MICHELLE CHIMENTI 0:05
Welcome, everyone. And thank you for listening to the Live Well podcast hosted by the Healthy Campus Team of Wellness Services. The Live Well podcast is a series focused on the voices and experiences of our students, staff and faculty here at MRU. We intend this series to be conversation based, informal, and all about our MRU community's experiences and insights. This series will cover a range of topics from a range of folks at MRU and this one today will be focusing on men's mental health. Please be aware that we may be discussing topics of dating, domestic, sexual violence in this episode, so please take care of yourself while listening. Or you can stop listening now if this conversation is not supportive of your well being at the moment. My name is Michelle Chimenti, my pronouns are she and her and I'm the Mental Health Outreach Coordinator with the Healthy Campus Team, and I'd now like to pass it off to our main host for today, Denika Hartwick, to lead the introductions and discussion.
DENIKA HARTWICK 0:54
Awesome. Thanks so much, Michelle. So yeah, my name is Denika. I am a psych major here at Mount Royal. I'm also a peer to peer mental health educator on campus as a senior lead. And I'll invite our guests to introduce themselves now, maybe we can start with you, Matt.
MATT MICKELSON 1:09
Sure. My name is Matt Mickelson. I'm a criminal justice student, here at Mount Royal. I'm also president of a couple SAMRU clubs. And I'm also involved with the SAMRU peer support and Pride Center, and then also Mount Royal's Equity, Diversity and Inclusion leadership group.
PETER CHOATE 1:24
Hi I'm Peter Choate. I'm a Professor of Social Work here at Mount Royal University, and my pronouns are he/him. In addition, the work that I do is focused very much on the area of mental health, both in adolescence as well as throughout adulthood. And its intersection with a lot of the systems that people face that we see in social work, such as the child welfare system, the prison system, as well as the mental health community systems.
DENIKA HARTWICK 1:49
Awesome. Well, I want to thank you both so much for being here today. I want to ask you both what kinds of conversations do you think are currently happening around men's mental health?
PETER CHOATE 2:00
I'll start off Matt. Just from the vantage point that I think probably one of the most important conversations that are taking place at this point, is has that men have mental health in the sense that we're allowed to have emotions, we do have emotions, we can explore how we feel what our relationships are like, but we're doing so in an environment where society per se makes it hard to have those conversations.
MATT MICKELSON 2:26
I think there's currently a lot of conversations more so around the discovery of men's mental health, at least internally like the conversations about our own mental health, and that we're allowed to have mental health and mental health well being from a non clinical perspective.
PETER CHOATE 2:41
I think that's an important addition, from a non clinical perspective, the idea that mental health is a normal human experience, and that it's not related to what gender identity you might have. It is about being human.
MATT MICKELSON 2:56
Yeah, I think often we want to put things in like a clinical box, rather than just looking at human wellness and being.
DENIKA HARTWICK 3:04
Mental health is very different than mental illness, right? Like you can have mental health, not have a mental illness. Mental health is very important for all humans, and men are human. So I absolutely love that point that you guys brought up. I think I'll even go a little deeper in that and ask you guys what kind of barriers men find when they're within their personal networks, even professional networks.
MATT MICKELSON 3:25
From like dealing with multiple organizations, lots of organizations haven't made that investment in trying to understand men's mental health in terms of like dealing with their workforces. There's such a huge emphasis on mental health resources, from the perspective of dealing with women and children, not really like male workers who are struggling. So like, I think there's the policy aspect from organizations but also like socially, men, typically, from my anecdotal experience only tend to have smaller social groups, which can be great in some situations, but they can also negatively impact someone, especially if that small group gets destroyed, or the ability to connect with that small social group disappears, like a pandemic is one. But it can be like a multitude of factors as well. I don't know about Peter, but I could probably like list off my close support network on one hand.
PETER CHOATE 4:21
I think that's probably true for most men. That's probably one of the greatest gender weaknesses that we have is that we don't do, particularly we don't do non occupational relationships particularly well, or non hobby relationships. So we can have lots of relationships, like if we want to go to the hockey game, or we can have lots of relationships if we're going to go to the bar, but are we allowed to have the sort of relationships that are "Can we sit down over a cup of coffee and talk about how I'm doing?" And most of us probably would say, we have maybe one or possibly two individuals that we might be able to do that with. And that brings us a into the notion of toxic masculinity. You're supposed to be tough. So the conversation you have at the hockey game is something along the lines of "Wow, why didn't that ref call that one?" You know, that kind of conversation at the bar, It's like, "Hey, did you see that... whatever", but an emotion? Not so sure about that. What do you think Matt?
MATT MICKELSON 5:22
Yeah, I definitely agree that at a bar or like watching a sports game, the situation you're in isn't very conducive to checking in with one another on like a deeper emotional basis. It might be a good way for you to notice someone's mental health changing, like if you had a very close friend that you always went to hockey game with and one day, they just suddenly have no interest in it, or they're just not as passionate about it. I think it's a good potential place to look for indicators of something to follow up on, I just would not follow up in that situation, I would take note and check in with that person in a more comfortable space for them.
PETER CHOATE 5:59
Another aspect of it is that men are so used to this dialogue that goes something like, "Hey, man, how you doing?" "Oh I'm fine." "Man, I think you've had a pretty tough time lately." "No, no, no, seriously, I'm fine. I'm fine. That's okay. Yeah, no, I've made it through. It's, it's good." And that's kind of where the conversation will end a lot of the time, isn't it?
MATT MICKELSON 6:15
Yeah. I think an interesting example is also how men deal with breakups. When you're talking about a breakup, it's usually not "Oh, you're hurting". It's usually blame the ex, or you're taking away the focus off that individual and, you know, blaming it on this other party, rather than actually like checking in and being like, "Hey, are you okay?". Like, not to blame them for the breakup, but just your initial response isn't like, "Hey, are you hurting?" It's like, "Oh, no, you don't need her.".
PETER CHOATE 6:41
Yeah. And I think that when you raise that, Matt, you really raise the idea that we look for cause and effect kind of conversations, you know, " Oh we broke up because", as opposed to "We broke up, and I feel like". We're not creating a lot of room for us to have that conversation.
MICHELLE CHIMENTI 6:57
I'm just curious around what emotions are men told that they can express? And do we go any deeper? And do we give them space to go any deeper about that?
PETER CHOATE 7:06
I think we go deeper with that one or two friends that we may have, where we're allowed to have that conversation. But that's dangerous territory for a lot of men, which is really concerning, because the logical expression, "I'm doing crappy", is often even met with "Aw man. That's tough. Should we go get a beer?" As opposed to "Should we explore that?".
DENIKA HARTWICK 7:33
I find it's common when one guy even opens up on his emotions, another guy that maybe he's trying to open up to, then shuts off, right? And it's a very give or take situation. Obviously, I can only say by what I see, not by what I experience. But I have often noticed, like you just said, like, the guy's like, "Oh, that sucks. Like, let's go get a beer.". Like the other one might not necessarily know how to handle a situation like that, which I think makes it then hard for the men to open up.
MATT MICKELSON 8:01
Yeah, often, like when guys are dealing with, you know, a friend who's undergoing some form of difficulty and you want to support them. I think most men don't have tools to help explore or heal that solution. You're not necessarily like looking to heal them, you want them to be back to like, you're normal with that person. And like, the amount of times, you know, I've broken up, almost every time like there's been, you know, people being like, "Hey, do you want to like go out and get beer, you know, hit on like the waitress at the bar?". And it's like, "No", but that's just their response, because they haven't been taught or don't have the tools to look for any other options. I was pretty fortunate last year to implement in one of my like, male only groups, trauma informed care. And the amount of change I've seen since then. And the responses to undergoing difficult has definitely like changed from you know, offering someone beer or whatever to, you know, like, "Hey, you want to like sit down and chat about what you're going through? You know, I'm here to listen. And I might not fully understand what you're going through. But I'm here.". So I wonder often if it's about the tools we give men in general.
PETER CHOATE 9:06
You know, you hit something really interesting, Matt, and it's the idea of listening. Men are often socialized to fix, not to listen. And things really do change when we're in the position where we can just sit down, we can listen, we don't have to try to solve it. But we allow that person to be able to say, "Here's what's going on for me.".
DENIKA HARTWICK 9:26
I do now want to steer the conversation away from cisgender men, and how do you think people are told to express themselves?
PETER CHOATE 9:35
So let me just walk into that a little bit. My oldest son is gay and he's married. And one of the things I really quite love about it is the capacity to have conversation that is about relationship that's about family that's about how are you feeling, and there isn't a need for that to be driven by gender identity. At the same time, we see with things like the Gay Straight Alliance, the absolute necessity to be able to normalize a conversation about who am I. In my own clinical world, we see that struggle for that identity, that struggle for that acceptance is still very, very much there. I know I like to be able to sit back and go, "Well, look, we've had the right to gay marriage in Canada for 15 plus years.". And yet, I realized that, as I say that there are places in North America where you can't do that. And there are places in North America where coming out and saying, "Hey, I'm gay", or "I'm trans" is dangerous. Just the idea that I don't know that it's a linear conversation, I think it's a conversation in which, tell me where you are, tell me the environment, tell me the people you're around. And then we can have a conversation about how safe it is to have that.
MATT MICKELSON 10:49
I've been reflecting on this conversation for a while. I think for folks who aren't cisgender, but are trying to express themselves and their masculinity, at times the inclusion of traditional masculine groups can be a powerful way to reaffirm their identity. But it also is dependent on that group that they're trying to reaffirm their identity with. I often think about individuals and how they express themselves, like I could express myself through my artwork or something like that. But let's say I'm super into ballet, you know, I could ballet by myself, but is that a full experience of that part of my identity? How we express ourselves is also through our group affiliations, finding those groups that allow us to express different parts of our identities and being accepted by those groups. I think it's a super powerful tool, not just for like masculinity traits, or femininity, stereotyped traits.
MICHELLE CHIMENTI 11:43
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like I'm hearing that we're amplifying that gender and gender expression is one piece of the complex beings that we are and being able to, I don't know, it sounds like we're talking a little bit about not narrowing people into these single pieces of themselves, which are all so incredibly important and valid and should be celebrated. I just wonder about acknowledging the complexity of who humans are, and allowing everyone, not that anyone need to be allowed. But why do we box people into these things? It doesn't make any sense.
PETER CHOATE 12:13
Historically, we've boxed people in because we have had a history of, in our world, saying you are either this or you are that and there's no in between. And it's really, I think, probably in the last quarter of a century that we have seen any space for in between and I think that in between space is growing. But strength of the conversation is that people are allowed to have a place in which an identity can exist. The weakness of the conversation is that we do exactly what you're describing Michelle, and that is that we start to define people by gender identity, as opposed to define people in a whole of which gender identity is a piece. And so what you're I think raising is this notion that who you are, is a broad, complex picture. Gender identity is just one piece of it, but it is the piece that as a society we have stolen from so many.
DENIKA HARTWICK 13:11
You know, we definitely put masculine and feminine traits on everything. Even if you look into the love languages, you see things like car, get the man traits and things like dishes, get the woman traits. And I find it very interesting how deep rooted that is into our society. How everything has to be masculine or feminine. But what necessarily defines masculine what necessarily defines feminine, right? Obviously, society has their definition. But we all need to come up with our own definitions and break it down, start these conversations with men, break down those barriers of the toxic masculinity break down those barriers that we have built as a society, right.
PETER CHOATE 13:49
I want to build off somebody that Matt said, and Matt, you gave the example of ballet. If we think historically, it's only gay men that do ballet, and that's that pigeonhole of that place. And I think, Matt, what's wonderful about what you've raised is why, why pigeonhole?
MATT MICKELSON 14:04
Something that came up over the summer when I was doing some workshops is viewing people as if they're a color wheel, like you would have on a photo editing software and it's a full spectrum of colors, and all the colors would be different traits and different attributes. And at the end of the day, you're still a colour on the spectrum, you're still valid and you're still important and the world's complete with you in it. But you can be super opposite to someone you can be closer in shade, you can be brighter than, you can be duller than, and I thought it was a cool example, and viewing people and like their individuality as this color spectrum and you have to be a part of it, because that's the beauty of the world and all your individual traits and characteristics play a role matter how big or how small.
MICHELLE CHIMENTI 14:49
We've talked about men feeling like they need to fix things and I just think about all these things because the world would be incomplete without you. It's not based on what you do. It's not based on what you wear. It's not based on how you speak or any of those things. Like it's just we need each person in the world to make it what it is.
DENIKA HARTWICK 15:08
It's definitely that sense of individuality, but we're still a collective. Everybody is a part of something, even if you feel like you're not. I do want to dive into how do we invite men into these conversations about mental health.
MATT MICKELSON 15:23
From like a non clinical perspective, I think it comes a lot from just meeting people where they're at, some people are ready and willing to go into like counseling to talk about what's going on. But for other people, the thought of sitting down in this clinical office with someone who's professionally trained and that power dynamic, is just uncomfortable. Whereas if you're a guy and one of your friends is going through something, you can meet them where they're at. You know what they're interested in, you know how to get them out to things, you know, what might be upsetting to them, and you already have a leg up to invite them into these deeper conversations, but you have to be willing to be open to their timing and make sure that they know that you're a safe person they could talk to and you're not going to like judge them for it. So, you know, just being open about yourself, I think it's a huge way to signal to other guys and other men who are undergoing mental health challenges, that it's okay. Everyone has our imperfections and our struggles. We're all human. That's one of the beauties and being human.
PETER CHOATE 16:21
The vast majority of people who are struggling with their emotions will deal with those outside of professional systems. They will deal with them in families, in friends, or they won't deal with them. Partially because formal systems are difficult to access, frankly. But secondly, most people don't need formal systems. Most people need exactly what you're talking about Matt, and that is somebody who's willing to sit down and say, "Hey, man, how you doing?" Because that's where most help is occurring. It's occurring in the natural relationships that exist between people.
MATT MICKELSON 16:52
A saying I often use is "You're your brother's keeper". You're a keeper of their well being, their health, and their emotions. Being able to receive and share their burdens with them.
PETER CHOATE 17:03
One of the other things that I wanted to just raise too about men is men are often seen as the strong person and strength is sometimes about the capacity to tell people how you're feeling.
DENIKA HARTWICK 17:15
I think that's such a good point. We constantly hear in social media and stuff, it's always like, well, real man doesn't do that, a real man doesn't do this. But it's like, what makes a real man, right? If strength is what makes a real man, well, then you're showing strength by showing your emotion, right?
MICHELLE CHIMENTI 17:30
If we're setting up one idea of a real man, what does that do for someone's mental health to think, "Oh, well, I'm not a real man". I mean, it's all those like, I'm not blank enough. That can cycle through someone's mind and has such a negative impact.
PETER CHOATE 17:44
I'm reminded of videos of this fellow who survived jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. You know, he talks about in that split second, he wanted to live. But then he talks about all of the journey he's gone through afterwards to try to tell what was he feeling, what was he thinking, what did he need. That's another way I think we engage the conversation, is for some of us to be brave enough to sort of say, well, actually, here's my experience.
DENIKA HARTWICK 18:12
So I want to circle into any incremental changes we might be seen in discussions around men's mental health. Something positive, you guys may have seen lately?
MATT MICKELSON 18:22
I've seen a lot more groups of diverse men, recognizing that there's a discussion that needs to be had around like men's mental health, talking about toxic masculinity and that whole conversation. Which is good, it's taking on several different forms, either in grassroot projects and campaigns, but also, you know, the formalized programs and awareness activities.
PETER CHOATE 18:44
In the community, there's now a lot more resources that are identifying as supporting men. So for example, the Sheriff King program, or the Calgary Counseling Center. They run programs specifically for men so that they're in a position to be able to find pathways in. I think the most powerful thing that I see though, is in the classroom. Now, I recognize that as a social work prof, I'm going to see people who are, you know, more attuned to this, but the kind of honest conversations where guys are sort of saying, "You know, here's my experience, and here's how that experience is going to inform me". When I was first started teaching here in 1996, those conversations didn't take place. We now have people sitting in the classroom, men sitting in the classroom and saying, "Well, actually, I'm in recovery. And here's what my journey looks like." Or, you know, "I've had to take a year out because I had a mental health problem, and I'm back". Encouraging and providing a safe space for people to be able to say "Actually, here is my experience".
DENIKA HARTWICK 19:40
I totally agree. I noticed that in my classroom settings too. I love when they like to share their experience or ask questions because it really does show that men are curious too, men have questions too, men have experienced this if not themselves, they know someone who has and we just don't talk about it. But I think MRU creates such safe classrooms.
PETER CHOATE 20:00
I would add one other really interesting thing. The Elders we have here who openly talk about, here's the trauma of my years in residential schools. Here's how it has affected me, and here's the journey that got me to where I am today. Those are brave conversations. And so that becomes another way in which we have conversation about lived experience.
MICHELLE CHIMENTI 20:23
People talk about resilience, they talk about strength, and we have a concept of what that is. But I think the way that that happens, even though there are circumstances where people should never have had to be resilient, I think we learn so much more about how incredible humans are, all genders. And then we get to see more about what resilience actually means and get a better understanding, instead of just telling people that, you know, sometimes social media can kind of sugarcoat things and say, well, mental health and self care is just doing this one thing.
PETER CHOATE 20:50
This is where some of our teaching helps. For example, there's a professor in religious studies, who, as part of the religious studies class, has meditation and yoga as part of that experience. That's the other thing that I and others are bringing into some of our classrooms, are the idea that we can actually take a pause after a difficult class and do a self care activity. So we can think about meditating, we can think about breathing exercises, and we can bring that into the classroom. And I think that as a male, that's something that I can model. And I think that the modeling matters as well.
MATT MICKELSON 21:25
Yeah, that's a really good point. In my program, I've definitely seen a shift, even at my time here, towards debriefing and checking in with your emotions after a hard class. Like yes, you're always informed that resources are available, but I've definitely seen a move, even within faculty, to allot time for checking in with yourself and promoting more positive mental health, especially coming out of a really difficult or heavy topic. Again, not every class or every prof has adopted that at the end, but I think especially in like, psych, criminal justice, social work, like that's a super important thing to have.
PETER CHOATE 21:59
I want to share a story from a research project that I'm involved in of a male identified individual who's the victim of domestic violence here on campus, the research is here on campus. And he described that a really important moment was the moment that a prof said to him, I don't think you're doing well, what's happening. And the interaction itself was just this notion that actually somebody noticed. And then somebody said something.
DENIKA HARTWICK 22:23
Before we end this episode, Matt, I would love if you could tell us a little bit about the Kind Men campaign that you're working on.
MATT MICKELSON 22:30
Yeah, so the Kind Men campaign's being run through the Dating, Domestic, Sexual Violence Prevention and Education Committee. The Kind Men campaign came to be because the manager of Residence Life, Bob Lambert, identified there's a need for a healthy masculinity group on campus. So myself and another student said, hey, you know, we're male students. We're both in criminal justice. And we have an interest in talking about masculinity. We've talked about masculinity in the media, and also relationships, and how do you deal with breakups or rejection and just exploring this topic in a non-judgmental, confrontational, just having that conversation.
MICHELLE CHIMENTI 23:09
Just before we fully wrap this up, I do want to recognize that some of what we talked about today may evoke some kind of challenging or difficult emotional reactions from folks. So if you would like to speak to someone about anything that's been talked about in this episode, there is support available. For instance, you can go to MRU Student Counseling, which for credit students is a free service. And you can go to mru.ca/studentcounseling or call 4034406362. You can also reach out to our Dating, Domestic, and Sexual Violence Response and Awareness Coordinator, Cari Ionson via email at cionson@mtroyal.ca, or on the website at mru.ca/ddsv. And then outside of that, there's also 24/7 support. So in the community, you can call the Distress Center at 403-266-4357. I really do appreciate everyone for being a part of this, everyone listening and to our guests and hosts today.
MATT MICKELSON 24:07
Thanks for having us.
PETER CHOATE 24:08
Yeah, thank you very, very much. Appreciate this.
DENIKA HARTWICK 24:10
Thanks, Michelle.
MICHELLE CHIMENTI 24:12
So this is one episode of our Live Well podcast. It's hosted by the Healthy Campus Team. Please stay tuned to check us out and the other episodes that we have coming up. Thanks, everyone.