Why Lived Experience Matters for Men's Mental Health

World Mental Health Day falls on Saturday 10th October, and this year's theme from the World Federation for Mental Health is Lived Experiences Heard: Real Voices, Real Change. It recognises lived experience as expertise in its own right: knowledge that comes from having been through something, and that can't be gained from training or research alone.

Why this theme matters for men

For men, I think this theme is particularly important. Men account for around three quarters of suicides in the UK, yet men's mental fitness is still largely talked about rather than heard. We are described in statistics, discussed in policy documents and encouraged to 'reach out', but rarely shape the conversation from the inside. When men's own voices are missing, support tends to be designed around assumptions about men rather than the reality of their lives.

It can be much harder to get men to engage in the conversation and take part in research on this subject, unless the research is designed around and aimed specifically at men. Dr Susie Bennett's work is a case in point: real conversations with real men delivering real insights. It is great to see this coming together with the launch of the Male Suicide Research charity.

Testosterone, status and staying silent

Part of the reason lived experience matters so much for men is biological as well as cultural. Testosterone is often caricatured as the hormone of aggression, but research increasingly points to a different role, one connected with status. It shapes how sensitive we are to our standing among others and how strongly we react to the threat of losing it.

For many men, in many situations, that threat feels real. Think of a rugby team of teenage boys, where opening up, speaking out or admitting to any form of weakness, whether real or perceived, can feel like risking the respect of team-mates and exclusion from 'the pack'. The same is true for men more widely, whether they are carrying the loss of a career, an identity or a family, the experience of abuse, or thoughts of ending their life. In a workplace where competence, reliability and being the one who sorts the problem are so highly valued, that risk can feel too great.

Why 'emotionally repressed' misses the point

Describing men as emotionally repressed just doesn't cut it. It isn't that men can't feel or don't want to talk. It's that speaking can feel like giving away the social standing they've spent their lives building and protecting.

This is where so much well-intentioned mental health messaging falls flat. When someone in a position of authority tells men to open up, it risks creating a chasm between the 'expert' at the front and the men who 'need fixing' in the audience. The status gap widens, and the understandable response is to keep your head down and say all is fine.

How lived experience changes the conversation

If status is the barrier, the answer is to counter that shame directly, by showing that men from every walk of life have been there, from marines to successful business leaders and the ordinary man on the street. Lived experience does exactly that.

When a man hears someone he can relate to say 'this happened to me', the cost of speaking up falls. The speaker isn't above the room; he's someone who's been where some of them are now, and who gets it. That gives other men permission to speak up too.

Sharing my own story with a room full of engineers

Next week I'll be speaking at an engineering firm with a predominantly male workforce. I could stand in front of them with slides, statistics and mechanisms, and some of that has its place. However, I've come to recognise that what lands with a room full of men is when I put my own story on the table. I'll be touching on my history of abuse and why I buried it, as well as my experience of burnout and becoming suicidal.

I am also a therapist, so I'll be bringing practical approaches I have found work, both for me and for the men and women I work with, to help manage stress and challenging situations. What sets them apart is that they are grounded not only in scientific evidence but in lived experience.

I feel that engineers in particular will recognise the value of this. Engineers trust evidence from the field. They respect people who've been 'on the tools' rather than those who've only 'read the manual'. Lived experience is just that: data from someone who's been in it, tested what works and what doesn't, and come out the other side able to talk about it.

Real change in the workplace

Real change in workplaces doesn't come from an awareness poster or a single talk. It comes when men see someone they respect go first, and when organisations are willing to listen to what their people tell them, then let that shape how support is offered. One story told in the right way can start a conversation that carries on in the canteen, on the shop floor and in the site office long after the speaker has gone home.

This World Mental Health Day, I'm less interested in what we say about men and more interested in who we're prepared to hear.

If you'd like to explore a talk or workshop on men's mental fitness for your workplace, get in touch.