The Enemy Within: How Men Are Trapped by Their Own Rules

Let’s be real, too many men are struggling quietly, dangerously.

Not because no one cares. Not because there’s no help. But because we’ve been trained to suffer in silence.

From a young age, boys are told: Be strong. Toughen up. Never cry. Always be in control.
And those boys grow into men carrying pain they’ve never been allowed to name, let alone heal.

But you know this. Too well. This script is familiar. It’s been handed down as culture, as pride, as manhood.

The problem is these rules are killing men. Emotionally. Mentally. Sometimes physically.

And what makes it worse? Men keep enforcing these rules for each other.

It’s not just society. It’s your boys. Your uncle. Your pastor. Your gym buddy. It’s your own inner voice.

Every time a man tries to break free, to speak up, to feel, to ask for help, there’s a voice waiting to shame him back into the cage.

I’m guilty of it too. I’ve rolled with it. I’ve laughed off what I should’ve questioned. Sometimes I find the courage to speak, to reflect, to challenge it. Other times, I shrink and play along.

But recently, I’ve been sitting alone more. Thinking. Listening.

And when I replay what we say to each other, how we mock, dismiss, and police each other, it sounds insane.

Suicide rates among men. Disturbing.

Yes, life is hard for men. But it’s hard for everyone too.

Sometimes I think of what women go through, the violence, the abandonment, the inequality, and yet they’re not ending their lives in the same numbers.

This isn’t a contest. But if we’re the ones dying more by suicide, it’s not just because life is unfair.
It’s because we’re doing something wrong. There’s something about how we deal with pain or don’t, that’s clearly broken.

We talk a lot about how women don’t understand us. That they don’t care about men’s mental health.
That they laugh when we open up or walk away when we show weakness. That be as it is, it’s not their job to save us. It’s ours.

We are the ones who’ve locked each other into silence. We’re the ones who mock therapy. Who turn pain into banter. Who turn tears into shame.

If men are struggling, and they are, then the first line of defence has to be other men. Not women.
Not social media. Not a future partner who’ll magically understand us.

Us.

We need to be the ones creating safety. We need to be the ones normalizing honesty.
We need to stop shaming each other and start showing up for one another, in healthy sustainable ways that do not reinforce running away from our problems.

We want women to validate our pain, but we don’t validate theirs. We want them to hold space for us, when we’ve never done the same for them. We want them to help us heal, while we sit back and call their emotions “too much.”

Let’s be honest, they’ve stopped waiting for us.
They’re learning to put themselves first. To protect their peace. To grow. And rightfully so.

We can’t keep expecting them to do the emotional labour we’ve refused to do ourselves.
Men need to save themselves. And each other.

Because if we don’t let go of the voices that shame us when we try to grow, we won’t make it.

Voices that say:

“Hard times create strong men”

Lazy thinking. You don’t need to suffer in silence to be worthy.
You don’t live in a warzone, you live in relationships, jobs, communities.

We don’t need men hardened by pain. We need men healed enough not to pass pain on.

“Men are naturally less emotional than women.”

Nope. Boys are emotional, until society tells them not to be.
It’s not nature. It’s conditioning. You were trained out of feeling. You can train yourself back into it.
And you owe it to your sons not to repeat the pattern.

“Life is not kind to weak men.”

True. Life is hard. But bottling emotions doesn’t make you strong, it makes you emotionally volatile.
The strongest men are the ones who face themselves honestly and aren’t ruled by what they hide.

If we love facts and stats, here’s one: Most mass shooters in recent years? Male.
Emotions suppressed too long don’t disappear, they explode.

“Women will lose respect if I open up.”

Some might. That’s on them. But there are women, and men, who respect emotional maturity, not emotional shutdown.

And let’s be clear: There’s a difference between vulnerability and emotional immaturity.
Venting on Facebook isn’t opening up. Talking to your boys, your therapist, your partner, that’s where it starts.

“Men are providers. That’s our role. Feelings are a luxury.”

So, your only value is your bank account? That’s not manhood. That’s a transaction.

You don’t stop being a man when you rest. You stop being human when you refuse to feel.

Yes, feelings don’t pay bills but suppressing them might cost you everything else.

“Talking about it won’t fix it.”

Silence won’t either. Talking doesn’t solve everything, but it starts something.
It gives clarity. Relieves pressure. Makes the struggle visible. And in that visibility, change becomes possible.

“My father never talked about emotions and turned out fine.”

Did he? Or did he just survive?

Did he raise you with presence or just with rules?

We worship silence as if it was strength, but a lot of our fathers passed down trauma, not tools.

We can stop that cycle. Right now. With us.

“Mental health is a Western concept.”

No. Pain is not foreign. Stress, trauma, burnout, those don’t respect continents.

What’s foreign is the refusal to heal. Silence isn’t culture. It’s a wound.

“Therapy is for weak men.”

Therapy is for men who want to stop lying to themselves.

You go to the gym for your body, therapy is a gym for your mind.

If facing yourself makes you weak, what does hiding make you?

“No one really cares about men’s mental health.”

That silence you’re sitting in? Millions of men are in it too.

But no one knows you’re struggling if you never say it out loud.

You want to change the culture? Be the first one in your circle to say something real.
That’s how it starts, not with a campaign, but with a conversation.

Final Thoughts: What’s the Cost of Staying Silent?

You can keep pretending.
You can keep laughing off the pain, drinking through the stress, and performing the part.
But eventually, the weight becomes too much.

And when it crashes, it doesn’t fall quietly.

It ruins relationships.
It damages your kids.
It breaks your peace.
It eats you from the inside out.

Being a man doesn’t mean being emotionless.
It means being responsible, and part of that responsibility is taking care of your mind, your heart, and your peace.

If your version of masculinity is slowly killing you,
then maybe it’s time to stop defending it.