I Don't Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression

by Terrence Real

many men would rather place themselves at risk than acknowledge distress, either physical or emotional. In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien gives a clear example of the force of men’s shame, when he remembers his fellow “grunts” in Vietnam: They carried their reputations. They carried the soldier’s greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to. It was what brought them to the war in the first place, nothing positive, no dreams of glory or honor, just to avoid the blush of dishonor. They crawled into tunnels and walked point and advanced under fire. They were too frightened to be cowards.

this young man had never developed the capacity to metabolize love, to take it in and make it his own.

The covertly depressed man, in contrast, relies on such external stimulants to rectify an inner baseline of shame.

The covertly depressed person cannot merely vault over the avoided pain directly into wholeness, as hard as he may try. The only real cure for covert depression is overt depression. Not until the man has stopped running, as David did for a moment that day in my office, or Thomas did when he let himself cry, can he grapple with the pain that has driven his behavior. This is why the “fix” of the compulsive defense never quite works. First, the covertly depressed man must walk through the fire from which he has run. He must allow the pain to surface. Then, he may resolve his hidden depression by learning about self-care and healthy esteem.