men, mental health, and the world

Most men don’t come in saying they’re struggling.
Not usually.
They come in talking about work.

Or sex.
Or the way their partner is pulling away.
Or how they don’t understand why they feel numb all the damn time.

They talk about the business they’re building.
The deal that fell apart.
Being “off.” Being “tired.” Afraid of “being like my dad.”

My first instinct is to want to energetically, surgically take out the part of them that was told - explicitly or implicitly - that masculinity should be about direction, not doubt. But that’s not therapy, that’s just bad boundaries.

So instead, I work with men. Slowly, evenly, over time to arrive at their own truths.

Not as their fixer. Not as their coach.

Maybe like the father they never had.

But most certainly as their psychotherapist.

I sit across from them while they talk around the wound.

Sometimes it takes months. Sometimes it comes in a flood.

But almost always, eventually, name the thing.

What I hear, again and again, isn’t weakness.

It’s grief.

Grief for the kind of man they never got to become.

Grief for the intimacy they crave but don't know how to ask for.

Grief for how little room there’s been to be messy and still be loved.

Some of them are straight.
Some of them aren’t.
Some of them were raised by fathers who yelled.
Some were raised by mothers who needed them too much.
Some became the protector before their voice even changed.
Most of them are trying hard.
Harder than anyone sees.

I don’t have five steps to fix it.
This isn’t a coaching blog.
This is a real place. A quiet one.
Where men can say hard things out loud for the first time.
And not be corrected. Or taught. Or sent off with tools.

Just heard.

Heard and felt and met.