For about 30 years, from the age of 13, I suffered bouts of depression. A little less than ten years ago, I opened up about this when working as a tutor. One of my students trying to become a counsellor needed a case study for assignment. I recorded a 15 minute monologue on the subject. It was then that I decided I needed help.

I talked to a male friend who told me I was in luck as the WA men's gathering was just coming up. I got the last available place. For me, it was an intense weekend, opening up in a safe environment with other men.

Since then, I have not had a single bout of depression (they used to come several times a year.) In fact, I feel like a person who has overcome a life threatening illness; I appreciate every day and sometimes the smallest of things fills me with joy.

Now there are other factors involved; reading The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle would be one, finding a special woman for a wife etc. But basically, the change has come from inside and is to the credit of the support from the men's gathering.

While the purpose of this subreddit is fundamentally political, I urge all men to join or found men's support groups. We do not need to cower before women hoping they will accept us for what we are when we try to express our feelings. By and large, women know that, despite telling us they want us to be more sensitive (actually they want us to be more sensitive to their wants), they are happy wielding power, which they retain with vicious put-downs if we do express ourselves from the heart. By talking about our feelings among ourselves we will attain the power they have always had. That power has political ramifications, but the first step is to know our strength and ourselves from within.

The essence of support groups revolves around a few principles:

  1. The person talking must not be interrupted.
  2. Participants talk about themselves, not the objective world, not sport, not work. Not situations. How they feel about situations yes, the situations themselves, no. Not movies, not politics, not philosophy: how you feel.
  3. The person talking will not be criticised. Feedback will only be provided if the speaker requests it. Even then, when concrete advice is required it is best provided outside the group, since such discussion puts participants back in the world of problem solving, not the world of personal evolution.
  4. What is said within the group stays within the group and everyone formally acknowledges this contract at the beginning of each session.

PS If you ever feel suicidal, I urge you to talk about it to someone immediately. Do not wait till your next bout of depression is on you. Do it now. Contact the Samaritans, a counsellor, a doctor, a religious officer if you are a person of the faith or even random strangers or make anonymous posts on the Internet. You, like everyone else, deserve to be heard and this is true even if you have been viciously crushed with tales that real men don't cry. Real men don't take crap from people telling them whether they can cry or not.