What does it mean to be a man? Also what does this have to do with Mental Health?
I was raised in a society that taught boys to become men of the house, they would be the bread winners so to speak, you were expected and still are to some extent expected to reach certain life milestones by some arbitrary age otherwise you are judged as being a failure or something must be terribly wrong with you.
When I was growing up I was surrounded by boys of an average height and build, you are more than likely wondering what that means, in my head it just meant to be the same as everyone else, something I was not, I was tiny, well below the average height for my age and as a 38 year old male I only stand at 5ft 6”, you wouldn’t think that as a grown man it really has much of an impact, but it does, you would be surprised at just how much too, when it gets brought up in conversation with peers they will say why do other people’s opinions matter, in the short term they don’t really, but it still sits at the back of your mind and slowly eats away.
My body is not built for manly tasks, I don’t have big muscles or a six pack, I am certainly not ‘ripped’ and for a long time that really got to me – I tried everything to change it, I went to the gym to try and become more of a man, more of what the societal image had fed me, just just be liked a little bit more but it didn’t matter how hard I tried I didn’t change. I just wanted to fit in, to be liked to be less judged even though I had no evidence from my adult life that I was being judged, but the school years had ingrained into my brain. The problem is, no matter how hard I tried, nothing did change – I went through the last 10 years thinking it must be me, there must be something wrong with me and that is the record I played myself.
But it isn’t me, we just live in a world that isn’t really designed for people that are different, that just don’t fit into that template the world has created and that is evident through my lived experience, nobody is the same, no two people are on the same path, but society wants everyone to be exactly the same and it is so damaging, it feeds the negative narrative which anxiety will often feed off, it will have and does have a negative impact on mental wellbeing.
If there is one thing to take away from this rambling, it is to be yourself no matter what, your life is precious don’t live it through the lens of someone else because you are beautiful and loved.