Let's Talk, Man-to-Men

May 10, 2019

After four years of college and a year of therapy, I've almost made it. I just have to hold out till Sunday.

I came up two days short, though. As I brush my teeth and alternate between staring at myself in the cracked mirror that sits on my counter and the open laptop that's on my bed, I know I’ve been caught playing my own game. My favorite Macklemore song blares through my headphones, a Buddha bracelet from Korea lives on my wrist. I just got back from another night of drinking with my friends, one of the last nights before graduation. We watched Deadpool 2 and talked about graduating.

After I got home I stood outside on the patio in a haze of students smoking cigarettes and looked out across the arboretum. I read an email from my therapist, Kevin, that had landed in my inbox a few hours earlier, while I'd slugged another cheap beer: “I hope someday you find the peace of being you. Keep digging.”

Someday? I thought that was what therapy was supposed to teach me.

The narrative that I’d crafted, meticulously, throughout the last few years--especially in therapy and in relationships--felt like it was crumbling as I stood in the cool May night, a few days before crossing that stage to get my degree. I’d shaped myself into someone I no longer recognized. All this time spent becoming a better version of myself no longer made sense: Who was I? I could never be at peace till I answered that question.

As I sit and write, I’m surrounded by the things that I want to define me: a beer stein from Denver, a coffee pot from Saudi Arabia, chopsticks from exotic Korea, The New Yorker magazines that only smart people read, and the first book by Anthony Bourdain, a newly-found, badass hero of mine. If I could absorb those things, if I could become them, it’d be so simple.

While those things circle like hungry sharks around a masked diver--the person behind the narrative who’s concealing the real me--I can’t seem to join him in the water and rip off the mask, to see who he really is. Maybe I just can’t rip off my own mask, maybe I'll never get past the sharks. But I’ll try. For me, for Kevin, for my guys.

November 15, 2018

It was my turn, finally. I’d been dreading this for a few days now and couldn't put it off any longer; I knew it was time to talk about what was going on in my life. I wore sweats and a hoody. My phone and wallet were in my bag, disconnecting helped me relax in session. Kevin had me stand up and face my buddy.

We stood toe-to-toe. I wanted to stare down at his shoes forever; they were black basketball shoes. I always joked about them. This time, instead, I forced myself to look him in the eye, to not mask my discomfort with humor. The rest of the group watched--I could feel their eyes on me--as Kevin had me test out the phrase, just for the feel of it: “I’m not okay.”

* * *

Back in September of 2018, Kevin Swaim, the Wabash College counselor, started a biweekly men’s group for informal counseling and group discussion. It was a place for guys to attend a session where they'd work together, learn about Gestalt training, and commit to bettering their mental well-being as a group. It was a community.

Obviously, I wasn’t going to attend. I did, however, offer to share the story of dealing with my dad’s suicide, which had happened earlier that year. I wasn’t sure why I emailed Kevin back, offering to talk to his group, but as I look back it’s clear how much I needed to go, how much I needed that group.

At the first meeting, which I now realize I was duped into attending for my own benefit, I looked around at the faces of the few other students who were there. We were in a dimly lit office in the bottom of the chapel, the hallmark of Wabash’s campus. Nobody went down there except for Counseling. It was my first time there. I didn't know many of them. I hated being in therapy.

It occurred to me, in that moment, that it was likely these guys weren’t going to come back for subsequent meetings, especially if they felt how I did about being there. I had a feeling, one that I still can't explain, that turned out to be right: nobody from that first meeting returned. I'm not sure why.

I convinced my friends to go with me the following week. It took some work, but nobody had anything better to do. We had an introductory session before getting to work. But after that first week, five of us—all friends—became regulars. We were the only students who committed to attending regularly, out of about 850 students at Wabash. Eventually, we even convinced Kevin to move the meetings from bi-weekly to weekly.

The beauty of it? When you were on the spot, when you fiddled with your fingers or your energy was all over the place, it was the guys who noticed. They were the ones who called you on it, who provided the constructive feedback that made group sessions so worth it. Each of us came to depend on that hour and a half (it often ran longer than two hours...) of respite from the chaos of the week. As much as we relied on the meetings, we came to rely on each other, too.

It wasn't all work, though. Just as beneficial were the beers at our bar, Backstep, or the conversations at Wally’s after a tough session. Working through problems in front of others can really suck but we all made an effort--and a commitment--to bettering ourselves and on those Thursday nights we earned our beer, our time joking around, and the Call of Duty we played afterwards.

As a group, we ticked a lot of promising boxes. But we knew we wanted to put in the work to improve a too-often neglected aspect of being a man: mental health. We understood the effort we gave in the gym, the library, and our other relationships wasn’t matching our efforts to improve our well-being, our mental health.

We also knew that, despite appearances, everyone was dealing was something. Each week, we’d uncover a little more about someone in the group. Every week we dug a little deeper, unraveled a little more thread. In session, we all learned things about each other we’d been too shy, or too scared to address before. Sometimes we didn't even know what the real issue was, and tears were the only thing left to say.

June 2, 2019

In fact--despite the phrase I tested that day in September--I was okay, in a sense. After standing up and saying I wasn't, it felt untrue. I felt it deep down. I had Gestalt training, Kevin’s support, and this great group of guys to help me along the way.

In May, three of the five guys in our group graduated. Few things at Wabash--or anywhere else-- have impacted me the way this group did. Mostly, it brought us all closer together. But it also helped me realize the importance of therapy.

It's for everyone. It's not a bad thing.

As the nerves of early May showed me, though, there’s work to be done. The search for truth and betterment of the self is an ongoing struggle between me and my masked diver. It will go on. Still, I'm proud to have been a part of a community that worked to--and will continue to--defy the norms of masculinity. We strove to break the stigma around seeing a therapist, telling it proudly to our friends and classmates about our work in therapy.

June 16, 2019 (Father's Day)

After a few months of writing this, I realize it'll never be done. The more I revise it, the more I realize there's a reason I can't find the words to neatly wrap it up the way I like to--with an anecdote or personal experience. And I think that's okay. It's a work in progress, something that fills the void created by the transition from meeting every week with my group.

Kevin always pushed back when we praised his work with us; he seemed uncomfortable whenever we tried. Whether or not he actually was, his response, I believe, was intentional: he wanted us to work. To struggle on our own. This piece of writing, among others, has been attempt to do just that. I know that when he reads this, he'll smirk at his screen as he analyzes my analysis of him. Then the guys in my group will do the same thing when they read it. They'll also know why it's so important that I write today, even when there's no clear ending.

And that's why we went to group sessions, feeling no shame in walking across the mall and down the steps to the basement of the chapel for therapy.