Breaking The Silence: Why Men need to reach out !

Breaking the Silence: Why Men Need to Reach Out
By Eytan Woolfson: Clinical Psychologist Registrar

"What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal." – Viktor E. Frankl

For years, I’ve sat across from men who are hurting. Not just from trauma or stress, but from the silent weight of stigma — the belief that asking for help is weakness, that emotions are something to "man up" from. It’s a message many of us absorbed young: don’t cry, don’t talk, don’t need.

But silence is not strength. It's a slow erosion.

I often use the metaphor of a pressure valve. Imagine a boiler with no release — it keeps working, silently containing more and more pressure, until eventually it bursts. That’s what happens when men suppress anger, sadness, fear. The system breaks. Sometimes through burnout. Sometimes through addiction. Sometimes through rage or withdrawal. The damage doesn’t just affect the man — it ripples outward into relationships, families, and futures.

Reaching out — whether to a friend, a therapist, or simply admitting you're struggling — is not failure. It's maintenance. It’s stepping into strength that is honest, not hollow. It’s how we model emotional courage for our sons, our brothers, our mates.

In therapy, I’ve seen men discover that the very things they feared — vulnerability, shame, grief — were actually keys to deeper connection, resilience, and freedom.

Being a man doesn’t mean going it alone. It means knowing when to speak, when to listen, and when to let someone walk beside you.

You don’t have to carry it all. You were never meant to.