Opinion | Mvume Ndime
Every June, Men’s Mental Health Awareness Month encourages conversations around emotional wellbeing, vulnerability and seeking help. Yet, once the month ends, those conversations often disappear just as quickly as they began.
In this opinion piece, Mvume Ndime reflects on why awareness without action means very little, why so many men continue to reject emotional accountability, and how his own experiences shaped his belief that taking care of your mental health is one of the strongest things a man can do.
The month came and went
So Men’s Mental Health Awareness Month has come and gone, and as we all know, most men have done nothing about it.
I chose to wait until the end of June to share my thoughts on the matter because, first, I wanted to see if the men of South Africa had done anything or made any efforts to work towards making the month actually worth observing and second… I really have one strong feeling on the topic of men’s mental health, which I’ll share later.
Anyways, the month is over and nothing happened. We marched against illegal immigration, we saw the start of the FIFA World Cup, we Father’s Day-ed, but nothing was really said on the topic of men’s mental health.
The contradiction many men refuse to face
Often men will tell you that “I don’t have issues” within earshot of their freshly beaten wives. They’ll tell you “I’m just tired” with a date circled on their calendar for when they wish to commit suicide. They’ll tell you “Talking about your feelings is for women” as they vividly fantasise about murdering their entire family before taking their own lives.
“Men are problem solvers!” said the gender responsible for over 80% of deaths by suicide in this country.
We blame women, the kids, the economy, our jobs, illegal foreigners, other races. It doesn’t matter. We will find someone to blame for our actions before we take a beat and examine the root cause of our emotional outbursts.
We claim to be rational and not emotional as we run through the streets, screaming at people we don’t know and accusing them of ruining our lives. We are Schrรถdinger’s “fixer”, believing wholeheartedly that we will find a solution to the problem while refusing to actually acknowledge the real problem at hand.
Awareness means nothing without action
While many private organisations attempt to make efforts to acknowledge June as Men’s Mental Health Awareness Month, the onus is still on us as men to actually look ourselves in the mirror and make meaningful steps to acknowledge our shortcomings and do something about them.
I think of the late Jayden Adams, a promising young footballer who, at the tender age of 25, was found dead in his home following a truly historic FIFA World Cup 2026, being part of the first-ever generation of Bafana Bafana players to make it out of the group stages of the tournament while also playing domestically for the richest club in South Africa.
I will not feed into any of the rumours surrounding his death, but I will say categorically that better emotional awareness and regulation could have made a difference. Whether his life ended by his own hand or by the hand of another, therapy, whether for him or for someone else, may have changed the outcome. Sadly, all the accolades, fame and success mean nothing if you’re not taking care of yourself mentally and emotionally.
I think of a post I saw on X following England’s elimination from the FIFA World Cup that simply read:
“It wasn’t meant to be… but if you are a victim of domestic abuse tonight, call the following number…”
Imagine that for a moment. People anticipated that some men, after watching a football team lose, would turn to their spouses and children and solve the problem of their sadness, frustration and anger with violence.
We’ve become so good at normalising dysfunction that we scoff at the prospect of therapy as a tool to maintain and improve our everyday lives and relationships.
My one strong opinion
I say all this to say that my one and only strong feeling about men’s mental health is this:
Go get some therapy.
Stop lying to yourself saying, “Therapy won’t work for me.” Stop lying saying, “My culture won’t allow me to.”
The most manly thing a man can do is acknowledge a problem, confront it, put a corrective action in place and follow through. That all starts with taking yourself to therapy.
I advocate for men taking their mental health into their own hands and will always believe in the power of tools such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT).
Your mind needs servicing too
I firmly believe your body is no different from your car.
You don’t only service the car when something is wrong. You service the car so that if something is wrong, you can identify it and repair it early, before it breaks down completely.
In this country, where we’re ranked among the highest in the world for suicide rates, many of us are driving around thousands of kilometres overdue for a service.
Many of us have proverbially worn through tyres at alarming rates and, rather than sorting out our wheel alignment, we’re simply buying new tyres over and over again.
Your mind can be your greatest weapon or your greatest weakness.
The wounds we carry on our bodies heal and scar over, but the wounds on our minds don’t heal on their own. Those wounds need attention, and if we don’t give them the right kind of attention, we’ll forever bleed on people who never cut us.
Why I believe this
I’d like to end by explaining where my feelings on this topic came from.
In 2016, I lost my younger sister in a hit-and-run accident in Grahamstown, now Makhanda. I was the unlucky soul who had to identify her body at the morgue. I was in my early twenties when that happened.
I didn’t go to therapy.
Instead, I threw myself into my education and women. My focus was graduating, sleeping around and making my mom proud.
Then, in 2021, my mother passed away in her home following an epileptic seizure. I had to break into her house because she’d left her key in the door and I couldn’t get inside. I found her lying in the passage.
I tried to work my way through it.
I tried to drink my way through it.
I tried to sleep my way through it.
But no matter what I did, I couldn’t find peace.
I was on track for either an arrest or an untimely death of my own before my employer sat me down and, to his credit, was honest with me.
“You’re not yourself,” he said. “You’re trying to work through this, but it’s not working.”
He gave me the contact details of a therapist and told me my medical aid would cover it.
I advocate for therapy not because I’m better than men who don’t go.
I advocate for it because another man recognised himself in my anguish and reached out to help.
I see myself in young men who are crying out for help but calling it a personality.
I see myself in men who are tormented by the silence of their own thoughts, so they drown those thoughts out with substances.
I, too, have said, “I’ll figure it out,” while quietly contemplating ending my own life.
The biggest lesson therapy ever taught me was this:
The people who love you want to help you.
You’d be surprised how much love and support appears when you take the first step and simply ask.
Editor’s Note: The views and opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views or editorial position of 041Online. References to public figures are made in the context of the author’s personal commentary and should not be interpreted as statements of fact regarding the cause or circumstances of any individual’s death. If you or someone you know is struggling with their mental health, please reach out to a qualified mental health professional or a trusted support service.
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