I love my father. He’s kind and caring.
He grew up in a rural family of boys. He learnt from his father, who in turn learnt from his father, that expressing emotion didn’t coincide with his maleness. Not only was vulnerability not a choice, it just wasn’t an option. Things were left unsaid. The masculine ego left seemingly fortifiable. They were a generation of men strong and powerful but emotionally detached.
When I was 18, I started to feel tired. It was this unending languor, clouding my emotions, hiding my motivation and affecting my concentration. I felt permanently drunk. At the same time, I started to become uneasy; butterflies in my stomach and panic became the norm.
“You’re in the middle of a major depressive episode,” my psychologist told me during my first appointment. Here, I cried for the first time. At 18, I realised that I had perfected the art of hiding, concealing, and building the perfect facade. As a male, I felt, vulnerability wasn’t an option for me.
“You need to learn how to talk to your parents,” she said. I didn’t know how to do that. At this point, I recognised that I had never properly learnt how to access my sadness, let alone to verbalise this to my family.
It was awkward to tell my father that I wasn’t okay. At first, he struggled to access his own emotions with me. It took a lot of learning, from both sides, to communicate with one another as we’d both been groomed not to speak. When I needed him, though, he was there for me.
A close friend of mine recently told me that he had been feeling sad. We were in my car; I had started taking anti-depressants at this point. “One could say it was depression,” he half-smiled, still unable to confirm it for himself. He seemed tense. He told me that he’d gone through bursts of sadness for years, even though he had no reason to feel this way. It was true; he was well liked, had a large network of friends, had done very well in school and had a promising career. From the outside, his life seemed perfect. Sometimes, though, a reason doesn’t need to exist. Together, in that car, we were silent wanderers, guided by our unknown concerns.
Initially, he told me, he could only talk about the black cloud when he was drunk and refused to think about it when he was sober. He thought the black cloud would pass. He was too embarrassed to talk about his sadness. He never dared to tell his family; it made him feel uncomfortable. Besides, he had a carefree reputation to uphold; to him, weakness was prey.
He told his mates down at the pub after our encounter in the car, about his bursts of sadness. His mates paused. They were visibly awkward. “Oh, that’s weird,” said one of them, before they pushed the conversation aside. This bruised my friend’s confidence. His sadness was merely swept under the rug from then on, and this made him more confused.
It’s not necessarily his friends’ fault, though. We have taught, and are continuing to teach, young boys in Australia that emotion is not okay. We are teaching young boys that intimacy between one another should be feared. They are taught that this would make them seem gay. Subsequently, to combat this inherent homophobia, the thought of two males in a close friendship must be humoured and justified within society in order for masculinity to be maintained. In a society where women value the bonds between each other, why doesn’t the same apply for men?
This mentality ultimately extends into adulthood, perpetuating a culture in which manliness does not seem to correlate with the sharing of emotion. At this point, it is important to note that suicide is roughly three times higher in Australian males than females. Why is it that we wait to speak about a man’s depression until it is too late? Reaching out and valuing our male friendships shouldn’t need to be accompanied by a joke. Alas, we have truly grown up into a society in which males fear sharing emotion with one another.
So, for the boys who are afraid to embrace emotion and for the boys who feel with no tears, let’s rid the fear of talking. For the men who feel silenced and for those who have already succumbed to their black cloud, let’s discuss the importance of emotion. For my friend shunned by fear and for my own 18 year-old self, let’s talk about mental health and anti-depressants. Let’s just talk. To speak of pain is to overcome struggle, and to advocate the truths of those still ostracised by the screaming mask. It’s this open and honest dialogue that is helping so many. It’s helping me.
As someone who takes anti-depressants, I’ve come to realise the importance of emotional vulnerability within such a hyper-masculine culture that prides itself on strength and invincibility. Let’s ask boys and men alike how they are feeling, behind the performance. There is strength in susceptibility, too.
“You’ll be right” isn’t enough anymore. No one deserves a black cloud.
The emotional life of men: "you"ll be right" isn"t enough anymore | Louis Hanson
