Men’s Mental Health: The Importance of Sharing Emotions and Breaking the Stigma
Written By Irene Eastland, LCMHC
Men, It’s Time to Talk About Your Emotions; Here’s Why:
Let’s not be ignorant of the status quo. Many people believe that men aren’t men when they cry or have emotions other than anger, true? If we look around in society, most people are talking about how “it’s okay to talk about your feelings” but they mean that towards anyone, but men. Why is this? What happened to our society? Where did we get the idea that men should hide how they feel unless they lash out in anger?
Unfortunately, this concept that ‘men don't cry’ is a stronghold in our society, perpetuated by social media, family, and friends. Social media gives men the platform to discuss their feelings, yet even in social media men are shamed for talking about their feelings or ridiculed for venting. This shouldn't be the case. Men have a deep need to be emotionally vulnerable and able to share their feelings openly.
The book Raising Cain by Dan Kindlon is a deep dive discussing the emotional life of men and boys, and how oftentimes the stigma that ‘men don’t cry’ is simply not true - it’s just that men are dampened in their emotions from an early age, and well into their elder years - unless they’re blessed enough to find people who are willing to listen and understand that men are emotional beings, just like women are.
Let's explore the foundation of the belief that “men shouldn't have emotions”.
Stigma, Childhood, and How Men “Should” Act
Take a look at any advertisement, show, movie, or any media, you don't see many, if any depictions of men expressing emotions. Unless the man is expressing himself in anger. Anger is considered a “safe” emotion for men to express because it's seen by society as masculine, as courageous, and bold.
Crying on the other hand, expressing sadness, fear, anxiety, or other emotions, is seen as weak because the man expressing these would be considered vulnerable. Vulnerability is often seen as a feminine trait, or something reserved for only serious things such as loss of a loved one. Even then, there are many who believe men should be tough and not experience the grief of losing someone, and they should be the first to “move on”.
Media and advertising make it clear that “men are always strong” and they “don't need help from anyone”. These broad messages play a big role in not allowing men to feel they can talk about emotions. Messaging like this doesn't just pop out of thin air though, this kind of messaging starts at home.
Childhood
Did this start with society at large? Not even close. If we look deeper, we can see on the homefront both parents are often telling their boys “hush, don't cry, you're fine” or “you're a big boy, big boys don't cry”. The messaging to a young boy is clear, “crying is weak, don't cry, don't even feel sad”. Sure, no one is saying this directly but think of the subtle messages you receive on a daily basis which are forming how you act and interact with others.
Young boys, whether at school, daycare, or home are often told “don’t cry”, or they’re dismissed when they feel hurt by others because they need to “get over it”. Now, do people mean to do this? Are we just cruel beings that don’t realize emotions are happening in boys? This isn’t the case. The problem remains within parents, caregivers, and other adults because they have internalized the notion that boys aren’t supposed to be able to feel other emotions other than anger.
Anyone who has their emotions repressed and suppressed for any length of time would eventually lash out in anger. Why? It’s simple, but profound - the body and mind don’t forget how sadness, anguish, despair, and grief feel - but too often they are dampened and blotted out in young boys and men so anger becomes the focal point of the emotional life of a boy.
If you’ve experienced feeling dismissed, disregarded, and disallowed to have emotions as a young boy and now as a man, you’re not alone. Too often this is the case in society, we need to recognize this is happening so we can help men talk about their emotions without shaming them. The stigma has hurt more than helped, if it were helping, men would be able to “move on” as people say they should, and not have emotional difficulties, physical ailments, or issues with everyday stress. Let’s look into how ignoring emotions comes up in ways you may have not thought about in the past.
What Happens When You Ignore Your Emotions
Emotional Difficulties
While it may not seem obvious, trying to hide emotions creates more layers of emotions in your life. Ultimately, emotions bubble and surface as an anger response. Why? Well, think of anger like an iceberg, most of the iceberg is under water and what's on top is what you see. So, anger is the top because that's what you see, but the bottom is full of sadness, helplessness, hopeless feelings and more that have been pushed down. There's only so much room to fit emotions away, which causes more problems in the long run with lashing out, and not being able to manage difficult emotions without substances or other buffers.
While men may not be talking, the anonymous surveys are. Over 70 percent of men report they struggle with anxiety, depression, or other mental health issues. If you take a look at our article Back to Basics: What is Mental Health - you will see how the mental health you have affects your everyday life. With over 70 percent of men experiencing mental health disorders, it’s no wonder they also struggle with physical illnesses.
Physical Illnesses
Ignoring your emotions is shown to hurt your emotional life, but what about your physical well-being? Studies show ignoring emotions, or bottling up, can lead to an increase in hypertension (better known as high blood pressure), difficulties with sicknesses (prolonged sicknesses), and stomach issues (like ulcers). This reality hopefully opens eyes to the importance of seeking support, and seeing how ignoring what you’re feeling doesn’t make it go away, it causes that emotion to be stored somewhere else in your body and brain.
Once the emotion is stored somewhere else in your body and brain, it becomes a constant battle with emotions such as anxiety, stress, and overwhelm, that it leads to a cycle of more physical problems, joint issues, headaches, and more problems arise from ignoring feelings and attempting to bottle them up. This can lead to difficult handling basic stressors on a daily basis.
Difficulties Handling Everyday Stress
When someone tries to ignore their emotions, they can become more tense, edgy, frustrated, and easily overwhelmed. This constant feeling of being on edge can lead to difficulties managing simple stressors, such as your card not working at the gas station, someone cutting you off in traffic, or your boss not being able to talk to you immediately when you need something at work.
These basic stressors can become big stressors in the moment because underlying stress causes you to be heightened already. For instance, if you had a pot of boiling water on the stove, and it was already very full, boiling like crazy, and you added more water - the pot would spill over. Imagine your stress being buried down inside of you as this pot of boiling water, you’re already about to boil over, but the little addition of water causes it to happen sooner. This cycle keeps repeating itself.
Why you may ask? Because even if you get rid of the little stressors, the underlying boiling water continues to be there, and unlike water, stress doesn’t just simmer off slowly, or burn to the pan, it continues to rise and rise until there’s a release - which could range from sighing loudly to crying to punching a wall. Regardless of how it’s released, it gets a moment of release, only to realize the underlying stress is still present.
If you’re constantly under stress, this cycles back to emotional difficulties in relationships, and ultimately leads again to bottling up, causing physical issues, and then more tension. Sometimes people get used to this tension, they claim “it’s just who they are” when they flip their lids or feel on edge all of the time - but it’s not who they are, it’s who bottling up has made them become.
You don't have to live in these repetitive cycles. You can break free from the cycle by starting to talk about emotions and coming to terms with difficult issues you've faced. Let's talk about some strategies to get you started today on your journey to emotional healing and growth, so anger isn't your first or only emotional response.
Strategies to Start Talking About Emotions
Talk to a Close Friend
If you’re not ready to seek counseling, talking to a trusted friend, confidant, family member, spouse, or other close person to you can be a liberating experience. Talking doesn’t have to be a deep dive into your psyche and looking at all the emotions you’ve hidden over the years, it could be as simple as saying “Hey, I’m struggling with X”. Rather than attempting to ignore or cancel out what you’re feeling, acknowledging it can reduce the anxiety surrounding sharing emotions and having difficult conversations.
If you’ve never had a serious talk about your emotions with anyone, this step is easier to read than it is to apply. Take it slow. Make a list of things you’d like to discuss with someone, rather than trying to keep them to yourself. Rate each item on the list from 1 to 10, 1 being the easiest to talk about (say like the weather, sports, music, etc.) and 10 being the most difficult to talk about (loss, relationship difficulties, or whatever this looks like for you). Then go slowly through discussing each issue with a trusted friend.
Sometimes people don’t feel comfortable sharing with close friends or family for fear of retaliation, being shamed, or feeling vulnerable with close people. This is normal to feel that way, most people feel this way - which is what keeps people chained down by intrusive thoughts, difficult memories or hard to talk about emotions. If you’re willing and ready, talking to a counselor can be the next logical step for you to take as they are an outside person who keeps everything confidential, and they won’t ask you “well, why didn’t you tell me sooner”? They also won’t shame or blame you for having emotions you’d like to share.
Seek Out Counseling
Counseling is not a perfect science, but with the right counselor and a willingness to open up and share - you can start your journey to healing, learning to open up emotionally, and learning to let things go (but in a healthy way) so they aren’t bottled up inside. Going to counseling can feel intimidating, but once you start, you will find you are accepted and understood in the counseling space.
To find a counselor, search on your insurance providers website for local providers that your insurance covers. You can also send us a message through support@lifeinbloomcounseling.care so we can start the process of connecting you with a counselor today, and verifying your insurance through our Headway system. Counseling can cover a range of topics from relationship difficulties to trauma healing. By accessing a counselor, you can start to learn coping skills, new ways to express emotions, and managing the stigma of sharing emotions as a man.
Write a Letter to Yourself
In addition to counseling or on your own, start writing letters to yourself. Sometimes it can be helpful to write letters to your younger self, acknowledging what others didn’t want to (how sad you were when your bike broke or when your friend didn’t want to play), and letting yourself know that it was okay to be sad, upset, frustrated, and all the other emotions you had. This process can take sometime but it can be very healing and restorative for you to engage in processing your emotions from childhood, and adolescence on paper. Once you’ve started this basis of self-acknowledgement, you can work towards letting go of old expectations you have for hiding and harboring emotions.
The next letter to write is one to your current self, acknowledging that you do in fact matter, you have feelings and you are safe with having those feelings. It’s not a bad thing to cry, nor is it something “big boys” don’t do - in fact, people need to cry - it helps release emotions in a healthy way. This letter to your current self can help you start to pick up pieces of the here and now, where you’ve been dismissed or hurt by others, and it can help heal you from within. This healing from within can prevent a lifetime of continuously being shutdown, hurt, and only allowed to express anger.
Finally, write to your future self about how you’re going to work on dealing with emotions, naming emotions, and coming to terms with the fact that you do have emotions other than anger - and it’s perfectly acceptable to have those emotions. Making a promise to your future self that you will continue on a journey of exploring your emotions and increasing your ability to talk about emotions can change your entire life. Reread this letter today, and a few months from now, and then again to keep reminding yourself of what your promise is to yourself today.
Call a Helpline
It may seem like calling a helpline is the same as talking to a counselor, but it's not the same. You don't have to come to multiple sessions, you can talk for free without contacting insurance for billing, and you are able to call anytime of the day as needed. Having a helpline available can alleviate the anxiety of attending therapy on a regular basis, and may even help you become more open to the idea of therapy.
Regardless of where you're at in your emotional healing journey and learning to talk about emotions, a helpline can be there for you anytime of the day.
Call or text 988 to access the crisis hotline.
National Mental Health Hotline: 1(866)903-3787
When To Start Talking?
Unlike the pressure you've been given to shut off your emotions, there's no pressure to start talking. You can start and work at your own pace to go through an emotional healing journey. No one here is going to force you to talk, but we want to encourage you to see that support is crucial, and you're not alone.
So, when you're ready - let us know, let your friend know you want to talk, write yourself a letter, or call a hotline to start the conversation.
Conclusion
Spending your whole life trying to get rid of, cover up, or conceal emotions is exhausting. The societal expectations to keep quiet, and get on with your life aren't going to work anymore. It's time to start talking, to learn new ways of expressing yourself, and being able to truly let things go in a healthy way. Without doing these things, I fear men will be lost to physical issues and they'll be suffering silently with emotional difficulties and daily stressors.
It doesn't have to be this way, let's end the stigma, let's start talking, because men have emotions, and it's not just anger.
Your Life is always in Bloom, choose to make it something beautiful.