spectrum and that targeting services at just one portion of what feel traditionally represents masculine interests will alienate everyone else.
Not relying on traditionally masculine activities to engage men (i.e. not only relying on communities based around physical activities.)
Don’t use “banter” in an attempt to make a support space welcoming; it will only make that space feel like every other and will encourage defensiveness not openness.
