Male Mental Health - Part 1

Over the past week I have asked males from ages 16-24 a series of 10 questions regarding male mental heath. I hoped to open conversations about the topic and to improve my own understanding. I am anonymously sharing these answers in the hope to do the same for others. I had no idea quite how many people would respond, and in how much detail people would be willing to share their thoughts and experiences. Due to the overwhelming response I'm splitting this into two parts. Here's the first five questions I asked and the answers I received:

*most answers have been cut down*

1. How do you define well being?

“physical and mental stability and balance between the two”

“your body and your mind are healthy and you aren’t causing yourself harm”

“having happiness for myself and my life”

“that’s an individualistic thing, it completely depends upon who that person is and what their base level of comfort would be. I guess for me well being would be the periods in time where I feel capable of going about and doing my day to day life.”

“I see wellbeing split into physical (health, diet), mental (thoughts, feelings, attitudes) and social (relationships, professional). If all are balanced and positive and going well, then I’d say that’s well being.”

“I define it as being comfortable, healthy and happy”

“being of sound mental and physical health”

“being comfortable and happy with myself”

“how happy someone currently is with themselves and where they are in their life”

“being in a clear mental state and having good physical health”

“how you feel within yourself as well as how you are physically”

“a combination of someone’s mental, social and physical state, not only being free from illness and disease”

“being comfortable in who you are and the ability to deal with your negative emotions in a positive output.”

“a person’s state of mind in reference to themselves”

“the state in which you can accept and be happy with who you are no matter the circumstance. Which isn’t an easy thing to achieve.”

  2.   How do you define self care? What do you do for yourself in the context of self care?

“self care ranges from being selfish and doing things you want to do, to looking for help from a  counsellor or doctor”

“I personally listen to music and try to sleep or nap. I have drunk and done drugs before in order to cope but I guess it's not worth it and you end up hurting more people and not even fixing yourself a little bit”

“self care is your way of relaxing and bringing yourself back to yourself. My own self care is letting my emotions be emotions and then write down everything to look at another day.”

“self care to me is just looking after yourself and treating yourself for things that make you feel good, whether that be food, clothing etc. It’s almost like what your soul is calling out for when needed most.”

“eating correctly, sleeping 7-9 hours every day. For me it’s the periods of time where I find myself actually able to respect myself.”

“self care is a physical and mental thing. Taking care of your body and your diet, and resting adequately. Also the aesthetics of personal hygiene and grooming. Mental self care to me is regulating emotions and hormones, trying to keep stress free, staying out of hostile relationships, and using whatever avenue works for you to keep them regulated – whether that’s speaking to someone, relaxing, meditating. From personal experience if I feel like shit, I won’t care if I’m not clean shaved etc.”

“self care is looking after yourself and trying to keep yourself happy and healthy. I always try to give myself something interesting to do in order to care for myself. I also surround myself with loving and caring people.”

“taking the time to look after your mental health. When I’m having really rough patches I don’t do anything to help myself because I can’t. Little things such as changing clothes or even having a shower help massively but sometimes feel impossible.”

“going to extra measures to take care of your body, including things like face masks etc.”

“how well you look after yourself mentally and physically. For example, if things haven’t been going well at school or work, you should always keep a positive attitude in that there is always light at the end of the tunnel and you should never give up, which is what I do.”

“giving yourself adequate amount of time to relax and maintain physical fitness. Eating healthy, enough sleep, etc. I go to the gym and ensure I have at least 1 day a week for things that I want to do.”

“trying to look after yourself and maintain your wellbeing. I do very little in the form of self care, mainly because im not sure how to help myself other than making sure im physically well”

“anything we do to care for our own mental, social and physical state, anything to maintain one’s wellbeing”

“prioritising your mental health over other less important things in life and dealing with issues of depression and anxiety as problems themselves rather than worrying about what its manifesting itself into”

“being comfortable in who you are. I self-care by practicing things I’m good at as well as things I’m bad at so I don’t get depressed about my weaknesses.”

“I define self-care as what is necessary for you to be happy, although I think there is a line between self-care and selfish behaviour and that’s when it harms someone else in some way.”

 3.       Do you feel that pressures to be masculine have impacted your mental health throughout your life?

“I think it used to. I'm more inclined to be myself nowadays however there are times where I’ll stop myself in order to “fit in” better or not get friendzoned by a girl.”

“I feel like trans people feel more pressure to be more manly to pass better and it takes a lot out of people and my mental health has taken a toll.”

“in the dating world I guess. As I’m quite feminine, I feel like sometimes I have to hide that and then my mind has a battle on being myself or putting on a façade to ever be accepted in a loving relationship. I know relationships aren’t the most important thing, but everyone deserves love. Getting into your mind about yourself and how you should act, affects my mental health quite a lot when in reality it shouldn’t. But I can’t control how I feel.”

“probably yes. When I was younger I worried a lot about being masculine and that girls wouldn’t like me unless I followed some sort of basic pattern of masculinity.”

“Absolutely. I haven’t cried in years, I feel incapable of crying. I’m the man of my house, and if I show weakness then my family might not feel comfortable coming to me for comfort in fear of making me even more upset if I’m displaying emotion.”

“I do sometimes feel self-conscious about my body because I’m expected to be tall or muscular and sometimes that sort of pressure can be very tough.”

“Definitely towards the end of school and through sixth form. Lad culture is very toxic and shouldn’t be considered the norm.”

“to a certain extent. As a boy, most fathers tend to push their sons into being the alpha male, since this is what society has come to want from males, to be dominant and strong emotionally, mentally and physically.”

“Other than physical appearance, I do not think there are any pressures to be masculine. I do believe there are a number of misconceptions regarding masculinity.”

“Definitely. As a child I cried a lot and was vulnerable. I was picked on for that through primary school and the start of secondary school. At some point, I just decided that I would stop. I no longer let myself feel what I want to openly because I feel guilty and angry that I started crying and that I am weak.”

“To an extent yes because masculinity is this stigma attached to all men as something that is required/expected, so it definitely adds stress and affects mental wellbeing as it’s a constant worry of what you can and cannot do in order to maintain your image.”

“That’s difficult to measure because personal masculinity has definitely had positive outputs in my life and then led to feeling mentally good. I have felt pressured into certain scenarios to be a certain way which has led to isolation. I think in general I’m in a friendship group where people are open with serious mental health issues so I’ve never felt compelled to stuff feelings down if its bothering me because I know someone will understand.”

“I think the pressures of masculinity have impacted my mental health because they are a constant in my life.”

“Absolutely, although not always negatively, it’s natural for every group to have an idealized version of themselves whether it’s realistic or not, through quite a few hard times in my life what sort of “man I am” is a driving factor for what keeps me going. While it’s true that the feeling of not living up to what are thought to be masculine expectations can have seriously negative consequences socially and mentally, to me the idealized version of masculinity is the “keep on fighting” spirit because that’s achievable for any man and so it’s actually relevant to all of us.”

 

4.       Have you ever had to mask your feelings in order to appear masculine?

“Yes. So many times. I’m still doing it.”

“Yes, and a lot more than I would like to”

“I’m one of those people who wears my emotions on my sleeve. My expressions through my body language will fully express that. But I’m one of those people who feel the need to deal with my mental health alone. I rarely talk to people about it, not the fact I’m scared of help, it’s just more the fact that I’ve always dealt with it on my own. I know my mental health better than anyone else, and I know my advice for myself is better than most. So in all honesty, I’ve masked it, but not for protecting my masculinity.”

“Yeah that’s something I still do”

“Yeah absolutely. I think men are expected to be shoulders to cry on, not the ones to be crying onto someone else’s. Society now, even in the streets you hear young boys crying and their parents calling them little girls. I think it’s just the standard for society now.”

“I feel quite fortunate to have very good friends that I’m not afraid to show my feelings around.”

“In the past yes, but not now.”

“Yes I have. I really struggled to find the strength to tell my friends that when I was 15, I was forced into having sex with a girl. I found it incredibly emasculating so I didn’t tell my friends for a long time.”

“When I was younger yes, but now its more the legacy of that. I still bottle everything, even though I know I don’t have to anymore”

“Yes, all the time, especially within school. It’s very hard to be yourself in an environment where you are constantly judged and sometimes the only way to get through things is to mask who you really are.”

“I think in the past I would only hide feeling for fear of general judgement rather than fear of my masculinity. Although I am certain a lot of males in my age group supress feelings to each other because its seen to them as too messed up or deep for them to actually be dealing with.”

“I have tried to mask my feelings in order to appear masculine because there is a certain way I want to come across which some of my feelings don’t coincide with.”

“Yes, most men have. From my experience its more to do with the fact that I might not necessarily want to let my “guard down” and that the person in question might just not have done enough to be that close to me with”

 

5.       Are you more likely to talk to females, males or no one about your mental health?

“I think a mix of the two is good. I’d prefer to tell a friend over a family member.”

“Men and emotions don’t tend to mix because of that fear of being less masculine.”

“I don’t really talk about my mental health. I know I should but I have a constant fear of being put on medication or not being taken seriously as I had a huge problem with CAMHS when I was 16 and highly suicidal. So I think it might need a change and I should speak about it more.”

“It’s more dependent on who that person is and their relationship to me than their actual gender. Historically I’ve always talked to the girls I’ve been seeing about this sort of thing but normally they were the catalyst of the conversation instead of me.”

“Probably no one unless it’s forced upon me. I’ve been suicidal before and self-destructive until the point my parents have cornered me into talking. I saw a counsellor once that was male, he was a cool guy but I never went back.”

“I’m more likely to talk to males because most of my friends are male.”

“females 100%. Although I shut myself away completely when I’m struggling.”

“females or no one”

“If I’m talking about my mental health with males, it would only be with my best friends, but other than that, I prefer talking to females about it. I find it so much easier.”

“I would talk to either depending on the topic of discussion. I would be more comfortable talking to a man about issues regarding sex etc.”

“I will often talk to my female friends about it, however, almost never fully openly. There is not a chance in hell I’d talk to a guy about my feelings, in my experience I don’t feel that they could listen to me without making some comment.”

“Personally for me, no one. I don’t feel like it’s a thing I can easily talk to someone about.”

“In the past I would only talk to females about issues like these, but since discovering that a lot of males are willing to talk about these issues openly I would be more likely to talk to a male friend because I feel they’d be more personally able to relate to the issues.”

“I’m most likely to talk to no one about my mental health because I believe that I can deal with it on my own, even if that isn’t the best option. Out of the two other options I’d be more likely to talk to a female because I know other males will be more inclined to hide their own feelings when discussing it.”

“Personally, it’s all to do with trust, regardless of gender. If a person has shown that they trust me with confidence, then I know I can return it.”

 Thank you to every body who responded. I often get told that I'm brave for speaking up about my mental health, but these answers were so brave and honest. This gives me hope that things can change.
Part 2 will be posted next week x