OUR MEN
It’s mental health awareness week here in the UK and it hadn’t really dawned on me what I was going to write about, until this morning when I was laying in bed fighting with my conscience on whether or not I had the courage to open up about this specific area of mental health, and my personal ‘lifetime’ of experience with it. I have paid the ‘consequences’ more than once in the confines of my own ‘home’ for speaking out of turn. I have decided some consequences are worth paying for when this area of mental health has such a detrimental consequence for all of our communities.
Last night I sat sobbing at my desk. It wasn’t just a gentle tear trickling down my face it was a full-on body shake. The kind that is accompanied by unpleasant thoughts like guilt, shame and the potential of what the world would be like if you weren’t here. I looked at the scissors in my stationery pot more than once.
I felt like I had completely failed, specifically as a Mother to a boy who is plagued with unhealthy thoughts that mean he reacts to normal everyday conversations and happenings often with rage and blindness, ultimately, causing material damage and broken hearts.
Unbeknown to him, I believe, is how much of a trigger his behaviour is to me. His Dad has the same mental afflictions, which seem to be generationally built into their DNA, I left him after 12 years, when my son was only 3 years old. My son is the mirror image of him in both his looks and behaviour, Although, luckily, for my son, there is also a strong woman swimming within his veins and I am always holding out to hope that she will prevail and pull him from the depths of his despair. I have to cling to that hope.
“In the year ending March 2019, an estimated 2.4 million adults aged 16 to 74 years experienced domestic abuse in the last year (1.6 million women and 786,000 men).”
I haven’t really got a great history with men, to be honest, my own lack of self-belief and gentle nature has proven more than once that it attracts the ‘wrong kind of men’ or on one occasion at least not having the ability to recognise ‘real love’ when it was given and I have spent much of the last 13 years working on my own mental health and in particular how I value myself and what implications that has from both a negative and positive perspective. I can honestly say I have not had the privilege of a strong male role model in my life in order to know how to treat a man or how I should be treated by one. I know many friends who adore their fathers, brothers and husbands, and yes, I am often ‘jealous’ of that, but mostly admire from afar and wish for one male in my life, one day, who I could completely trust in that way.
I am not the only one who sits sobbing at their desk or on the floor after a run-in with a male partner, or after watching a son breakdown unable to cope with the world in front of them, or worse that they have decided it is all too much to be in this world at all and I won’t be the last.
“In the UK men are three times more likely to die by suicide than women. The highest suicide rate among men is 45 -49.”
In reality and not just mine, we all deal with the consequences of men’s mental health every single day. At work, at home, at play, in how women dress or cover-up, in politics and in raising the next generation. You know I could write an awfully long list. But today I am writing this because I want you, all of us, to look from a different perspective. This week's Mental Health Awareness is about showing kindness and here is what that means to me:
I am not responsible for the actions, decisions or sexual harassment, mental abuse and violence any men have shown to me or others.
“40% of men won’t talk about their mental health.”
What I am or can be responsible for is to open up the conversation around mental health, help others understand my journey so they can look for clues in theirs, work together with mental health practitioners so they have a deeper understanding of the realities and consequences mental health has on all humans from the moment of conception. To ask my community to stand together in this responsibility and raise our sons with an open heart and to stop putting limitations on what a ‘'MAN’ acts and looks like.
And most importantly demonstrate time and time again that it is ok to seek and ask for help, from friends, family and professionals. Yes, I find this hard too.
To ask you all to consider for a moment the part we all play in keeping ‘man’ in the dark ages and the effect that has had and continues to do so on all of our communities across all cultures and countries - there are NO exceptions to mental health it affects us all.
I still have a long journey ahead with the men in my life, lessons are still being learned and I am battling with how I take responsibility for my own and their actions and deciding when I have to walk away and hope they find the help they need, whilst I find mine.
Mental Health is not just something that happens behind closed doors, something to be discussed in whispers and it certainly must not be kept in silence.
The only way for humans to be sure that the well being of us all is high on the list of our priorities (and the governments) is to demonstrate kindness, show compassion, speak out and reach for help - you can’t do this alone, we have to come together.
Note to self: Always put your safety and well-being first, you can not do anything at all if you do not look after yourself.
If you have been affected by anything in this post please do reach out to one of the organisations mentioned below:
https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/campaigns/mental-health-awareness-week
https://www.refuge.org.uk/
https://www.mind.org.uk/
https://www.nationaldahelpline.org.uk/
https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/a-to-z/m/men-and-mental-health
https://www.priorygroup.com/blog/40-of-men-wont-talk-to-anyone-about-their-mental-health
https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/campaigns/mental-health-awareness-week/kindness-matters-guide
https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/your-mental-health/getting-help
https://www.samaritans.org/about-samaritans/research-policy/suicide-facts-and-figures/
Some of the links above I used to get my stats. You can look into that for yourself too.
