Oh, right. Them. That was my not-so-thoughtful reaction, when someone pointed out that we need to make an effort to include men in the group. Sure, they’re included. I mean, who wouldn’t want to sign up for our four-week intimate discussion of an insightful Oprah-and-the-expert book on trauma? I just never thought, until that moment, how to tailor a message about mental health convos to be actively inclusive of them. See, where I come from, men and mental health don’t go together. Well, actually, they do…..but we don’t use those words to talk about it. 

My dad was a multi sport athlete and Vietnam vet and mayor of my town growing up. He loved dogs and James Bond and politics. And he was angry. The chip on his shoulder was always right there, under his suit jacket. You never knew what slight of the day would shift the chip so it dug into his skin, but you knew by the stomping and screaming that it had happened. No one framed this as a mental health issue though, for him or those around him. 

No one framed my grandfather’s legendary rage as a mental health issue either, until the very end of his life when my uncle told him they were going to “a new doctor” and carted him to a psychiatrist. “You brought me to a head shrinker?” screamed my Pop. The doc asked him to spell “world” backwards. “And then,” my grandfather triumphantly told me later, “I said d-r-l-o-w s-s-i-k y-m s-s-a.” Like I said, mental health was not our thing. I don’t think there’s any question Pop could’ve used some type of mental health intervention, but was he going to consider it? You bet your s-s-a not. 

Pop was born while Sigmund Freud was at the height of his career, long before support groups, therapists and crisis hotlines became accepted parts of American culture. And yet, um, you guys? We’re not doing so hot now when it comes to mental health. You can probably think of times this sad truth has smacked you in the face. It hit me this fall, when a friend’s ex-husband ended his own life. Then again this spring, when a well-respected transit leader in my community did the same. I couldn’t stop thinking about my friend Dan, who I’d seen the day before his death by suicide and never suspected a thing. 

By absolutely no means am I saying this is men-only territory. As many of y’all know, I’m a proud alumna of a psychiatric hospital, and during my days in the hospital and weeks in outpatient I met people of all genders, races, and socioeconomic backgrounds who had fallen to the dark side of mental health. Female, male, non-binary, genderqueer – mental illness can knock on anyone’s door. When it comes to suicide, basically there’s bad news all around. People of any and all backgrounds die by suicide, and the majority of suicide deaths are men. My friend Nick was on the verge of being one of them.

I never would’ve suspected Nick had once been in that spot – standing there with his fingers curled around a weapon, mentally saying his goodbyes. That is, I never would’ve suspected until a few years ago, when he wrote a shatteringly beautiful essay alluding to it (see page 23 of the link). Years after reading the startling truth, I wanted to understand – what brought you there with the gun? What made you put it down? And after you’d walked away, how did you get to someplace happier and healthier? 

Nick was young when all this happened, he explained to me. Very young, a Black teenager trying to become a Black man, already feeling the stress of needing to help support the family, without feeling valued for who he truly was. Struggling to feel seen, in a house full of footballs and basketballs when his love was soccer. He sat there with the gun in his hand, silently saying goodbye to all the people in his life. But when he got to his brother, he couldn’t say goodbye. He decided to live for Jarvis. He put the gun away.

The thought of living for his brother got him through the crisis point, but living solely for another person wasn’t a solid long-term plan. It never is. Nick navigated young adulthood gritting his teeth. One day he was blowing off steam, letting it all out to a friend, when his friend stopped him abruptly. “Nick, don’t do anything rash. You can call me, anytime. And you need to talk to a professional.”

Something in his friend’s words landed and Nick did it. He sought professional help, crossing the line into new territory – “I need help” territory. Not painting my house help or fixing my car help or taking care of my kids help, but help with my mental health. It’s territory that he doesn’t think enough people, and not enough men, venture into. “It’s true in the general sense, there are specific spaces for men’s mental health,” Nick explained to me. “But you have to cross that line. You have to make the first step.” 

With this blog I sometimes feel like a small-time, self-appointed poster mama for mental health. But it took me five years to agree to take an SSRI. So many of us who need to resist crossing that line, hard. Now that his crossing is years in the rear view mirror, I asked Nick, how do you keep your mental health and your life on an even keel? “Faith. Aging. Hope,” he told me. In Nick’s perspective, he was lucky to have that conversation with a friend who pushed him to tackle the issue at its roots. That’s more unusual than it should be. He knows too many people whose mental health issues go unaddressed, until their actions cause harm to others. And even more people, a crushingly large number of young Black people, who are growing up without hope. “Young Black men are growing up in a system that’s not designed for them,” he explained. “We need to re-negotiate our terms.” 

Re-negotiate our terms. As in, I can break out of my role. You can break out of yours. Especially when we do it as a community, we can. People can be cured of HIV. Non-binary athletes can proudly compete in the Olympic Games. A young woman with Down’s syndrome can be a Victoria’s Secret model. A Black woman may be the next James Bond. Who’d have thunk any of it was possible?

But it is possible. It’s all true. We can reshape things. You can cross that line.

Men’s mental health overview infographic

Guide to men’s mental health

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 800-273-8255

Crisis Text Line text HOME to 741741