Men! Don’t make these mental health mistakes

This post might annoy people but that’s just a by-product of talking about these issues in a real way.

It’s worth the risk so that if somebody who needs it finds it then they might change their approach to dealing with life in general and getting on the path to getting their mental health where they want it to be.

Before I start writing I should probably point out two things that are relevant and important:

1, This is informed by my own ‘mental health’ journey and dealing with depression, suicidal thoughts, and difficult emotional ‘stuff’ over the course of my life due to the things I’ve personally been through and have HEALED from.

2, I worked in mental health for a long time before I started my working on my coaching ‘stuff’ full-time and so I have worked really closely with a lot of people around their issues and have helped people through some of the most challenging and traumatic things that can happen to a human being.

I know what works in general (not always) and I also know a lot of the pitfalls that men can fall into on their ‘healing’ journey (and women, tbh – but I wanted to write an article for men because I’ve seen that there is a massive gap in REAL advice and support for them overall).

When I was working with depressed, anxious, and traumatised men they would almost appreciate the fact that I was just being ‘real’ or candid with them and that I could talk to them ‘man-to-man’ instead of trying to mould them into being some kind of ‘vulnerable’ or ‘emotional wreck’ whilst equating that with ‘good’ mental health.

Of course, facing our emotions is a really important part of the journey but identifying with them and letting them linger for the rest of our lives (as a lot of the ‘talking  therapies’ will ask us to do) doesn’t really do anything useful except cause us to put unnecessary obstacles in our own way.

This article is a short summary of some of the mistakes we can make like this that actually just make our mental health worse in the long-run by keeping us stuck in the same place instead of actually moving forward (and for men, this is actually the biggest problem, imo: a lack of PURPOSE).

Like I said, if you’re not ready for it, this might piss you off – if it finds you when you need it then I hope this helps you start getting on the path to where you need to be.

Here we go:

Mistake 1: Not talking about it or talking to the ‘wrong’ people about it.

It’s common wisdom these days that not talking to people about our emotional ‘stuff’ and just keeping everything bottled inside can cause a lot of problems.

This is true but it neglects a common problem in our society (or maybe even with human nature): in general, most people don’t give a damn about other people’s problems – especially the problems of men who are just expected to get on with it and to deal with things alone.

This is a problem with men and women – men don’t like listening to other men’s problems for a variety of reasons (partly because they’re too busy dealing with their own ‘stuff’ by themselves); women don’t like listening to men’s problems (unless they’re getting paid for it as therapists or counsellors) because nobody really has time for ‘weak’ men which is what men with unresolved emotional ‘stuff’ are often considered to be.

Telling men to talk about it is fine and dandy and if they’re lucky they might be able to find a guy or a bunch of guys that they can open up to. For the average man, though, there is nobody for them to talk to.

This is a shame because talking really does help – I’ve seen it myself when working with people: the simple act of just sharing something can release a lot of tension and unburden people of the weight of whatever they’ve been carrying.  If it’s hard to find somebody who will just ‘see’ us without judgement then this is something that many men will unfortunately never experience.

This is what leads to the second problem in this area:

Because it’s so hard to find somebody who can just be ‘real’ and meet you where you’re at, a lot of men end up turning to the ‘wrong’ people to try and support them in the way they need: WOMEN.

(I told you this was going to be a bit controversial).

When men turn to women for their mental health advice they might get a shoulder to cry on and experience some of the benefits of ‘sharing’ and ‘unburdening’ just discussed but the problem with women helping men with their mental health advice has two main issues:

The first is that women have a bias for TALKING about their feelings as IN GENERAL that’s how they deal with their own feelings – this is in contrast to the way that men actually benefit more from taking ACTION to transmute or diffuse their feelings.

This is why a lot of men eventually get fed up with therapy or other talking interventions – because they just end up being encouraged to go around in circles, analysing their feelings and the past to death looking for patterns that may be interesting but which don’t really change that much in terms of knowing what they WANT and NEED to do in order to move forward.

Though talking about things, sharing, and unburdening is an important stage in the overall healing journey, it’s not the WHOLE journey (for men or women, tbh, but especially for men) – once you’ve raised that awareness or become more familiar with your feelings, you need to ask yourself what you WANT (that’s real to you, not a response to your feelings and mental conditioning). In other words it comes down to taking ACTION.

The second problem is that – whether we ‘like’ it or not – the reality of life is that men and women live in totally different worlds (though the reality is the same):

The harsh truth is that when women ‘talk’ about their feelings people actually listen – regardless of whether or not the people listening are men or women.   This is usually because women ‘like’ to talk about feelings like we said above but also because a lot of men think that by listening to a damsel in distress they’ll somehow go up in her estimation (and, of course, some guys just listen because they care about the woman in question).

I know that sounds cynical but it’s just an observation of how things seem to unfold IN GENERAL.

If a man tries to go around talking about their feelings, they are seen IN GENERAL as being either a burden or being weak (or both). This probably has something to do with why 78% of suicides (in the UK at least) are men.

In relation to what we’re saying here, this is another reason why the talking therapies etc. don’t work for men: they’re ultimately about women giving men advice that ‘works’ for women – not actually helping men find solutions that work for men.

For the women working as therapists, it all makes sense and seems nice because in the context of their lives it has been validated. Of course, there are men working as therapists too, but it’s very rare that they haven’t been brainwashed by all this ‘stuff’  and aren’t just women in disguise giving out advice that works for other wannabe women in disguise (living in the bubble of the ‘mental health’ world) and not actual men who still want to be – and already are – men.

I know that’s controversial and I am speaking in very general terms – there are some great mental health projects for men out there that have stepped away from the bubble of just talking, sharing, and being vulnerable without going anywhere.

The problem is that most of the things out there offered to support men on their mental health journey are trying to get them to be something they’re not – if you’ve read my ‘stuff’ before then you’ll know that’s a bad idea because REAL ALWAYS WORKS.

Mistake 2:  Dealing with things in an unbalanced way.

There are three ways that we can deal with pretty much anything in life: giving into our feelings (heart), giving into our thoughts (mind), or finding a healthy balance between the two and aligning heart and mind to be real.

A lot of mental health stuff just encourages men to get in touch with their feelings as though that will magically solve all their problems.  What this actually ends up doing is causing them to become identified with their feelings instead of actually processing and moving through them.

Honestly, call me a cynic but I think a LOT of therapists etc. actually like to keep people enslaved to their feelings because this allows them to continuously be analysed in sessions and the therapist is ensured a regular pay cheque (this is different to coaching where eventually you ideally NO LONGER NEED THE COACH because you’ve got to a stage where you can do it alone).

Anybody who wants you to STAY in your feelings isn’t really helping you – they’re holding you back.

This doesn’t mean ignoring your feelings (that’s unhealthy) – it means EMBRACING them, learning what they have to teach you, but then taking that learning to get where you actually WANT to be in life. You can only do that if you have a vision and take ACTION (which studies have shown men benefit from more than ‘talking’ about problems).

All this is to say that your feelings are important but they’re not so important that they become the only thing you think about and focus on.  A lot of mental health stuff will encourage you to go over every little detail of your past and figure out why Mummy and Daddy screwed you up – actually, you don’t need to revisit EVERYTHING; you just need to figure out what your emotions are and what you want to DO about them.

The opposite side of this coin is that people DENY their emotions completely because of faulty thinking about what emotions are etc. and they instead try to be ‘rational’ about everything and to just THINK THEIR WAY OUT of emotional problems.

When this happens the most common thing that happens is people become ASSHOLES that deny their own feelings and deny everybody else’s by extension. This is just a way of acting like feelings are unimportant or don’t exist so that they can avoid their own shame, guilt, and/or trauma.

The REAL/healthy way of dealing with all this is to be BALANCED – quite simply that means that you use your HEAD to figure out where you want to go in life (i.e. you create a sense of PURPOSE for yourself and a VISION to support it) but that you also use your HEART to ensure that you’re doing something you actually care about and that you’re not denying how you FEEL right now.

I always walk my clients through a process of AWARENESS, ACCEPTANCE, and ACTION because it embodies the head and the heart instead of just one or the other:

Awareness – figuring out your true values and intentions, how life actually works, where you currently are in relation to where you want to be, etc.

Acceptance – working to accept yourself unconditionally and to embrace what you truly value and want in reality.

Action – making sure you actually DO something about it and move forward.

Mistake 3: Obsessing over problems, not solutions.

Whatever you invest your time and energy in is what you will get more of… If your mental health strategy is to just analyse the problem to death then that’s all you will get.

The ‘solution’ for most men is to get back to reality which means to choose a sense of purpose for themselves, to dedicate themselves to it, and to meet other likeminded men in the process.

A mistake that a lot of men make when they’re trying to solve their mental health stuff is to spend all their time with other men who have the same problem – at first, this might seem like a good idea but actually when you spend all your time in mental health groups (or whatever it is) with people suffering in the same way you just end up IDENTIFYING with the problem, not solving it.

Again, in the early stages of your recovery, meeting people who have similar experiences might be beneficial (so you can be ‘seen’ or whatever) but eventually it just stops you growing because – if the only thing you have in common is the problem – then you’ll all be incentivised to keep it going in order to keep the group going.

I’ve seen people make dramatic differences to their lives when they STEP AWAY from mental health services and actually go find ‘normal’ people who they can be their normal self around (instead of just being somebody with a problem amongst others who IDENTIFY with it).

The short-version of this is that you will do way more for your mental health in a TEAM of people playing football (for example) than you will a bunch of people sitting around identifying with the problem instead of living their lives (and taking themselves out of REAL life is always the problem).

Stuff you can do instead of just talking.

Here’s some things that nearly all men will benefit from to improve their mental health:

-Figure out your PURPOSE or at the very least a VISION to move forward with.

-Do some kind of team sport or some other group activity where you can bond with other men and talk organically, not in a forced ‘therapeutic’ way.

-Work out: find some kind of exercise you enjoy and do it regularly.

-Stop watching crap and wasting your time on Netflix or other BS.

-Spend more time in nature, ideally with other men you can talk to about your life and where you’re going.

-Find a woman who wants you to be who you actually are and start a relationship.

-Journal or monitor your feelings in some other way but then decide what you want to DO with them in relation to your vision.

-Get a COACH who want to help you move forward and not just be stuck talking about your feelings.

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