I am a 34-year-old Nigerian man and I spent the better part of three years telling myself that what I was feeling was not depression because men don't get depressed. Men get tired. Men push through. Men do not sit with a therapist and cry about their childhoods.
Except I was not pushing through. I was withdrawing from my friends, snapping at my wife, drinking more than I should, and lying awake at night with a heaviness in my chest that had no name.
When I finally saw a therapist — at the insistence of my wife who was quietly running out of patience — I remember feeling embarrassed to be there. Like I was in the wrong room. Like this was for people with 'real' problems.
The therapist asked me a question in our first session that broke something open: "What does it mean to you to need help?" I didn't have an answer. I'm still working on one.
I'm sharing this because I know there are other men here carrying the same shame. You are not weak. You are not less of a man. You are a person who deserves support just as much as anyone else. That's what I needed someone to say to me.