How do you write about your mental health issues without coming across as a whining brat?

This is the stigma attached to mental illnes and why the majority of men don’t come forward to report the struggles they’re going through. I know others have said the same thing but it doensn’t make it any the less true.

I grew up where men were supposed, no expected to be strong, masculine role models who went out to work to provide for the family. Anything else was frowned upon, ridiculed almost and certainly not accepted. If you had an injury that was visible, it was accepted, anything other than that and you were either faking it or lazy. Mental illnes was something you were committed to a psychiatric hospital, depression was what some women suffered from. At least, that’s how it seemed.

I suffered with social anxiety all my life and put it down to just being shy. I was wrong. I also suffer with depression which I thought was simply low self esteem associated with me being shy. I was wrong there too. Talking about my menatl health issues is extremely difficult, I have to force through decades of conditioning where I’ve had people telling me to get over myself, there’s nothing wrong, or, the classic, pull yourself together. That kind of treatment leaves scars just as if a knife had cut through your skin. They’re not visible scars but they’re there just the same. This is one of the main problems with mental illnes, unlike a broken limb, there are no visible signs to it. You could pass someone in the street and never know what they’re going through. Most of the people who suffered with depression who killed themselves presented a jovial out going persona, Robin Williams is the prime example.

We have to get over this stigma attached to it, we have to start talking more about it, to our friends, loved ones and ultimately to health care professionals. This is not something that you can do on your own, if it was as easy as being able to ‘pull yourself together’ then the suicide rate wouldn’t be as high as it is for men with depression.

Just because you need help from time to time, or that there are some days when you can’t cope does not make you any less of a man.