08/02/2026
There are important messages here. For all of us. Here a SaffCaff we understand that what saves us starts with a conversation, with sharing the weight and not being alone with our concerns.
It is still difficult for men especially to admit their vulnerability in a culture that appears to confuse silence with strength. There is a crisis in male mental health and the services that should support them are under huge pressure, but thankfully there are more and more grass roots organisations like Tough Talk, Andy's Man Club, Men in Sheds and various walk and talk groups available to fill the gaps.
In between all of these, there are opportunities for us all to support anyone struggling with their Mental Health.
Start a conversation.
Ask "How are you?"
Then ask again. "How are you really?" And listen. Really listen.
🤎 There are stories we inherit before we’re old enough to understand them.
Men in my life were taught to endure.
To carry.
To survive quietly.
My dad served in the forces and lives with PTSD. When I was still a child, he tried to leave this world three times. I remember the confusion more than the details. The way the air in the house changed. The way adults spoke in careful voices. The way strength suddenly looked fragile.
When the strongest man you know breaks, it reshapes you.
He survived. And today he is in a better place. But survival leaves echoes. It teaches you that love and fear can live in the same room. That silence can grow heavy. That pain doesn’t always look loud.
I grew up believing I had to be the steady one. The one who copes. The one who doesn’t add to the weight.
But unspoken things don’t disappear. They wait.
Years later, during my own storm, I reached the same edge I once watched him stand on. Twice I tried to step off it. Twice I believed the world might be lighter without me in it.
From the outside, nothing looked broken. That’s the part people misunderstand about despair. It can sit inside a functioning life. It can smile. It can answer messages. It can keep moving while quietly falling apart.
What saved me — what saved him — was not toughness. It was conversation. It was the moment silence cracked and someone stepped in.
Strength is not carrying everything alone.
Strength is letting yourself be seen.
That is why supporting Tough to Talk is not optional for me. It is personal. It is generational. It is a refusal to let men disappear behind the myth that they should handle it themselves.
Too many are still fighting battles in private rooms. Too many believe their pain is a personal failure instead of a human one.
If this story reaches you and something in it feels familiar, please know this: your mind can lie to you in very convincing ways. You are not a burden. You are not beyond help.
And you do not have to survive in silence.
And if you are in a place of steadiness right now, look around. Check on the strong ones. The dependable ones. The ones who never ask for anything. They are often carrying the most.
We speak because silence nearly took us.
We support Tough to Talk because conversation gives people back their lives.
And if sharing this cracks the door open for even one person to speak, then it is worth every word.
