Reality
A lot of men don't reach out when they're struggling because they've been taught to keep it together, swallow it down, and handle their problems themselves.
I've spent years not being able to open up about what's going on inside my head. Years of keeping things bottled up, putting on a face, going to work, taking care of everyone else, and pretending I was okay when I wasn't.
Then I finally started trying to open up. I finally started saying out loud that I'm struggling, that I'm depressed, that I'm not okay. And honestly, that wasn't easy for me. It took a lot to let somebody see that side of me.
So when I finally do open up and that vulnerability gets misunderstood—or gets thrown back in my face during the next argument—it makes me question why I ever opened up in the first place.
I'm not looking for sympathy or for someone to fix everything. I just want to be able to say “I'm not okay” without having it turned into ammunition later.
Because that's how men end up shutting down again.
The next time we're hurting, we don't say anything. We go quiet. We say we're tired. We bury it deeper. We convince ourselves that keeping everything inside is safer than letting someone see how bad things really are.
From the outside, it can look like we don't want help.
Sometimes the truth is that we wanted help. We finally reached out after years of silence, and when it didn't feel safe, we learned to keep it inside again.
I've spent years unable to open up about any of this. And now that I've finally started trying, having it come back at me during a fight hurts in a way that's hard to explain.
Men aren't weak because they're struggling. They're not weak because they finally admit they need somebody.
Sometimes the strongest thing a man can do is finally say, “I'm not okay.”
What we need is to know that when we finally say those words, they won't be used against us the next time we're vulnerable.