Reflections from a Therapist on What Many Men Are Really Carrying

Written By Shamita Omote

What Men Often Bring Into the Room

In my work as a counselling psychologist and therapist over the past ten years, I have sat with many men who did not come into the room saying, “I am lonely,” “I am grieving,” or “I am ashamed.” More often, they come speaking about stress, anxiety, anger, burnout, relationship conflict, addiction, work pressure, or a general sense that something is wrong but they cannot fully explain it.

But with time, something deeper often emerges. Behind the irritability, there is hurt. Behind the withdrawal, there is exhaustion. Behind the perfectionism, there is fear. Behind the emotional distance, there is often a longing for connection that has gone unmet for years.

Many men have learned from a young age that strength means control, endurance, self-reliance, and emotional restraint. They are often taught, directly or indirectly, that sadness should be swallowed, fear should be hidden, grief should be carried quietly, and vulnerability should be treated with suspicion. So they learn to function. They learn to provide. They learn to solve problems. They learn to keep moving. But many do not learn how to be known. That pain does not disappear. It simply changes form.

A Quiet Crisis

Men’s mental health needs serious attention. The WHO reports that more than 720,000 individuals take their own lives annually; suicide disproportionately affects men, who account for roughly 70% to 80% of all global suicide fatalities. In Kenya, a Ministry of Health policy brief reports that suicide deaths in men were five times higher than in women across the years reviewed, and that 75% of Kenyans lack access to mental health services. These figures do not mean every struggling man is suicidal, but they do show that male distress is serious, and too often silent.

Across public conversations today, the same themes keep appearing: male loneliness, emotional suppression, identity confusion, pressure to perform, and the fear of being nothing without usefulness. Richard Reeves has argued that men are falling behind in multiple areas, including education, mental health, and economic stability, and that many are being left “more than a bit lost” as older provider roles weaken without clear replacements.

Part of this struggle is structural. Many men grew up expecting that competence, provision, and toughness would give them a clear place in family and society. But the world has changed. Boys are struggling in some educational systems, and many men are growing into adulthood at a time when the older script of manhood- be strong, provide, endure- no longer guarantees identity, respect, or stability the way it once seemed to. Friendship networks have thinned, and healthier alternatives have not been clearly built in their place.

Shame, Worth, and Silence

What I see in therapy reflects that clearly. Many men carry burdens they have rarely, if ever, spoken aloud. They carry unprocessed grief from absent fathers, painful childhood experiences, rejection, emotional neglect, failed relationships, missed opportunities, estranged children, declining health, unemployment, and private disappointment. They carry the weight of being expected to provide, protect, perform, and remain composed while feeling increasingly disconnected from themselves and from the people closest to them.

Underneath that pressure are often painful questions:

  • Am I enough?

  • Do I matter apart from what I provide?

  • Would I still be valued if I failed?

  • Who am I if I am no longer the strong one, the provider, or the problem solver?

These questions cut to the core of identity.

One of the most painful realities many men live with is that they have been valued more for what they do than for who they are. When a man begins to believe that his worth depends entirely on productivity, income, usefulness, control, or resilience, vulnerability begins to feel dangerous. Failure becomes a threat to identity. Loss becomes humiliation. Need becomes shame. Yet a man’s worth does not begin when he finally proves himself. As Vincent van Gogh wrote, “If I am worth anything later, I am worth something now. For wheat is wheat, even if people think it is a grass in the beginning.” That is part of the tragedy many men live with: they have forgotten that worth is inherent, and started believing it must be merely earned.

Scott Galloway speaks directly about this crisis facing young men, the lack of role models, and the confusion many feel about masculinity, purpose, and how to build a meaningful life. His point is blunt: society will not flourish while young men are flailing. The language is different from the therapy room, but the concern is the same. Many men are trying to build identity around output and usefulness because they are not sure what else they are allowed to be.

And shame is one of the deepest wounds many men carry. Not guilt over something they have done, but shame about who they believe they are. Shame whispers, “You are not enough. You are weak. You are broken. You are behind. You are failing. You are unlovable.” It hides under anger, overwork, emotional numbness, silence, and the sentence many men have perfected: “I’m fine.”

But many are not fine. They are simply skilled at surviving without expression. Research supports this. In a 2025 systematic review, Leshata Winter Mokhwelepa and colleagues found that traditional masculinity norms consistently weaken men’s willingness to seek mental health support, especially where vulnerability is associated with weakness or loss of status. Data also suggests the stigma is reinforced socially: in a 2025 Norwegian study, 54% of men said they were unlikely to seek help from a psychologist for depressive symptoms, and both men and women underestimated men’s willingness to seek help in the first place.

Loneliness

Another theme that appears often is loneliness. Many men are not physically alone, but emotionally unknown. They may be surrounded by family, colleagues, church communities, or friends, yet still feel deeply unseen. In Kenya, male loneliness often does not look like isolation. It looks like a man who is constantly needed but rarely known, respected for what he carries but with little room to say that the load is becoming too heavy. He is functional and dependable, but emotionally unseen.

Research on masculinity and help-seeking reflects this tension: many men are shaped by expectations of toughness and self-reliance that make emotional openness feel costly. That emotional isolation is not harmless. Over time, it can create painful disconnection from self and others. Some men bury grief under work. Some bury fear under control. Some bury shame under achievement. Some bury longing under sarcasm, emotional detachment, or silence. From the outside, it can look like strength or indifference. In reality, it is often survival.

Identity and the Search for a Script

This is one reason I believe that many men are not merely struggling with emotions. They are also struggling with identity. Many men can no longer rely on the old script of manhood, but they have not been given a clear, healthier one either. As a result, some are left trying to piece together identity from fragments: achievement, image, status, dominance, online influence, or emotional detachment.

This wider confusion has been noted in cultural discussions about masculinity, including Louise Perry and Mary Harrington’s discussion of the “performative male epidemic.” Their point speaks to a broader concern: many boys and men are now shaped in a digital culture that rewards posturing, performance, and exaggerated gender scripts. A 2025 Common Sense Media report found that 69% of adolescent boys regularly encounter online masculinity content promoting problematic gender stereotypes, while a UCL-led report found that social media algorithms can rapidly amplify misogynistic and extreme gender content to teens.

That disorientation matters. Many men are no longer operating under old scripts, but they have not been given healthy new ones either. So they drift between silence, performance, resentment, compulsive self-improvement, emotional shutdown, and confusion about what a good man actually is.

Why Therapy Matters

This is why therapy can be helpful for men. Therapy can give something many have rarely experienced: a space where he does not have to perform strength. A space where he does not have to immediately fix, defend, minimize, or explain away what he feels. A space where grief can finally be named, fear acknowledged, shame brought into the open, and pain no longer forced to come out sideways through anger, addiction, withdrawal, or control.

And that is often where healing begins. One of the most transformative moments in therapy is when a man realizes that vulnerability is not weakness. It is courage. Real strength is not the absence of emotion. It is the ability to face emotion honestly, understand it clearly, and carry it responsibly.

Men do not need contempt. They do not need to be mocked for struggling. They do not need more pressure to look unbreakable. They need language. They need safety. They need honest connection. They need spaces where they can be formed, not merely judged. They need relationships where they can be known, not merely used. They need permission to stop carrying everything alone.

Conclusion

This Men’s Mental Health Awareness Month, we need to say something clearly: many men are not emotionless, detached, or indifferent. Many have simply spent years being trained to conceal what hurts. What looks like hardness is often protection. What looks like distance is often disappointment. What looks like anger is often pain that has never had a safe place to go.

Behind the mask, there is often a man who is tired of pretending.

And often, that is where the work begins.

References

  • Common Sense Media. (2025). Boys in the digital wild. https://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/research/report/2025-boys-in-the-digital-wild-report_for-web.pdf

  • Dickins, M. (2022, August 10). #511 - Max Dickins - Does anyone care about male loneliness? [Audio podcast episode]. In Modern Wisdom.

  • Galloway, S. (2025, October 30). #1013 - Scott Galloway - How to fix a culture of emasculated men [Audio podcast episode]. In Modern Wisdom.

  • Ministry of Health. (2023). Every suicide is a preventable tragedy: A need for an inter-sectoral public health approach to suicide prevention in Kenya [Policy brief]. Government of Kenya.

  • Mokhwelepa, L. W., Mofolo, N., & Peltzer, K. (2025). Men’s mental health matters: The impact of traditional masculinity norms on men’s willingness to seek mental health support, a systematic review of literature. American Journal of Men’s Health, 19(3).

  • Reeves, R. V. (2025, March 10). Richard Reeves | Rethinking the purpose of modern masculinity [Audio podcast episode]. In The Jordan Harbinger Show. Or keep the original Modern Wisdom episode too, but this Jordan Harbinger source is where the transcript-backed lines were easiest to verify.

  • Staiger, T., Stiawa, M., Mueller-Stierlin, A., Kilian, R., Krumm, S., Becker, T., & Pieta, A. (2020). Masculinity and help-seeking among men with depression: A qualitative study. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 11, 599039.

  • University College London. (2024, February 5). Social media algorithms amplify misogynistic content to teens. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2024/feb/social-media-algorithms-amplify-misogynistic-content-teens

  • World Health Organization. (2025, March 25). Suicide. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/suicide

Shamita Omote