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Promoting Men’s Mental Wellness With Onyango Otieno
Onyango Otieno (Rixpoet) is a trauma coach, writer, poet, mental health advocate, podcaster, and healthy masculinity ambassador. He centers on African Masculinity and its role in ensuring gender equality and equity, especially championing African men’s involvement in sexual and reproductive health and rights.
This is what he has to say concerning men’s mental wellness. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity;
What are the various ways in which trauma manifests in men?
Many men, including myself, have a tendency to isolate themselves. This is just one way that trauma can manifest. Other common signs include irritability, anger, violence, substance abuse and difficulties at work or in relationships. Its tough for some men to open up and express their emotions, which can also be a symptom of trauma manifestation.
Why do you think it’s hard for men to talk about their feelings?
It’s hard because your performance as a man is connected to your dignity, both individually and as a society. The society dictates how an individual operates in the community. These gender roles that men have been given are connected to their dignity, and you often feel if you don’t articulate those perceptions of performance, then you are less of a man and no man wants to feel that way.
How do we create safe spaces for men?
We have to interrogate ways in which men have been abandoned since they were children. You were told to be a man from such a young age. There are forms in which men have been abandoned since a young age, for example being told not to cry because you are a man. We have many men walking out here damaged and they don’t even know what’s going on inside them. Our bodies have been vandalized for such a long time such that they don’t wanna talk about their problems because they don’t want people to take advantage of them. So as a society we have to start from the roots. My advocacy is, men should start seeing each other as people. We need to start focusing on community support, and this starts by men humanizing each other first.
What’s the ultimate guide to overcoming trauma and depression?
The first thing is to start by opening up, which is one of the most hardest things for most of us. Before that you can start by engaging with your body, by either exercising or just leaving the house. The next step would be talking to somebody. One thing I’ve realized, especially from women, is that when men are going through problems, they want solutions while women just talk about the problem without necessarily expecting a solution. Opening up clears up your head and even gives you that space to think about solutions.
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