Inner child therapist and speaker at the Celebrating Strengths – Men’s Retreat, Melissa Day, shines a spotlight on men’s mental health. It offers eight reasons why men are hesitant, about seeking help for their mental and emotional health.
She explains: “Manning up, holding it together and denying emotions to keep going can be damaging and hold you back in everyday life, career, and relationships. To move forward, it’s important to do the inner work to help identify what and why you’re feeling the way you do.”
The rescuer
“I’m responsible for everyone else so I can’t seek support for myself…”.
If you believe that you are completely responsible for how someone else feels, this only leads to suffering. It is not the reality and what you’re doing is erasing that person’s capability, and this can result in you taking away another person’s feeling of empowerment, by making them dependent on you. It may seem a virtuous act but it’s, in fact, inauthentic.
The truth is, you are not completely responsible for how someone feels. Taking on this role can lead to an immense amount of stress and pressure. Their reliance on you to make them feel good so that you also feel good is destructive for both.
The scapegoat
“I’ll take the blame! – If I’m the key problem, then I don’t deserve help”.
Instead of confronting misdeeds, in adulthood, the scapegoat steps forward to take the blame, becoming hyper-responsible to maintain closeness and to feel a sense of virtuousness. It’s paramount to distinguish what is and isn’t yours, as you may become the enabler of other people not taking ownership and responsibility for their wrongdoings.
The earner
“I have to earn something to deserve something”.
Our receiving blocks are usually formed in childhood. This may have been because love that was given to us, was only shown based on conditions, such as having to achieve or earn something to be loved. This early learning shaped our understanding that love and receiving are negative.
This interpretation then influences our belief system that we have to earn something to deserve something, so if someone tries to give, this makes us distrust the motive behind it.
The unlovable
“I’m not worthy of help because I’m flawed”.
If we have difficulty in receiving help (which is a form of love), this usually indicates disbelief and mistrust towards a person’s motives. The armouring that we’ve created, stops us from being able to receive.
If our experience of love in our early years was not given unconditionally, then we can grow up not recognising actual love when it’s staring us in the face. By being mistreated or having love based on conditions as a child, our ingrained belief is that we can’t be loveable just as we are because, on some level, we feel flawed based on the treatment received.
The lone wolf
“I resist help because you will see me as weak”.
People who can’t receive, block any notion of help. They refuse to ask for it as they distrust everyone around them and feel that it’s them against the world and that to do or have something, they have to do it alone. They don’t often see help when it’s being offered but if they do, they will seek holes in it. They will try to reveal that the intention behind it, is not pure and a way to illustrate that they are not capable of doing it alone.
The shielded
“It’s not safe to let anyone in”.
In our early years, if we have experienced trauma, pain or anything uncomfortable in our environment, ‘armouring’ is developed. Armouring is a shutting down of our energy system in order to shield and defend us from people and the world around us so we are not open or receptive to others.
It can play a role in helping a child, use what mechanisms they can to protect themselves emotionally; however, as they transition into adulthood, this armouring can play havoc with relationships.
The denier
“My story isn’t that bad, so I can manage on my own”.
Where suffering is dismissed, this can be a result of coming from a place of denial, a survival mechanism. The root can come from a need for acceptance by, for example, the family who caused the suffering and therefore, the trauma is buried.
It could simply stem from someone not believing that what they experienced was “that bad” because they are comparing themselves to someone else. Remember, no one’s experience is qualified to be any more or less important. We all have unique experiences to us.
The excuser
“I play a hand in my trauma, so I shouldn’t ask for help”.
Not addressing where (or who) the trauma came from can result in people blaming themselves, as they did in childhood, which, in turn, excuses a parent or caregiver for abusive or neglectful behaviour. FOG (fear, obligation and guilt): parenting practices that are based on these, can also mean that the adult self now, is reluctant to identify who the responsibility lies with. Some people resist the truth about their parents, which can come from a place of idealising them.
