Celebrity Inner Child Therapist lists eight reasons why men feel hesitant to seek help for their mental health
– Mental Health Awareness Week – 15th – 21st May 2023 –
As we enter Mental Health Awareness Week, celebrity inner child therapist and speaker at the Celebrating Strengths – Men’s Retreat, Melissa Day shines a spotlight on men’s mental health and offers eight reasons why men are hesitant, about seeking help for their mental and emotional health. She explains that manning up, holding it together and denying emotions, to keep going can be damaging and can 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.
Reason 1 – 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.
Reason 2 – 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.
Reason 3 – The Earner
“I have to earn something, in order 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 in order 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, in order to deserve something so if someone tries to give, this makes us distrust the motive behind it.
Reason 4 – The Unlovable
“I’m not worthy of help because I’m flawed.”
If we have a difficulty in receiving help (which is a form of love), this usually indicates a 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.
Reason 5 – 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 are distrusting of everyone around them and feel that it’s them against the world and that in order 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.
Reason 6 – 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.
Reason 7 – The Denier
“My story isn’t that bad so I can manage on my own.”
Where suffering is dismissed, this can be as a result of coming from a place of denial, a survival mechanism. The root can come from a need of 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.
Reason 8 – 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, like 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.
Melissa Day, Inner Child Therapist and speaker at the Celebrating Strengths – Men’s Retreat commented “Some men have convinced themselves that their feelings are not valid. Numbing themselves to their emotional experience can be extremely damaging and can hold them back in everyday life, career and relationships. It’s vital that they free themselves from emotional and mental behavioural and thought patterns by doing the inner work. Being proactive about their emotional, mental, physical and spiritual health, is the epitome of putting the term self-love into action.”
Celebrating Strengths – Men’s Retreat
Melissa Day is one of a number of experts, sharing her expertise at the Celebrating Strengths – Men’s Retreat.
The all-male retreat focuses on enabling self-insight and empowerment. Learning points will cover the psychology of self-development and personality, including strengths psychology. The retreat will combine Inner Child Therapy and Shadow Work. Learning how to reconnect with your inner child and re-parent yourself, is a powerful and quick technique to free you from emotional and mental issues, that are not serving your highest good and purpose. The retreat will explore what healthy masculinity means and shine a spotlight on the masculine and feminine energies that reside in us all, in order to tap into the innate power of both. This will help you lead an even more fulfilling and authentic expression of who you are.
This retreat is designed to empower you, with greater knowledge of the “psychology of the mind”, as well as focusing on the importance of spiritual health. Combining both is the bridge that forms optimum health and well-being.
Featured Photo by Tom Pumford on Unsplash
