You had journeyed

I assumed you were on another brave quest

It might have been Kumasi, or some untarred

road, north of the melee in Accra

You had travelled, brother, ɛnnso ankra

(Fante phrase which means you did not ask for my blessing before you left)

Those words are an excerpt from a poem I wrote to grieve a friend who committed suicide a few days after we had spoken. It is written in Gimbal, a form created by Ghanaian-British Poet Nii Ayikwei Parkes to process his own grief. I was attracted to this form because this was the first time I truly felt the pain of loss and the courage to confront it; inspired by witnessing Nii cry at a book reading, I was determined to allow vulnerability to show. And so one night after sitting in a space I feel like I belong, I started to write, and went into the bathroom to cry. I am a Black man. My friend was a Black man.

I have not seen my family in two years. Aloneness is not new, It is a place of reflection, where thoughts swirl around like the cosmos and run away with you like a comet. Aloneness always allowed me to leave my body, escape the slow economic decline of my country, and see other places without the risk of being anchored to reality by the noise words can carry so well sometimes. But I miss my family now that I am in my adult years, an immigrant. I have found a community away from home, and friends who make this new loneliness bearable. Loneliness and aloneness are not the same even though they sound so, one is wilful, while the other is a gaping hole.

Tradition
My first winter in the Netherlands sent me into a dark place; I had never needed vitamin D pills because of the unforgiving Accra sun, but here they are necessary to simply be. I kept my pain to myself, suffered in silence. The characteristics which cause deterioration in the mental health of Black men in Africa and the diaspora are similar, although African men are presented with forms of toxic masculinity embedded in tradition. Tradition presents a completely different set of nuances as Black men have to deal with breaking away from practices which are deeply etched in the fabric of society. Still, Black culture in the diaspora is rooted in these traditions because of the construct of community; community is a place where a group of people hold space for one another. Community brings different personalities into one space; a healthy community is a support system, uplifting, it is a place of safety, and to a certain extent, plays a similar role to a therapist.

People leave communities driven by the need to satisfy something in their lives; for, either or a combination of a plethora things which include love, better finances, higher education, simple working systems or a better life. Sometimes Black men, because of their Blackness and that spirit of community they are likely to have had, are able to build new communities in new places that are not exclusively Black. But their original communities do not move with them in their search for that thing they must satisfy. Ergo a huge gap is formed in their lives, the thing that supported them and kept their backs straight is removed and they are forced carry the weight of the fight of individuals vs society alone.

Weakness
Showing vulnerability is perceived as a sign of weakness; even black men who may suffer a similar pain may ridicule another’s pain. The first time I had to be a “man”, I was seven years old. One morning in the heart of Accra a man I did not know brought news of my father’s mother’s death. I’d known her for some time, and tears started to fall from my eyes. I was asked not cry, to be strong, because if I did then my younger siblings would too. Many Black men will remember times they were told as boys to be men. As more and more black men commit suicide, attention has turned towards bias against Black pain. Health professionals are more sensitive to Black pain; more sensitive, but not sufficiently enough.

Men are also more likely to “tough it out” in the words of Dr. Howard Mabry. However, on top of this struggle is the added fight by the Black man to almost have to validate his existence, to be treated with the same dignity afforded men in the dominant society. And even after George Floyd, speaking out about racism has to be done carefully, or risk moving from victim to aggressor, they have to break years of socialisation and still be “men”.

I will never know why my friend left. He came back home having experienced racism, just wanting to do better, have a better life. Maybe there was something his community (which included me) could not offer, but we wanted the same things out of life and having looked up to him, I wondered for a long time if one day I too would feel tired of this world and decide to leave. Mental health is a tempestuous sea that is difficult to navigate, but hopefully Black men will start by talking about their pain.

On confronting mental health as black men