Author: By Rajab Saddam Masinde

Sad man reclining on a table over his drink isolated on a white background.[Courtesy] Mental health has long been treated as an invisible domain—silent, sidelined, and severely underfunded. But when it comes to men, the silence is louder. Each year, Men’s Mental Health Awareness Month calls our attention to the largely unspoken emotional burdens that many men carry. As a psychiatrist working in one of Kenya’s largest and busiest public health facilities, I witness this crisis not as theory, but as daily reality. The image of masculinity in our society is one of toughness, stoicism, and self-reliance. Men are taught…

Mental health has long been treated as an invisible domain—silent, sidelined, and severely underfunded. But when it comes to men, the silence is louder. Each year, Men’s Mental Health Awareness Month calls our attention to the largely unspoken emotional burdens that many men carry. As a psychiatrist working in one of Kenya’s largest and busiest public health facilities, I witness this crisis not as theory, but as daily reality. The image of masculinity in our society is one of toughness, stoicism, and self-reliance. Men are taught from a young age that vulnerability is weakness, that speaking about fear, sadness, or…