Manhood & Mental Health

June is over, and that means I got something to say.

Yesterday was the last day of Men’s Mental Health Awareness Month.

Originally, this essay was going to be a response and deep dive into men’s mental health and then Black men’s relation to mental health especially. But after thinking about it, I wanted to take it in a different direction. Make it something more personal. Because at the end of the day, these are the musings of my mind. I’m a writer who wants to create conversation from my point of view. So if I was going to talk about men’s mental health, I wanted it to read true. Less statistical data, and more from my eyes because that is a true reality as well. My thoughts, my feelings, and my reality are valid. And unfortunately, it is something happening to more men who don’t even realize it.

Last month was different for me. It was a month that silently took a toll on my mental health in a different way than it ever has before. In some ways, I was soaring. The school year was over. I was getting paid from my school and part time job, I had found a company for my book, and I was cooling. But at that time, I had way more free time than I had throughout the school year. And to get into that, I have to describe my school year.

It was my fourth year being a teacher. My second year in middle school. I don’t have a degree in education, but I have a degree in English. I don’t have my teacher’s certification, but I have been around children and educating peers/others my whole entire life. So when I became a teacher, I did it scared but underestimated it at the same time. Jumping head first into it, I worked hard. My first year teaching middle school especially, there was a learning curve. I had to adapt to not the students in a way, but more so my style, my approach, and the balance of administrative/teacher work. Teaching was easy. It was everything for the most part. After my first year, I learned so much more and amplified it this past year. But in doing so, I not only shot myself in the foot, but I was a man who put myself into a firing squad.

Something I like to say about myself is that I’m a hard worker. When I’m passionate about something, I really do give my all. Which of course, I did that with this job. To briefly recap my year, I was the head coach for Young Litigators, co-advisor for SGA, organized and fundraised for the 8th grade graduation trip, put together and sent out the weekly newsletter, became a pseudo secondary team leader, and the amount of other things could go on and on. I was getting to the school around 6:30 in the morning and leaving at 7 in the evening. Naturally, rent, bills, my relationships didn’t stop either. I was balancing all of this, and I was tired. But when I looked back at it all, I was partially enjoying it. I didn’t have to deal with myself because my savior, helper complex was at full force. Why worry about myself when so many things need to be taken care of?

At the end of it all, I was glad that it was over. Year number two in the books and I was given a lot of credit verbally. My credit was given (as much as credit can be given without a true conversation about the burden put on teachers but that is a talk for another day). I could finally relax, but when I relaxed, I found myself uncomfortable. I had to finally sit with everything I went through. And this isn’t a woah is me situation, it was a realization of what I had to put my mental and emotions through. It was an uncomfortable reflection and contemplation of myself as a man in these environments. How do I operate as a man in these situations and how am I supposed to react?

In the eyes of my peers, I did exceptional. I took some bumps, but came out unscathed on the outside. Yet, on the inside, I was going insane. I checked off so many boxes for doing the right thing. I was being “a good one” to many except myself. To be a good one means I’m a quote-on-quote positive and providing Black man in an environment to women, children, and other Black men. Being a space to hold feelings, conversation, and education is essential to this role, but I also need to be able to provide and protect. I have to be multifaceted and able to walk into multiple spaces while still holding a masculine figure and demeanor. I have to be a lot and can’t look tired or ungrateful or vulnerable. I can’t be that. At least not publicly and sometimes, not even to your closest family, friends, and partners because they have an expectation of you as well. It’s not that you can’t be yourself to these people you care about, but you have to be a certain version of yourself that can’t express the negativity as much. Otherwise, questions are raised and faith in you is lessened. It’s a slippery slope and a line you must walk. But a paradox is created, when you look at another expectation.

People say they want Black men, which was the first thing identified about me when I came to be in this world, to be soft yet strong, stern but caring, and many more contradictions. Black men in America are constantly trying to live up to a level of masculinity that was never truly set up for us in the first place and here I am trying to do it all. And while many say they want us to be more vulnerable and accepting of help in today’s environment, how much can you actually be before things start crumbling?

I want to be more and say more. Not just because of these expectations or how I was raised, but because it is the right thing to do. I want to be better. I have a whole essay about the limitations but desire to constantly improve and understand myself. But the contradiction of how I should be and what I can be tends to drive me a bit insane. I have been to therapy. I want to go back because I know my work isn’t done, but damn when do I have the time? Some will say, well duh, you just make time because mental health is important. But truthfully speaking, it’s hard. Yes, no one is going to hold my hand as they lead me to a therapist or me time or any form of mental health rehabilitation, but damn is it hard. In this past month, those closest to me have given me space to find time to be comfortable with myself and to rehabilitate my own mental state. I can’t help but think about the other men in my life and so on who don’t have that. Who instead of making space for their struggles, they criticize, they demean, or they don’t care for because they are a man.

Due to the patriarchy that no one modern man has created, they directly benefit and suffer from each day because of expectation. We bear the weight of the world on our shoulders and we don’t have to carry it alone, but we have to realize that we can’t do it alone. Men need to hold men accountable for not only the bad they do, but the good they do and how that state of being good, responsible, and so on can hurt them in the latter stages of life. It isn’t a coincidence that men die younger than their female counterparts. We have to do and be better but we have to care for ourselves better. We have to look up and realize smiling through it all isn’t the solution. Not talking at all isn’t the solution. We have to talk to a therapist, to our friends, to our sons, to our dads who don’t even realize they’re in that system, and to ourselves. We don’t have to be trapped. Boys won’t just be boys if we allow ourselves to be better to others, each other, and ourselves. And I have to do that too.