The Massive Strength of Vulnerable Men
Don’t believe the hype that ignoring your mental health and keeping your problems inside is manly
The year 2020, in many ways, feels like Tetris on repeat. I’ve attempted to masterfully maneuver the blocks of my mental health, faith, job performance, and physical safety into alignment. Even when I lack the insight to do so alone, the blocks continue to collide, and the “Game Over” jingle continues to play as this year throws more obstacles at me than I could ever attempt to manage.
When I run through the list of tragedies — losing Kobe and Gianna Bryant along with seven others on that overcast January morning, the Covid-19 pandemic, the altercation in Kenosha, Wisconsin that paralyzed Jacob Blake and claimed the lives of two more, and the death of the inimitable real-life superhero Chadwick Boseman — it’s enough to make the most resolute person experience vertigo.
In May, George Floyd’s death hit me so hard I had to sit down when I heard the news of an officer kneeling on his neck for over eight minutes. Group texts to my boys did not yield much relief. So I buried it deep in my soul, laying Floyd’s memory in my mental mausoleum beside Pac and Nip. As a psychology student, I know compartmentalization is unhealthy. But as a Black man in America, I also know…
