men's mental health awareness series 5
When boys become men without becoming whole
Dearest Gentle Reader,
There is a gap in many men’s lives that no one wants to talk about.
This gap is a space between who they had to become and who they might have been if someone had nurtured their emotional development with care.
It’s not just trauma that creates this gap, though trauma certainly plays a role. It’s the absence of tools, language, and permission to explore their inner world.
Boys grow up in environments where emotional literacy is not taught, encouraged, or modelled.
They are told to be brave, but rarely taught how to process fear.
They are told to be leaders, but never taught how to manage conflict with emotional intelligence.
And so, they grow up incomplete because no one gave them the ingredients for wholeness.
What happens when such boys become men?
They learn to survive, of course.
Many become providers. They take on responsibilities. They achieve milestones. They learn to push through pain and keep going.
But survival is not the same as wholeness. Right?
A man can be functional and fragmented at the same time. He can raise children while silently carrying the wounds of his own childhood. He can give love and still be afraid of intimacy. Such a man can work hard and still feel unworthy.
When emotional development is stunted, men often struggle to name what they feel, let alone share it.
They may lash out without knowing why, or shut down when connection is needed most.
They may pursue success relentlessly, thinking it will quiet the ache inside, only to find that the emptiness lingers.
It’s not that they are heartless or cold. It’s that they never learned how to inhabit their own hearts safely. They’ve spent a lifetime compartmentalising emotions, stuffing them into mental storage rooms they rarely enter. Those rooms, often, are filled with confusion, grief, unmet needs, unsatisfied desires, and unspoken fears.
Apparently, wholeness cannot be achieved through silence.
Wholeness begins with unlearning. It begins with giving men the language to say, “I don’t know what I’m feeling, but I want to understand.”
Wholeness begins with relationships that do not demand emotional perfection but instead invite emotional honesty.
I wish every man could revisit the boy he once was, to offer him compassion, and to grow into the man he was always meant to be—not just competent, but complete.
Whole.
— Jaachịmmá Anyatọnwụ
Read Issue 1: Why Don't Men Cry?
Read Issue 2: Tough Doesn't Mean Numb
Read Issue 3: The Armour Called “I'm Fine”
Read Issue 4: "Man Enough” is a Performance of Masculinity