Healing Space | Men face abuse too. Men need mental health help too

Mental illness can be about being unable to carry the baggage of emotional and physical trauma in a healthy way. It can be about not learning or having the tools to cope with everyday stresses. (Illustration by Suneesh K.)

Trigger Warning, Content Warning: This article contains mentions of abuse.

Note to readers: Healing Space is a weekly series that helps you dive into your mental health and take charge of your wellbeing through practical DIY self-care methods.

The facts of the Amber Heard Johnny Depp divorce and related defamation trial are nebulous and to a large extent a he said-she said; no one but a couple really knows what transpired behind closed doors. What the case has made apparent, however, is that men face emotional and physical abuse, from disruptive childhoods and difficult marriages, and also need mental health interventions.

Depp and his sister testified at length about growing up with an abusive mother, witnessing conflict against their father, and learning from his constrained responses. Such childhood exposure to domestic violence and adult matters are what minor children, no matter the gender, learn from and take forward in their own lives, and it impacts their practice of stress and conflict management. What each one internalises is different based on individual personality and mental make-up. For instance, a child may learn to navigate the world through violence when they are on the receiving end from a bullying parent who inflicts it on them. They learn that violence commands the room. They learn to control through intimidation. They learn to raise their voice and use their hands, or throw things. However, if they identify more with the parent on the receiving end of violence, they may also learn to shut down and take abuse as a result of it and find themselves returning to a ‘comfort zone’ of abusive relationships time and again because that is defined as ‘normal’ for them. Alternately, they may learn to fight back if they realise they don’t want to be the victim like their abused parent anymore. How we each internalise what we go through depends on how we process and allow ourselves to be shaped by it. Whichever path it is, violence and abuse in childhood affects how we navigate the world.

According to research published in the Indian Journal of Community Medicine conducted in Haryana in 2018, 52.4 percent of men had faced gender-based violence, greater emotional than physical. Apart from spousal abuse, research shows 57.3 percent of boys have faced sexual abuse. Gender-based violence also affects one in four men and women in workplaces worldwide, from irate customers who call client service executives names when they are not in a position to respond (remember the phone call Ashneer Grover is said to have made?), abusive overseers who prevent employees from taking bathroom breaks, affecting everyone from healthcare professionals like nurses and doctors who may be roughed up by patients and their family, to farm workers who face caste-based violence. However, the number of men who seek mental health interventions is far too low. Global research shows that men are less likely to seek help for themselves.

Mental health interventions are already perceived as stigmatised in India. It is more so for men who deal with cultural conditioning, needing to be providers and adhere to notions of ‘strength’ as opposed to ‘weakness’. In men, having a mental health concern is seen as the lack of willpower and self-discipline. ‘Mental illness’ is perceived largely as people who ‘talk to themselves’ or are violent in some way. When in fact, mental illness can be about being unable to carry the baggage of emotional and physical trauma in a healthy way. It can be about not learning or having the tools to cope with everyday stresses. It can be about disproportionate anger because it is displaced from underlying pressures that have not been resolved. It can be about incompatibility, lack of self-care, self-love, self awareness, boundaries and healthy emotional response systems.

Most people, men and women, tend to seek counselling only when they are in a crisis and they are desperate for a solution. Counselling, therapy, mental health is not a crisis-only intervention. Think of it like servicing your car periodically, so it won’t break down when you’re on a difficult leg of the road trip. Equipping yourself with ways of speaking, clarifying your thinking, acting, refining your aims, goals, moving to responsiveness from reactiveness, pushing through confused cognition, and protecting yourself also against demands and claims that take a toll on you. You could still be suffering from grief that comes from a loss, or a break-up that has hit you hard, a difficult childhood. It could be from one event or a series of events that has built up without your addressing it. You could be bullied or pushed into a corner at home or in the workplace, unable to push back, complain and set your boundaries. This could lead to anxiety and depression, which cannot be defined so simply as originating from a single trigger. The overall loss of sense of purpose, direction, energy, motivation, can be worked on in a therapeutic environment.

All of this and more constitutes mental health, alongside more serious diagnosed mental illness which may benefit from medication. And all genders, men too, need to take their mental health seriously.