Ream Mean Don't Have Mental Illness

Real Men Don't Have Mental Illness– By Sam Priestley

As a man who never got sick and declared he didn’t have time for it, a member of
my family, who I shan’t name, had a hard time accepting that he had a problem. Not
only was illness a sign of weakness to him, but emotions were particularly tricky and
best avoided. They certainly shouldn’t be put on display at all. He was like a lot of
men, I supposed.

But as it turned out it was much more than that, and there’s only so long a person
can keep a lid on psychological difficulties, no matter how hard they try.

We were in our early twenties and on a family holiday when one night he confided in
me. I’m sure he didn’t mean to and it just came out, probably because he’d let it go
for so long without saying a word to anyone, if he didn’t speak about it soon it would
completely take over his life.

He started crying for no reason, or none that I could see. Because of the type of man
he was I found this quite alarming and knew there must be something very wrong.
He told me he had no idea what was wrong with him, other than that he was sure he
was going mad. He said he was having terrible thoughts, uncontrollable, black
thoughts, and the more he tried to rid his mind of them, the more they persisted.

I have to admit I was scared. We’d all like to think that when faced with a family
member in distress we’d do our best to comfort them, but problems of the mind are
things other people can’t see and have no way of knowing how to deal with.

I did my best. I comforted him and made him promise to speak to a doctor, which I’
m happy to say he did.

He was told he was experiencing intrusive thoughts, something I had never heard of
before.

It’s hard to explain to people who have never suffered with such a problem just what
this is, but it seems he was incapable of controlling his darkest thoughts. I believe
this can be much more problematic for some people, leading them to be convinced
they are capable of the most terrible things, and sometimes even believing they have
done those things. This is perhaps why it scares others so much. It’s hard to draw a
line between a thought and an act. But intrusive thoughts are just that and they stay
where they are. They are thoughts.

He was sent to a support group and offered plenty of help. Thankfully, as his case
was a relatively mild one, no further action was needed.

Years on, I think the man I’m speaking of still finds his problem a difficult thing to
admit to. He knows that people won’t understand and he’s still ashamed of it. He’s
learned how to control the thoughts and how to live with it, but it will always be
there. Added to all that is the extra dimension of him being a man. He won’t allow
himself to appear weak in any way. Although he now knows it isn’t true, he still
keeps up the pretence that men, real men, just don’t get ill. And they certainly don’t
suffer with problems of the mind.

~ Sam Priestley