My Story

I went to college to become a therapist. That was the dream. I wanted to help people,especially men,heal, grow, and thrive. I wanted to be the safe space. The steady hand. The good listener. I spent six years at Eastern Michigan University chasing that dream, and I even helped pioneer the Human Sexuality minor along the way,a program built off a curriculum I designed myself.

Although I’m Black and gay and fat and poor and have mental disabilities and just an odd duck overall, my mind isn’t vigilant for prejudice or exclusion. I go places where I’m the only one quite often. Always have. Mommy taught me I belong where I am, and you’re not going to tell me she’s wrong. But in the 80 or so credit hours of psychology classes from 101 all the way through 500 level, not a single credit hour was available to study the psychology or sexual health of men.

Everything I’ve learned about male psychology,about suicide, risk-taking, self-destruction, sacrifice motivation, parental alienation, and more,came after college. That’s not dramatics or hyperbole. I graduated from psychology undergrad and didn’t know any of it. The absence of that knowledge sat on my soul. It was a silence so loud it made me realize that, for once, my mother was wrong. I didn’t belong there. Not in that program. Not in that system. Even though I definitely belonged in the field of helping people live better. I just had to find my own way.

That’s why I didn’t become a therapist. And why, to this day, I would never recommend traditional talk therapy to most men.

I’m not a therapist. I’m a sexual psychologist and communicator. And even though I’ve had excellent male therapists myself,and I still believe in therapy generally,what I’ve seen, what I lived, and what I hear from men every day tells me the truth: this system wasn’t built for us.

It was never ours to begin with.

A System Built for Talking, Not Doing

Every June, Mental Health Awareness Month rolls around with the usual suspects: pastel infographics, “reach out” campaigns, and a mountain of well-meaning advice that sounds more like nagging than nourishment. And every year, men die. Men suffer. Men implode. Not because we’re too proud to seek help,but because the help wasn’t designed for us in the first place.

Let’s say it plainly:

According to national survey data, nearly 70% of people who seek talk therapy are women. In contrast, men make up only about 30% of therapy clients, despite facing similar or greater rates of suicide, substance abuse, and untreated mental health conditions. This massive disparity isn’t just about stigma or reluctance. It points to a fundamental mismatch between what’s offered and what’s effective for masculine minds.

Modern mental health care is built for the female psyche, not the masculine one.

The overwhelming majority of therapists, counselors, and social workers are women. So are the instructors who trained them. And their instructors. The entire discipline of modern therapy,from psychodynamic approaches (talking about childhood and unconscious motivations) to CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy),is rooted in a worldview that mirrors the female emotional experience.

That’s not an insult. It’s a biological and social reality. Estrogen-heavy bodies, particularly during key phases of the menstrual cycle, are more likely to experience emotional dysregulation, sadness, and anxiety. 

"Women had higher depressive symptoms than men, and depressive symptoms decreased with age, with significant differences between the older age group." https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2011.06.012

For many women, talking actually helps. It calms them. It reorganizes emotional chaos. It soothes the nervous system.

But men? Talking doesn’t usually soothe us.

In fact, a study of nearly 14,000 Australian men found that those who met the minimum physical activity guidelines of 150 minutes per week were significantly less likely to experience moderate to severe depressive symptoms. Every additional hour of activity offered even more protection. This suggests that movement isn't just a health booster—it’s a direct form of emotional regulation for men. Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31539676

Sitting still and dissecting feelings doesn't come naturally.
Being vulnerable with a stranger under fluorescent lights doesn’t make us feel safe.
It makes us feel weak, confused, and worse than when we walked in.

That’s not dysfunction.
That’s masculinity.

And the evidence is nowhere more damning than in the treatment of American soldiers. These are men who gave their minds and bodies in service to this country. They are arguably the most valuable human resources we have. Yet our solutions for their trauma,decades of clinical trials, institutional restructuring, and funding,have consistently failed them. Suicide, addiction, risk taking behaviors, domestic violence (as a perpetrator and victim), and homelessness run rampant in their ranks.

If we can't save the men we claim to honor, protect, and revere, then we are not serious about men’s mental health. Period.

And we cannot ignore testosterone,the hormone most associated with masculinity. Higher testosterone levels are linked to lower activity in the parts of the brain involved in verbal expression and emotional processing. Meanwhile, men show increased activity in areas tied to spatial reasoning, competitive focus, and goal orientation.

This doesn’t mean men aren’t emotional. It means our emotions move through different channels,competition, solitude, problem-solving. For us, doing often is feeling.

So asking a man to sit down and "just open up",without giving him purpose, movement, or structure,is like asking someone to swim without water. It’s not just ineffective; it’s disorienting.

Now, with all that said, let me be clear: I am a proponent of therapy in general. I’ve had great experiences with male therapists who understood how I think. But even in those cases, once I got on the right medication and stabilized, I didn’t really need therapy,I needed people. I needed friends and family who I could open up to. A community. A support system. Still, that’s not always available. Sometimes it’s easier to hire someone to care.

READ: Why I'm going back to therapy. 

So yes, therapy can be useful to men,but only if they’re willing to be the captains of their own care. You can’t just show up and hope someone saves you. You have to train the therapist in how to help you. Tell them what you want, why you're there, and how you need to be supported. Sadly, most therapists have never been taught how to work with masculine brains. So you may need to show them.

What Men Actually Need

Here’s the real cheat code to male mental health: **Men don’t need to process emotions. They need to **move through them. Emotion isn’t meant to be held and studied like a butterfly under glass. For men, it's fire,it needs to burn, to move, to act.

Men thrive in:

• Mentorship Structures , One-on-one with a wiser man and one-on-one with someone who needs your wisdom. Both roles matter.

• Purposeful Projects , A garden. A motorcycle. A plan. A spreadsheet. A child. A challenge. Something that doesn’t just exist, but progresses.

• Bros with Benefits , And I don’t mean sex (though that too, if that’s your thing). I mean physical closeness. Roughhousing. Fighting. Joking. Silence. Shared space. Hell, even letting your papa give you a kiss on the forehead. 

• Movement-Based Healing , Lifting heavy. Running hard. Playing something. Letting your aggression be useful.

• Mission-Driven Living , Men need to feel useful. Whether that’s God, family, freedom, brotherhood, art, or country, we need to matter.

• Stability at Home , A space that doesn’t drain you. A home that reflects your vision. Some kind of peace inside your four walls.

None of that is found in a therapist’s office. And none of that is abnormal, unhealthy, or wrong. In fact, for men, it’s the only path to sustainable mental health.

Distraction ≠ Healing

Here’s the trap: most men know this intuitively. But instead of building the life that would sustain them, they grab quick hits of dopamine. Video games. Porn. Booze. Endless “just one more episode.” Distraction, not movement. Suppression, not expression.

And they wonder why they still feel hollow.

When a man gets even one hour a day of real presence,focused action, real connection, or deep stillness,his nervous system starts fixing itself. The brain wants to heal. But it can’t do it in the middle of static. It can’t do it while numbing out.

Where Do We Go from Here?

We need more than awareness.
We need a new model for men’s mental health.

Therapy might work for some men, like me, especially if the therapist is action-oriented, male, and understands how to talk in our language. But for most of us, the healing will not come from sitting across from a woman asking, “And how did that make you feel?”

Instead, it’s going to come from:

• Rebuilding brotherhood

• Creating purpose

• Finding movement, meaning, and mentorship

If we want to save men, we have to stop feminizing their healing.
We need to give men what actually works,not what makes others feel comfortable.

And if you're a man reading this, wondering where to start,start with one. Find one place where you can sweat, focus, build, or laugh with other men. Add one new ritual that brings peace to your home. Offer one piece of advice to a younger man. Ask one question you’ve been afraid to ask.

It doesn’t have to be everything. But it does have to begin.

You’re Not Broken. The System Is.

If you’re a man who’s felt like therapy didn’t help, like nothing “works,” like you’re losing the battle in silence,it’s not because you’re broken.

It’s because you were never given tools that fit your hands.
But you can build them.
You just need other men,and a reason to light the forge.